It Pays To Be "Nice."

In this photo, try to find my agent, Carrie Hannigan. Here's a hint: she's somewhere near the beautiful bouquet of peonies I sent her to say thanks for - ahem - SELLING MY FIRST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL, FOLLOWING THE NAIL!!!

Yup, Harcourt has acquired FOLLOWING THE NAIL, which is scheduled for a Spring 2009 pub date. (Hey, how cool. A book of the post-Bush era! Unless, god forbid, his idiot brother joins the race. Okay, let's not even go there.) Now, where was I?

Oh, yes. FOLLOWING THE NAIL. It's about a smart, sarcastic girl named Veronica who takes a summer job at a vintage clothing store - based on Cambridge, MA's fabulous store The Garment District, where I researched the book! - to avoid peers who persecute her and ends up drawn into an emotional tug of war between two cruel yet charismatic older girls and a very bizarre boy. It is a book about trusting others and trusting your own heart, and how terrifying this can be if you've been burned before. I really, really love it, but I confess I'm kind of biased.

Carrie also reported to me that Publishers Marketplace, the web-hive of book industry buzz, just made note of my book deal, reporting that Picture Book author Erica Perl sold her first Young Adult novel to Gretchen Hirsch at Harcourt in a nice deal. I liked this sound of that. It is a nice deal, I thought to myself happily! But then I realized that the phrase a nice deal sounded less like a compliment and more like industry code. I pressed Carrie to explain, so she did:

"Nice Deal" means under $50K; "Very Nice Deal" means $50K to $100K; "Good Deal" means $100K to $250K; "Significant Deal" means $250K to $500K; and last but by definition not least "Major Deal" means $500K and up.

Oh.

Suddenly, I felt less "nice" and more "insignificant." In fact, I felt downright "minor."

So I made up my own amendments to the code. For future reference, "Not-so-bad deal" is $5K-10K, "Just okay deal" is $3K-$4.9K, "Mildly embarrassing deal" is $1.5-$2.9K and "Painful deal" is $1K-1.4K.

Oh yes, and I almost forgot "truly pathetic deal." That's when you pay them to publish your book (not to be confused with self-publishing, which is totally respectable in my book if your book is good enough... as is the case with my friend Rhoda Trooboff's delightful book Ben, The Bells and The Peacocks).

And in case you were wondering, Carrie is BEHIND the flowers! See?

Yeah, I told her not to quit her day job. She's a great agent but she's not ready to give Where's Waldo a run for his money.

Very Little Red Riding Hood, Even Less About The Wolf

In today's New York Times, there's this article about Orion Books publishing what they like to call "pared down classics." That is, newly edited versions of classic books, including Moby Dick, Anna Karenina and David Copperfield. The Times then asked several literary luminaries - including Offsprung's own Neal Pollack - to weigh in on which classics they felt should be whittled.

Had the Times asked me - not that I'm bitter that they went to Neal first, mind you -they might have been surprised to find that I can rattle off several classic picture books that could benefit from a flourish of red pen. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that these books be altered now. Heck, I scowl when they reissue classic children's books with new art, even good art. James and the Giant Peach comes to mind. It was reissued in two different editions, one with art by Lane Smith and another with art by Quentin Blake, despite the fact that the original art by Nancy Ekholm Burkert was sublime. But I digress...

Here's the point. Many of the so-called children's book classics practically beg parents to skip pages while reading aloud. Look no further than good old Curious George if you need an example. In Curious George Flies a Kite, there are baby bunnies, a fat guy fishing, and all sorts of irrelevant events before a kite even enters the narrative. The Poky Little Puppy? Good Lord. There are about ten extraneous dawdling trips home from the hill before Mama gets wise. And don't even get me started on Dr. Seuss. Many of his books are sheer perfection, it's true. And some are so charming that they are worth hanging in for even when the energizer bunny of children's books keeps going and going (e.g. The Sleep Book, my all-time Seuss favorite, and Horton Hears a Who). But if you want to see what I'm really talking about, take If I Ran the Circus or And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street out for a spin. You'll run out of gas looooong before the good doctor gets mid-way through these yarns.

I know I'm probably going to get a lot of grief for taking this position, especially about Dr. Seuss. The fourteen people who reviewed If I Ran The Circus on Amazon and who each gave it five stars - one guy claimed he read it aloud to his wife when his kids "begged him to stop" - will certainly disagree with me.

What can I say? I call 'em like I see 'em.

And now, so can you: What classic kids' books do YOU wish had a couple fewer pages? Or seem like their meandering plots went unchecked at press time?

Hey Baybeeee... And Kid Expo!

I think this photo speaks volumes about my trip to York, PA to read and sign books at the Baby and Kid Expo. The cup on the right is the cup from my drive there and the cup on the left (Mr. Fry-head, trying to hit on Miss Mermaid) is from my drive back.

I should've known that people attending this event did not come to buy books. Especially books not featuring Elmo, Dora or any other two-syllable character popular enough to be emblazoned on diapers. Don't get me wrong: my kids have been smitten with the heavily merchandised characters, too. But I fought the good fight to out-number them with children's book characters that did not suffer from overexposure in the popular media. Like the characters in my books, for example.

I'm just going to come out and say it: this event was kind of sad.

Not just because I sold far fewer books than I usually do, which is sad enough when you've begged your husband to skip his Ultimate Frisbee game and watch the kids and put 180 miles on the car. It was sad because there was such a colossal lack of appreciation for the kinds of things that I think matter for babies and kids. Quality health care, quality education - including good quality illustrated books - and quality support for working parents. I watched people breeze past the nurse at the Breast Feeding Kiosk to sign up to win prizes like wipe-warmers and other utterly useless baby gear. Sure, many of the people at this event were poor, or at least low-income. Winning baby gear probably sounded pretty good, as did books priced at $4.99, as many of the Elmo titles were. But the whole event had a really depressing feeling I couldn't quite put my finger on. Sure, the false cheer of the baby industry - and all the ugly goods that masquerade as cute - is a turn-off, but it was more than that.

As I drowned my sorrows in a big Mr. Fry-head-sized (aka "small") coke, it came to me. There was no sense of aspiration or ambition in the air. People did not bring their children over to meet an author because that was a cool learning experience. They didn't seem to care and neither did their kids. They were there for the free balloons, the free lollipops, the chance to kick a few stroller tires and maybe win a prize or get a deal on some handpainted craft items. That was about it, and that was O-K. Okay?

Usually, when I sign books or read my books, parents and kids swarm or at least flit around a bit. The kids want to ask me questions, want to pet the stuffed animals I bring along, want to tell me about their favorite books and characters. The parents want to find out about writing and publishing children's books.

There was none of that.

It was a long morning. Parents hurried their kids by me, like I was some sort of strange perverted creature - The Author - and dragged them to the moon bounce or the karate demonstration instead. A karate-kicking hamster and cat duo drew a better crowd than I did and they ran on batteries.

There was one hopeful moment for me. When a man with a bright red goatee and an unironic trucker hat thumbed through The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I overheard a young woman point at the book and say to him, "He was here this morning. It was awesome!"

"Eric Carle was here?" I asked, surprised at this possibility but impressed by her gush of enthusiasm for children's literature, the first I'd heard all day.

She stared at me, confused.

"Who?" she said.

"Eric Carle," I repeated, pointing at the cover. "He wrote and illustrated the book."

"Oh," she said flatly. Then her voice brightened again. "No, The Very Hungry Caterpillar was here! He had all these cute little feet, so he had to take these real tiny steps so the whole thing didn't fall over. The kids loved it."

Bartender? Yeah, that Mr. Fry-head drink? Make it a double.

Happy Mother's Day!

I just want to take this opportunity to wish a Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom, Elly Perl. She (along with my dad, who'll have to wait until June to get his toast-of-a-post) has always been my biggest fan: of my creative work, my jokes, my kids... even my blog (early posts were written directly to her, since she was the only one who read it!). Call me a big sap, but I just gotta say, on this most Hallmark of days: I love you, Mom.

Happy Mother's Day, too, to the Other Mothers (and grandmothers) in my life. I'm blessed with quite a few: my husband's terrific mother, Maryann (now doesn't that sound better than "my mother-in-law"), my incredibly creative aunts, Emily (of Sesame Street fame!) and Sue (school art guru), my aptly named Grandma Dearie (grower of champion tomatoes, bridge wizard, and world-class collector of rubber bands), my husband's great-aunt Mary (painter and hand-sewer of toys and doll-clothes for my kids)... and there are more, lucky duck that I am in this particular department...

And then there's all the fabulous moms I hang out with... especially my oldest, dearest mommy pals. The ones I met in a new moms group when Franny was a tadpole, who tried hard not to hate me when I bragged about her wonderful early sleep habits... then proved themselves to be truly exceptional by never rubbing my face in it when Franny suddenly decided to become a terrible sleeper (which she still is to this day). Though my new(er) mom pals are pretty fabulous, too!

And I can't forget to mention Anna, my brother's wife and mom to my niece, the lovely Miss Ruthie (formerly known as Baby Ruth and pictured to the left of my girls).

So, pedicures and drinks all around, okay?

To Mom!

Chicken Hat Wearers, Unite!

Occasionally, it gets a little lonely wearing the chicken hat.

Which is why I am always thrilled to learn that I Am Not Alone!

This photo comes to us all the way from Israel! My friends Jan and Ran (pronounced Ron, to avoid an overdose of rhyming cuteness) have a daughter called Omi (short for Naomi) and she apparently loves her chicken hat so much she wears it to the beach, the falafel stand, the kibbutz (okay, I'm grasping at straws here, as I'm not sure where she's toiling with her plastic wheelbarrow in this photo), everywhere!

Way to go, Omi! I'm crowing with pride!