Answers ranged from: “a timeout” to “her butt should be cut off!” and “she should have to wear diapers for 20 years!” After telling a class a story about a princess’s cruel betrayal, he asked the students to offer their own endings, in terms of what they thought the princess’s punishment should be. He uses this creative noodling when teaching storytelling. In Margaret Wise Brown fashion, Gidwitz jokingly said that when he’s teaching, “I’m constantly lying to children,” challenging them to challenge him. He cited Margaret Wise Brown’s The Important Book, which he believes “encourages kids to talk back to the book. Marcus commented that he believes children’s books invite a particular kind of reader participation: “Children’s writing is meant to propel into experiences,” he suggested. Writing for kids is a kind of “performative communication.” And, of course, teaching is its own kind of performance.
He senses that there are parallels between theater and writing in terms of their performative aspects. Gidwitz grew up among musicians and actually pursued theater before he turned to writing, which he feels is not such a dramatic diversion. For Weill, her mother was a children’s librarian, so her love for books was naturally fostered. The panelists each grew up in creative families – though not necessarily among writers. What makes a “professional writer,” though, is the “drive to never quit and the capacity to imagine day after day after day,” he said. This bedrock can lead anyone to embrace writing and a lifelong love for reading. So much of becoming a writer has to do with early nurturing and hearing stories being read aloud. However, such natural tendencies only go so far. Gidwitz agreed that, at least to a degree, writers are born with a strong proclivity towards the cadences of language. Having “a poet’s brain more than a novelist’s brain” makes Bluemle more inclined toward writing in short, rhythmic forms.
Because picture books feature a spare word count, each one carries tremendous weight and it’s critical that the words work harmoniously together when read aloud. “You can’t teach someone to have an ear for cadence and rhythm,” Bluemle said.
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