Thursday, November 12, 2009
Goffstein's How to Write and Illustrate a Picture Book
I hope to be back into my regular rhythms of the day soon. That story I promised (a silly one, but a story nonetheless) still exists only in longhand form in my notebook. It will come, as will others. In the meantime, please read How to Write and Illustrate a Picture Book, by M.B. Goffstein, dedicated to our own Victoria Thorne. After reading it, I want to return to Pablo Neruda's Odes to Common Things and Carl Sandburg's Wind Song: Poems for Children.
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4 comments:
Thanks for the link. Goffstein's words are wonderful :).
Noted, but I don't care too much for experimental stuff like this story. Didn't really find the "suspension of disbelief." In fact, it seems too easy to take it quite literal. Ah well.
Jama: I'm glad you liked the link!
Amish Guitar: Interesting. I actually took the advice as being quite literal as well as imaginative.
I particularly liked this passage:
"What makes you think children like childish things?
Don't tell them how to be children.
They want to grow up.
Do them the honor of reaching for something far beyond you.
It won’t be noticeable but it will be felt."
I think we are always dictating to children what childhood is but, having ourselves long since left it and forgotten the wild places of the early years, we are better suited to listen...to learn...to watch. If we are to share, let us share not our adult "wisdom" but our collective remembering, our hope, a hearkening back to days spent idly immersed in the splendor of a blade of grass.
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