A Dark Turn for Bear

From time to time there are people in my life who delight in proposing unfortunate titles for my Mouse and Bear picture books.

“A Divorce for Bear”.  “An Intervention for Bear”.  “A Murder Rap for Bear”.

How disrespectful! Bear would harrumph. Perhaps we can all be a bit nicer, Mouse would say.

And then about five years ago writing for children began to feel like a slog. Somehow my heart wasn’t in it. I could keep trudging along. Many writers and artist hit rough patches, find their work has gone flat, wonder if they should quit. Some do. Some go dormant for years. Some go into a new genre or a new medium. I went with that and started writing adult thrillers—books where divorces, interventions, murder and other unpleasant things are abundant. 

It was an idea I’d been toying with for awhile. So I started with your classic murder mystery. But by some not-quite-clear-to-me process, it has morphed into a psychological suspense. Regardless I’ve been having a great time doing it.

This turn reminds me very much of when I first started writing picture books, or rather trying to write picture books. Back then I was reading a lot of picture books to my then-young daughters. Maybe five years ago I started reading and watching tons of mysteries, thrillers, suspense novels and even some horror for my now-a-lot-older self. As with picture books, the more I read, the more I thought, “I could write one of these.”

As with picture books, it turned out to be way harder than it looked. It took me about five years to get published in picture books. Without really noticing, I’ve realized lately how closely the change to adult has been like my experience with children’s books. 

As with picture books, I had to get familiar with the genre, to get a sense of who’s who in the field, a sense of the market, the word counts and the limits of each genre. There’s everything from “cozies”–nice homey mysteries featuring charming bread-and-breakfasts, pets and little old ladies solving mysteries to action packed edge-of-your seat, the-fate-of-the-world-is-at-stake thrillers to psychological suspense edging into horror, like Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. 

And of course, and most importantly, as with picture books, there was learning to write the darn things. That’s taken at least the last five years and will take more. But I think I’ve got a book now that’s working. I think I’ve figured out my niche in the field–psychological suspense, probably what would be called domestic psychological suspense—characters caught up in family secrets, disfunction and dark deeds within the context of seemingly ordinary life.

I’m loving working in this completely different space. I’m excited about writing again. I love picture books and middle-grade. I’ll always love them (in fact there’s a new Mouse and Bear book coming out in 2025) but they take a different part of the brain and heart. As others will tell you, I’ve always had a dark streak; certainly I can be morbid, especially if it’s funny. I don’t live with my focus on the dark side of things (in fact I’ve always been afraid of the dark), but I’m really having a good time playing with it in my stories. After all, I’m always the first to up the stakes with totally inappropriate titles for Mouse and Bear: 

“Mouse Canapes for Bear”, anyone?

Outrageous! huffs Bear.

It is kind of funny, says Mouse.

Here’s to Amazement

Robert F. Bukaty - Maine Cold

I’ve been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude again. I read it every so often – usually after a long period of rain in the Pacific Northwest. The book acts on me like a tonic.  I love the way the inhabitants of Macondo, the village Garcia Marquez creates for the novel, see ordinary things  as wondrous. A magnet, a magnifying glasses, a cake of ice  – the ordinary is extraordinary. Sure, a young woman can float off into the sky – but ice? Ice is a miracle.

Here’s how Garcia Marquez describes the moment a gypsy giant brings ice (hidden in a pirate chest!) to Macondo:

          Disconcerted, knowing the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, Jose Arcadio Buendia ventured a murmur:

“It’s the largest diamond in the world.”

“No,” the gypsy countered. “It’s ice.”

Jose Arcadio Buendia, without understanding, stretched out his hand toward the cake, but the giant moved it away. “Five reales more to touch it,” he said. Jose Arcadio Buendia paid them and put his hand on the ice and held it there for several minutes as his heart filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery

It’s easy on a day-to-day basis to allow the mystery or ordinary things to sink below the surface.  But  part of the joy of reading Garcia Marquez is that wonder  is refreshed. We come away ready to see the world with new eyes.

The photo of the bird above, taken by the wonderful AP photographer Robert F. Bukaty, has the same effect on me.  How unexpected it is – the bird’s breath in the cold Maine air, the frozen whistle.  That photo is a poem.

Which reminds me: April is National Poetry Month. I’m going to read some poetry.  And write some poems.  I might go out and play with magnets or buy a magnifying glass or hold an ice cube in my hand.  I’m going to try looking with fear and jubilation at what surrounds me.  Christopher Fry, the British playwright, once said that poetry “is the language by which man explores his own amazement.”  I’m going to go exploring.

Ice!

Responding With Wonder

On Margaret’s other blog, Pebbles in the Jar, the January 18 post is about the state of arts education in America. (http://pebblesinthejar.org/) She writes how recent studies show that arts education nurtures certain Habits of Mind. The list includes problem solving, critical and creative thinking, dealing with ambiguity and complexity, integration of multiple skill sets and working with others. But my favorite is in a further breakdown of these Habits of Mind, and that’s what I want to put on the table today: Responding with Wonderment and Awe.

My picture book, FRANK AND IZZY SET SAIL, comes right from that place of wonder. But it started when I was messing around with paint. I drew this big egg shape, blue above/green below, and thought it looked like earth and sky, so I added a moon and then two little creatures running beneath.

The moon reminded me of a time my husband, John, and I took ballroom dancing lessons at the local community center – which is up on a hill above Lake Washington. On the last night of the class, a full moon was shining down the lake. So at the end of the class, the instructor threw open the doors and turned up the music and we waltzed out into the parking lot. A moonlight waltz. It was one of those times when life expands. When our ordinary life became, for a moment, extraordinary. A time of wonder.

So I looked at this little painting and thought how I might make a picture book that included moonlight and music and my husband and myself. I started by drawing the characters. I gave the bear John’s lanky body and expressions. I decided, like John, he’d be cautious and helpful – and that also, like John, he wouldn’t like playing his ukulele in public. The rabbit, would be impulsive and prone to exaggeration — and would enjoy playing her ukulele in public. Opposites, almost.

If you have a chance to read FRANK AND IZZY SET SAIL, you’ll see how through a harrowing sailing and camping adventure they remain good friends to each other. And that the key moment involves music and moonlight:

Frank and Izzy sang to the stars.

The poet Andre Gide once said that, “The whole of a person’s artistic expression is to try to recapture those moments when your soul first opened.” (though he said it in French.)

Sometimes I wonder about wonder. What survival-of-the-fittest need evolved our keen relish for the beauty of the world, for its quirkiness and incredible detail?

And, getting back to arts education, I can’t help but hope there’s a time – oh, maybe as part of the fourth grade and seventh grade assessments – when this habit of mind, Responding with Wonder, is on the test.