Will It Find Its Audience?

In an NPR interview with Peter Sis, Scott Simon never refers to Sis's book The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain as a picture book. Instead, he calls it an illustrated book. That could be a good term for books published in what we think of as picture book formats but with content most definitely not for the child readers we usually associate with picture books.

The Wall is a marvelous memoir of Sis's childhood in Cold War Czechoslovakia. Sounds riveting, doesn't it? The Cold War is a subject, I'm embarrassed to say, that has always left me...uh...cold. I always thought of those Eastern European countries under the Communist's heels as gray, colorless places, much like Sis's sophisticated, highly detailed illustrations. The Wall may have changed all that for me.

On one level Sis uses mature, cartoon-like illustrations with classic minimal picture book text to tell the story of his childhood and adolescence. In addition, though, he adds historical detail along the margins of those illustrated pages. On top of all that he has six big pages of journal entries going back to 1954. That's a lot of material.

Too much, of course, for your preschoolers and first grade students for whom picture books are usually written. This would be one rough read aloud. Too much, I'm guessing, for anyone under, say, fourth grade. It should grab the attention of much older readers, too. (For instance, the part rock played in these young peoples' lives should be of interest to a lot of teenagers; a lot of adults, for that matter.) The Wall would make a great reading list addition to a social studies curriculum.

But will the grown-ups who teach those classes be open to giving credit for reading an "illustrated book?" Yes, the book is good enough to read on your own. But how will young people of the right age to appreciate it find it? It was on the new picture book shelf in the kiddy area at my library. How much is it going to circulate in that age group?

I think this book would also make a great addition to an art program. Sis says at the end, "I find it difficult to explain my childhood; it's hard to put it into words, and since I have always drawn everything, I have tried to draw my life-" Does anyone else see an art project there?

What Is It With French Canadian Women And Joan Of Arc?

Colleen Mondor has a recent post at Chasing Ray about Joan of Arc. Moi aussi! I, too, wanted to be Joan of Arc when I was little, not because I wanted to be so good that God would choose me, the way Colleen did (she is clearly a nicer person than I am; but, then, who isn't?) but because I wanted to be strong and powerful and on the side of right while I was at it.

As I say in one of my many unpublished essays, "I have always admired women who kick ass."

A very big moment in my teenage life was seeing Genevieve Bujold in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. We French Canadian/Americans were not one of your cooler ethnic groups when I was growing up in Vermont. Yet, there, on the television while I was babysitting some Franco-American kids, was a French Canadian actress playing St. Joan, one of my favorite saints. I was glued to the set.

Fortunately, none of the six Lamoreux children raised hell or got sick that night, and I was able to enjoy Genevieve and Joan in peace.

Interestingly enough, Colleen's post regarding St. Joan is actually about writing memoirs. She says her desire to be good like St. Joan led her to try to be a good girl. She feels she should have fixated on someone who kicked ass instead of someone who got burned. (I swear, we've both used that same kick ass phrase.) But I always saw our Joan as an ass kicker. My interest in her only made me more combative.

Thoughts About Memoir

No, not mine, though I do think about memoir, a beautiful sounding word. When I was in college a professor with long, long braids came to my creative writing class to read a portion of a memoir she was working on. She said that a memoir was an account of an incident the significance of which was not understood until recalled later.

She made it sound so lovely.

Anyway, Agent Kristin at Pub Rants has a number of posts up on memoir. Really.

Speaking Of That Weird Genre

Slate just did a memoir week.

Memoir--That's One Weird Genre

Not to worry, folks. I am not interested in writing a memoir, fascinating though my life in my cellar office is. What I am interested in is personal essays and creative nonfiction, but no one was running a free symposium on either of those subjects a half hour from my home so I had to go to this one.

The morning panel discussion on truthiness was fantastic. The afternoon discussion on memoir and meditation was not as terrific, though I liked one of the panelists a lot. Why, Gail, you may ask, did you even consider attending a discussion on memoir and meditation? Well, ah, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was feeling really stimulated creatively until the question and answer period after the second panel discussion, which drifted off onto "writing practice." Everyone in the whole freaking world has better work habits than I do. In fact, by the time I headed home at 4 o'clock I was feeling quite worn out, an indication that I really am not used to doing much if sitting and paying attention to speakers exhausts me.

Another Day Of No Work

Tomorrow I am off to an event called Giving Voice.
This is a symposium on the art of memoir, which a professor at my own college described as being an event the significance of which is only realized once it has passed. I am going to listen to panel discussions in both the morning and afternoon. I'm so hoping the one on "Truthiness: Memoir and the Facts" won't be overcrowded.