Last week, Chris Van Allsburg came to the Barnes and Noble on the Upper East Side, answered questions and signed books for the parents and children in attendance.
His work was projected up on a large screen while one of the staff members read. When she got to the line, "...the first gift of Christmas," a two-year-old girl stood up on her chair and yelled, "Yayyyy, Christmas!"--which had the entire room laughing.
You know how I mentioned that, as an author, you're also a character during your readings?
One child asked how he knew what the trains in the story should look like, and he replied (naturally, I'm paraphrasing from what I remember; I didn't have a recording device), "Well, they were drawn from memory. The train came for me when I was eight. But after that, I went looking for a toy train to use as a model, one that looked like the real train, and drew from that, only made it look much, much bigger."
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about lying to children--if my (future, theoretical) kids end up celebrating these holidays, I'm going to have some difficulty saying, "Oh yes, and there's a man who comes down the chimney/a very large rabbit that comes with a basket/a fairy that takes teeth and leaves money"--but all of the children and parents thoroughly enjoyed the event.
I couldn't help but ask if he had an object, like the bell in his story--something that, for him, meant childhood.
"Well, I have the bell, of course," he said, his tone a little nudge-nudge for the adults--the kids weren't really listening at that point, since B&N had just announced that there was a "special treat"--which turned out to be bells on specially printed ribbons--if the children behaved themselves a little longer.
"It's so hard to keep things after all these moves," he said, "But I do have a lion puppet, Leo, from when I was a kid. It says 'Leo' on his tag. And he goes on the top of my Christmas tree every year."
The next book down the line will be about the first person ever to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel--who, it turns out, was a woman in her sixties who used to teach at a charm school.
Here's a picture snapped from my phone. And, yes, he's wearing a red vest and green tie:
Hope this finds you well and warm.
15 comments:
I envy you the experience! Very cool.
As far as lying to children - that's an interesting point. We tell them to avoid strangers but then encourage belief in people that sneak into our homes to retrieve our own teeth from under our pillow and put food in our socks?
Hmmmm....
I envy you all those book events too. But not your weather this time of year. Ours is bad enough in Florida right now.
Don't worry, you only have to lie to kids for a few years. They catch on fast:) I pretended to believe in Santa for a few extra years, to make my parents feel better...or maybe it was to get more gifts.
This is very useful information, Terry (and what a clever kid you must have been!).
Being a quasi-father, I completely agree about the Santa thing. I want to be as trustworthy a source of information as possible (even if I write nonsense). It only increases the little kid's liklihood of 'drinking the punch' someday if we help stimulate their already overactive gullibility glands.
Imagine that talk:
"You can trust me completely, kiddo. Oh, well, except for this one little fibbers I may have told you for many of your formative years. Other than that, though. . ."
You don't have to be an anti-theist such as myself to see issues there, I think.
LOL you'd be amazed at how holding on to those little bits of "magic" like Santa and the Easter Bunny can make you feel as a parent. Is it technically lying, yes. But isn't it nice that for just a little bit of their lives they can believe in something that fantastical? Yup. Happy Holidays and stay warm:)
As an adult who has to deal with far too much reality...I wish I still believed.
And as a parent, I'm going to let my children hold on to those beliefs as long as possible.
I quote from 'Miracle on 34th Street':
"Which is worse? A lie that draws a smile or a truth that draws a tear?"
Maybe I shouldn't have told them I had super powers though, I feel a little guilty about that.
My favorite holiday book ever. Feel asleep reading this throughout my childhood, and hope one day to share it with my kids in a similar fashion.
As for lying about the big S - It is a little guilt-inducing, but the fun and magic in belief makes up for it a lot. :)
Happy christmas, Gatekeeper! Stay warm and healthy.
I definitely agree with Marsha Sigman. I'm so grateful for the magic that belief brought to my childhood, and if I ever have kids I'm going to make sure their childhoods are just as magical.
I always hated that little girl from Miracle on 34th Street. So condescending and overly precocious!
You've mentioned before that you like the magic (paraphrasing here) that can exist in YA lit. That magic is absolutely real for children, which is why those of us who are parents recognize the need to help them uphold that idyllic world (even when we don't believe in "lying" to children), and let them hold onto that sense of wonder and magic as long as we can. We'd be smart to recapture some of it ourselves; and that's really what we're doing, I suppose, when we lose ourselves in stories (whether writing or reading).
I see what you're all saying about the magic and wonder, but I think you're underestimating the damage and making some false equations.
First of all, it's not a lie about metaphysics, or where hope comes from. It's a blatant and unnecessary misrepresentation of reality. It's a supposed truth-claim about the physical universe.
Why can't kids be stunned by the vastness of existence? How about teaching them the "magic" of metaphor, or of their own infinite imagination? The wonder that inspires in my 4 year old is at least (if not greater than) that of the jolly-fat-man-syndrome other kids have.
You all miss the magic of a lie you were told. Imagine a life without that lie where you saw real 'magic' everywhere, and never had to miss something that was never there. Don't confuse 'suspending your disbelief' with outright incorrect beliefs.
Alright, that's my lot. I'll leave it alone now.
Well, I can hardly take the moral high ground: my current plan is to outsource Santa Talks I and II. In trade, I will happily have other talks with (future, theoretical) children.
Blog contest brainstorm:
(Warning: slightly random content ahead!)
Write a blog entry in the style of GK describing said AG(K)'s holiday (or anytime, really) meeting with Santa Claus. Could be at the North Pole (brrrrrring tea!), could be at Macy's, could be at some swanky vegetarigan restaurant.
Use if you like, not if not. Feeling wantonly creative today.
Happy holidays!
:)
Lies of omission! Santa does always see your misbehavior (if I'm Santa) and we do have a secret neighborhood Easter bunny (even I don't know who it is, which is either magical or slightly creepy).
I may sound a little mean, but in the interest of safety, I did tell my oldest that she'd get squished if she ran in the street or stolen if she ran away from me in a store. Sigh. Nothing else worked. With her imagination, it's a wonder she sleeps at all. ;)
Ah, my mother told me very firmly that Santa Claus was not real; but we still had a lot of fun pretending, and no nasty shocks to come. And if you don't think Christmas morning was magic, with all those nifty packages to open--well, folks, you weren't there.
What do you mean "lie"? Do you honestly think your parents all got together and decided that they would buy you gifts for no reason other than you were alive?
That they sneak into your room and give you money for your old teeth for the purposes of ????
Hmph. My current WiP is about a troll tooth fairy. In it, she mentions that magical folk have to live in the space between human observation and human belief. I see the gap is getting bigger :)
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