Dear Superintendent Carstarphen,

We write to you today as authors and writers, on behalf of the children you represent — the children of Atlanta, readers and future-readers, as well as the authors of the next generation. We have heard that APS has recently made changes that may jeopardize library staff positions, and we write in hopes that we may convince you not to take this step.

A library is so much more than a room full of books. As much as our classrooms depend on teachers, our libraries depend on qualified and dedicated staff, to help guide, counsel, and educate. We know too well what happens to an understaffed library. It is not unlike what happens to an underserved child. They become neglected. They cannot thrive or grow.

A library is the heart of a school. A safe calm space, in what can be an otherwise frenzied environment. In an era when school is increasingly about metrics and tests, a library is an oasis of ideas, culture, and stories for their own sake. A library is the best model that learning is of value all by itself, that learning is fun, that education extends far beyond measureable outcomes..

If that is not enough, we encourage you to consider many recent studies, showing that a fully staffed library is key to improved success rates:

This research from Philadephia schools, showing how critical a full-time librarian can be to student achievement.

This study, which examines the strength of the relationship between school library media programs and student achievement, using data from California criterion-referenced state-wide tests.

This paper, in which over 21 state studies confirm that school librarians and school libraries support students in academic achievement, lifelong learning, 21st century skills, and reading.

This Iowa study, showing how, in all three grade levels surveyed, the students’ test scores tended to rise with increased library staffing.

Of course, these papers are only the tip of the iceberg. There’s plenty more where they came from.

We know that your job is not easy, that Atlanta is a large and complex city, and that there are always shortfalls. We simply hope that you’ll bear in mind the undeniable (if sometimes quiet) power of the library, and the people who maintain and serve it.

Sincerely,

Jim Auchmutey
Carmen Agra Deedy
Anjali Enjeti
R. Gregory Christie
Marc Fitten
Emily Giffin
Joshilyn Jackson
Kimberly Jones
Sheri Joseph
Soniah Kamal
Elizabeth Lenhard
Marie Marquardt
Terra Elan McVoy
Thomas Mullen
Natalie Nelson
Jackson Pearce
Susan Puckett
Kate Rope
Aisha Saeed
Zoe Fishman Shacham
Laurel Snyder
Nic Stone
Daren Wang
Susan Rebecca White
Deborah Wiles

A Letter to Superintendent Carstarphen & the Atlanta School Board, in Support of School Libraries was originally published in Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

AFTER THE STORM IS ENDED:

On this week’s YA Lit bloodbath/brouhaha

For those of you in my tiny corner of the world, it’s been a harrowing week. Andrew Smith did an interview for VICE, and then some people commented on that interview. After that, the world blew up in a fiery ball of crazy. But I’m not going to rehash the mess here. (And if you don’t know what I’m talking about at all, you’ve probably already stopped reading this post, because there are other things happening in your corner of the world, right?)

As for me, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, talking about it, and feeling sad and angry, as well as conflicted. I’ve vented on Facebook and twitter. I’ve even stopped a passing neighbor to rant out loud. (Thanks, Eric!) But tonight, something drove me off social media. I came over here, to write about it in a format that felt slightly more substantial.

Here’s the thing — we’re very very very LUCKY. For the most part, people in this country get to write/publish the books they have in them. Also, interviewers get to ask the questions they choose. And interviewees can respond as they like. (or not) This is a GOOD thing. We all generally accept this idea that those freedoms are good. (I think?)

The tougher question is: when people DO publish or speak, who has a right to criticize them? And in what format?

What happened last week was that almost all of us — in opting to use our voices — attempted to silence someone else. That was the irony of it. We were all shushing each other. (except Andrew, to be fair, he got on with his life)

But what does that achieve, all that shushing? Andrew should NOT have written his female characters and the interviewer should NOT have asked his questions and Andrew should NOT have answered as he did and The Rejectionist should NOT have posted her tweets and Andrew’s friends should NOT have taken to FB and Twitter to call her out, and then other folks should NOT have told them to stop, and so and so and so?

Where does that get us?

At the same time, we all have FEELINGS and THINGS TO SAY. Constantly. And so many places to say them! (like this, right here, on Medium, in the middle of the night!)

The more I mull, the more I think this moment is directing our attention to a huge question of how we, as a particular internet herd, are going to choose to function. As individuals, we might all see ourselves as clever critics, but en masse, we become something else (for better or/and for worse)

So… what IS the role of criticism? In an age that prizes speed and virality over clarity and precision? Should we engage at all, as critics, reviewers and shills? Or should we lock ourselves away? Remove the temptations, because we know, in the end, we can’t always be both honest AND kind.

Beyond that, how seriously should we ever take “public” statements in a world where every statement is public (and essentially automatic)? By the same token, how much right do we ever have to consider any online statement private again?

I believe in freedom of speech. I would fight hard for the right of an author I loathed to publish a book I hated. At the same time, I believe in critical work, in holding people accountable when we feel strongly that their statements are harmful, or even just lazy. Criticism is NOT shushing. Criticism is dialogue. Criticism engages, asks questions, ponders theory, offers a particular perspective, knows its place.

In truth, I want MORE real criticism done around children’s literature. I want for people to put time and thought into examining these books. Because these books deserve such attention! But if sympathy trumps critical thinking, there’s no place for criticism, because we are ALL connected now. We’re all too close.

And that’s a shame, because much of the world OUT THERE — all those people who stopped reading this when they saw this post was about a YA book — think we aren’t producing serious literature. They think we’re fluffy, easy. And criticism is a big part of how we might prove them wrong. Being strong enough to stomach real argument, conflicting opinions. Showing that our work holds up under such scrutiny. (Scrutiny that might, in the end, improve our work)

But so… how do we get from here to there?

Personally, I think the real issue is that we simply haven’t developed rules and codes yet, for our internet age. The technology has moved faster than the accompanying points of ethic and etiquette. What exactly does it mean to “bully” someone online? What counts as a real piece of criticism? Is there a difference between how you’re allowed to respond to a comment directed TO you, and a comment written ABOUT you? Should bloggers be verified, held to journalistic standards? SHould we establish “tiers” for how we evaluate online critics and influencers? Should authors ever be allowed/asked to review each other? Should there be rules against changing content after someone has responded to it? Should publishers be allowed to demand that authors participate online? I could go on forever…

Seriously, what are our guidelines? We can’t possibly know who broke the rules if we don’t first establish what the rules are.

Thinking about this makes me wonder what traffic was like when those first cars appeared, and people began to drive, but nobody had yet considered painting lines in the street. The invention of the car preceded those lines, you know? After that somebody had to decide fun things like alcohol limits, and driving age. But before all that, can you imagine the disasters, the fights?

Look, I’m not suggesting we police the web, but maybe we need to police ourselves a little better. All of us. Maybe we need to come to some very basic understandings. Because I’m not sure anybody actually won this fight, but maybe, if some good can come of it — a little more sanity, a little more understanding all around — maybe it won’t ONLY have been a mess. Maybe this will be, “that time we figured some things out.”

Battles are terrible. They are ALWAYS terrible. But they are most terrible when nothing is gained by them.

*

AFTER THE STORM IS ENDED: on this week’s YA lit brouhaha/bloodbath was originally published in Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In which an author responds to the angry mother of a curious child

In 2010 I published a middle grade novel called Penny Dreadful. It was a fun book. Some people liked it. It went on to become an EB White Readaloud HONOR book. Huzzah!

But I get a lot of emails about it. Because in the book there is a very minor character, a boy named Twent, who happens to have two mommies.

Last night I received one such email, and because I was having a very hard week, I ignored the email. Typically I respond to these emails. I try to explain. Because maybe (just maybe) the author of the letter is not only writing me a mean letter. MAYBE they are open to a response. I don’t want to miss that chance, if it’s real. But last night I didn’t.

S0 I thought I could respond here, today. And then, in the future, when I get these emails, I can direct readers to this post…

***

Madame X (not her real name) writes of Twent (among other things):

“How do you explain that? OUR FAMILY IS VERY AGAINST THAT.”

And I will answer her:

Ahhh, Anastasia, good question! How do I explain it? It’s really very simple.

The world is very full of people. No two people are alike. They live many different kinds of lives. Some of them are nuns. Some of them are corporate lawyers. Some of them are the owners of magical chocolate factories. But we cannot all be nuns, or magical chocolatiers. For this reason, we have many different kinds of books. To reflect the many kinds of lives people live. In some cases, we expect people to SEE THEMSELVES in the pages of books. In other cases, we expect books to expand the way people see the world. Maybe YOU have never met a magical chocolatier, but thanks to Roald Dahl, you can!

When someone writes a book, they cannot ask, “Who will I offend with this particular book?” Because every book will offend someone. A writer can only tell a story, and if they are fortunate enough to find a publisher, hope some people want to read it.

It makes me sad to hear you were offended by my book. I didn’t mean to do that. I wasn’t writing it for YOU. But I’m not sorry for Twent’s moms either. I won’t apologize for them.

I wrote Penny Dreadful to reflect the world I live in. A world populated by many kinds of people, not just nuns and corporate lawyers and magical chocolatiers. My neighborhood has many gay families in it, in addition to people who aren’t white, and Jews like me. There are also some folks who have hearing loss, or are blind. My neighborhood has musicians in it, and artists, and world travelers, and gardeners, and women with very long hair, and people who like to make their own jam. All of these people climbed into my book when I wrote it, because I wanted the book to reflect the world I inhabit.

Honestly the book has received criticism for being “unbelievably diverse.” People find this difficult to accept, especially since the book is set in the south. I would argue that the people who make these complaints are not comparing my book to the actual world of humans, but to the very whitewashed landscape of traditional nuclear families in which most children’s books have been set. I would further argue that the people who argue that THE SOUTH is not diverse in this way should try visiting the actual south. That is just another stereotype.

In any case, this is how I “EXPLAIN” Twent’s two moms. Twent has two moms because many kids I know have two moms. Twent is a minor character, a friend Penny meets along the way. The same way that I, a girl with a mom and a dad, have friends with two moms or two dads. Should I not have written the world I love and inhabit?

I’m guessing what upset you most about the book was that you got no WARNING. There is no backmatter to inform readers that they might encounter diversity in this book. You may feel that your daughter should have had a chance to choose for herself that she was about to encounter a few lines of text in which there were gay people. I don’t know how this would work. Should I have also included a warning label: WARNING: THIS BOOK HAS SOME JEWS IN IT?

Books are the best way I know for kids to encounter the world beyond their own experience. Books build empathy and understanding. They get kids ready for what they’re going to stumble into when they take their first job, or open a copy of the New York Times (yeah, I know that’s unlikely, but I still get the paper myself, so play along).

I don’t expect your kid to turn gay. I don’t actually want your kid to turn gay, or Jewish, or into a magical chocolatier. I’d just like to think that when she encounters magical chocolatiers in books, you won’t scare her away from them. I’d like to think that you, as her mother, will engage with her question. That you’ll explain that you understand her surprise, since she’s never met a chocolatier before. You can explain that YOUR family doesn’t make chocolate, personally. But yes, the world has chocolate in it, made by magical chocolatiers, and isn’t it nice that the world is such an amazing place, full of surprises and mysteries…

Fan fiction for a bygone age 

Mrs. Piggle Wigggle sipped her glass of chardonnay. She stared through her upside down window, and out into the empty street beyond. Then she glanced at the clock over the mantle. Only 3:16?

Well, she figured, surely it’s five oclock somewhere…

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle polished off the glass and reached for the bottle with a sigh. It had been a good ten years since anyone—any lonely kids or harried parents—had come knocking at her door. So really, what difference could it possibly make if she had one more teensy tiny glass?

Next morning, still wearing her daytime apron and one lonely little black highheeled shoe, her hair a fright, she sat up from the hearthrug where she’d spent the night, and remembered. With a groan she sat up and massaged her temples. “Oh, my!” she said. “Oooch!”

Then, being an efficient sort of woman, she showered, changed her clothes, put the kettle on, brewed herself a cup of strong tea, and reached into her spice cupboard for an old yellowed packet that read, “The naughty-mommy tipsy-topsy cure.”

She shook the silvery lilac powder into her mug and took a deep gulp of the elixir. Then, as the pain in her head began to subside, as the world jumped into focus, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle resolved to fix things. She resolved to take the bull by the horns! She decided that today, she would do something she had never done before. She would make some calls.

Right after she took a bubble bath, and maybe a little nap.

**

That afternoon, refreshed and renewed, in a nice clean apron, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle picked up the phone to call some of her old regulars.

“Hello?” she said on her first try. “Mrs. Harroway? This is Mrs. Piggle Wiggle!”

“Mrs. Piggle Wiggle!” cried Mrs. Harroway. “How lovely to hear from you. It’s been years, dahling—simply years!”

“Yes, well,” said Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. “That’s what I’m calling about. “You see, business has been rather slow over here, and I wondered if you might have any problems to be solved? Any interrupters? Any dawdlers? Any issues I could help you with”

Mrs. Harroway laughed. “Goodness, no!” she said. “Of course, Fetlock is all grown up now, so we’re done worrying about him. And Bloom, his little girl, has never given us the littlest bit of trouble.”

“No trouble at all?” asked Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, puzzled. What child on earth, she wondered, has never been a bit of trouble?

“Not one whit,” tittered Mrs. Harroway. “When she started biting her nails, Fetlock just took her to the doctor and he prescribed a lovely medication that made her into a perfect doll. We’ve never had a problem since! She’s so good. Extremely docile. Like nothing you’ve seen.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. “Oh.”

“You know, though,” added Mrs. Harroway, “Now that I think about it, you might call my neighbor, Mrs. Muskrat! Her son Chard is a holy terror He’s been kicked out of four schools. For biting! And language!”

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle perked right up when she heard that. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “The information is much appreciated. I’ll call her right away!”

But when she did, she wasn’t quite sure what to say. She’d never cold-called a customer before. She’d never had to.

“Hello?” she tried. “Mrs. Muskrat? This is Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I heard that you might have a problem I could help you with?”

“A problem?” said the tired-sounding woman. “Are you an exterminator? A landscaper? Has the yard grown too high? What exactly do you mean by problem?”

“Well,” said Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, trying to be tactful. “You see, I specialize in helping children with their more, ahh, difficult traits. Their more challenging aspects…”

“Why on earth would I need help with my children?” asked Mrs. Muskrat. She sounded as baffled as she sounded worn-down.

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle wasn’t quite sure how best to proceed. “Well. I, ahh, I heard that your son has had some recent trouble. In school?”

“Oh that,” said Mrs. Muskrat with a sigh. “People just don’t understand my little Chard. He’s got a ton of creative energy. He’s not an in-the-box thinker. He’s a real boy, and schools can be so closedminded, don’t you think? The other children can be so oversensitive! And people can be so limiting with their silly personal boundaries.”

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but it didn’t matter, because just as she opened her mouth to speak, she heard a terrible noise through the phone—a sound of screaming, followed by a loud bang.

“I should be going,” said Mrs. Muskrat breathlessly, moments before slamming down the phone.

And one by one, call after call, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle hit dead ends.

Mrs. Coffeecake said that her twins, Tippy and Tappy, had been diagnosed by an expert for their sensitivity to certain colors, and she didn’t think a babysitter like Mrs. Piggle Wiggle should meddle, in case her methods weren’t the same as those of the esteemed medical professional.

Mrs. Macaroon said that her son, Marmite, had indeed a recent incident with a knife, but it wasn’t really his fault, because he was a Capricorn, and anyway that they were addressing that problem with a dietary regimen that required he not leave the house.

Mrs. Ballbearing informed Mrs. Piggle Wiggle that her daughter, Josiepie, had been dealing with some self-esteem issues last year, but that they’d fixed the problem easily.

“Really? How?” asked Mirs. Piggle Wiggle.

“It was the simplest thing!” chortled Mrs. Ballbearing. “We discovered that as long as we don’t ask Josiepie to do anything she doesn’t already do well, she’s as confident as anyone! Provided, of course, that she remains surrounded only by family and close reliable friends and there are no loud noises.”

And so it was at every house she called. Plenty of children were gifted and special, requiring special tutoring and extracurricular classes. Other children had very specific medical diagnoses that required trained professionals and medications. But most of the parents she spoke with swore up and down that their own children were quite perfect, though sometimes misunderstood by the world at large, on account of their delightful quirks and intense personalities. With each call, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle grew more frustrated. It seemed that bad behavior had simply disappeared.

On her seventeenth and final call, Mrs. Piggle at last cried out in frustration, “But Mrs. Sassafras, surely there’s something that could be improved about your little Sunshine! Perhaps I could help her work on a small thing like her table manners?”

To which Mrs. Sassafras responded in a condescending tone, “Oh, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. We do not embrace the idea of table manners in our house. This is an important part of our parenting philosophy.” Then she hung up.

Parenting philosophies? Mrs. Piggle Wiggle knew she was in over her head. So she sadly hung the old rotary phone in its cradle, crossed the room, rooted through Mr. Piggle Wiggle’s old sea chest, and emerged with what appeared to be a pack of cigarettes in her hand. Then she stepped out onto the porch and sat down in an old wicker chair. She drew out what looked like an ordinary cigarette, struck a match, and inhaled deeply, staring up at the sky.

But then, she heard a voice. A teeny tiny voice, coming from the tree above her porch roof.

“Jeex! You shouldn’t smoke cigarettes,” said the voice. “They will kill you dead.” A moment later, a small girl climbed down from the tree.

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle blew a smoke ring. “They aren’t cigarettes,” said Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, holding up the pack. “They’re prescribed. See!”

The girl walked over towards the porch and peered curiously at the pack, which read, “Relaxo-sticks: In case of absolute-despair-itis.”

“They look ‘zactly like cigarettes to me,” said the girl, squinting at Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. “I think you’re just taking something you don’t like to fess up to, and renaming it, to make yourself feel better.”

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle laughed and drew on her Relaxo-stick again. “Smart kid,” she said, adding, “Who are you, and where did you come from?”

“I’m Jenny,” said the girl. “I ran away from home. My parents suck.”

“I don’t doubt it, my dear,” said Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. “I do not doubt it one bit. She stubbed out her Relaxo-stick, and stood up. “I don’t suppose, Jenny, you’d like to join me for a tea party? With cookies?”

“I’m not supposed to drink tea,” said Jenny, shaking her head and disappointing Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to no end. “Or eat sugar.” But then she added, “However, I’m also not supposed to talk to strangers, and I’m already doing that, so sure! Why not? What the hell!”

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle opened the door and ushered Jenny inside, not even bothering to correct the child’s foul language. Times had changed. Her day was done. And anyway, she’d probably be arrested if she gave the child a dose of “cuss-be-gone” or even a stern talking-to.

But more than that, she found that she didn’t want to fix Jenny. Not at all. Jenny might well be the only plain-old-badly-behaved child left in the world. The final inheritor of a grand old tradition. The last of a dying breed.

It was enough—just to have her to tea.

The Last Days of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle was originally published in Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Young adult author Lila Perl on rejection, ‘Peyton Place,’ and growing as a writer

This December, prolific young-adult author Lila Perl, the writer responsible for the beloved “Fat Glenda” quartet, numerous works for children and adults, and a forthcoming novel and its sequel, Isabel’s War and Lilli’s Quest, passed away. The author of over fifty works, she wrote the last two books shortly before she died—as well as this essay on early rejection for the books’ publisher, Lizzie Skurnick Books, which is also edited by the owner of this collection.

A large woman wearing a hat in the shape of a double-boiler loomed over our freshman class in English composition. By way of introduction, our professor told us that it was unlikely any one of us would ever become a professional writer.

As a result of this dour prognosis, I went into literary paralysis for ten years. I got married and had children, read voraciously, yet was terrified of putting anything down on paper. I wanted to write; I had always wanted to write. But I was just this young woman from Brooklyn, the first in my family to go to college, which — it turned out — hadn’t been very encouraging .

I fell into the rejection-letter trap soon after I began writing short stories, which I would describe as aimed at The New Yorker. Postal rates kept going up and, if you wanted your precious white cover-copy back, you had to include a stamped, return envelope.

Writing and rejection slips go hand in hand, as writers know; many of us are capable of papering a good-size room. But a printed rejection slip is curt, at least. It manages to say, “Don’t bother us anymore” in four words. But a letter, after telling you politely, “This isn’t really right for us,” teases, “But we’d love to see anything else you have.” Worst of all is the letter about a 300-page novel that reads, “Would you consider revising? Here are a few suggestions.”

The physical aspect of writing was not so easy in those days. A duplicate copy had to be obtained by inserting a sheet of carbon paper between the white cover page and a yellow manila second-sheet, which had the blurring quality of blotting paper. Soon after moving into a small Cape Cod bungalow in Queens with my husband and two young children, I sat most evenings in a semi-finished attic room, tapping away at a small, portable typewriter, so lightweight that it tended to bounce around on my improvised desk. On my flimsy portable, I turned out a total of seventeen short stories, which went back and forth to the likely publications for what seemed like an eternity.

Where did I get my ideas for these short stories? I took them from my own life and the everyday world around me. In other words, I wrote about what I knew. And even though what I did know wasn’t much, I felt pressed to tell my stories: about Brooklyn home life, first dates, summer camps, young marriages, the anxieties of a lonely new mother wheeling her baby carriage through the frost-bitten streets of an indifferent Manhattan.

After a few timid but successful attempts at getting nonfiction pieces published, I made the giant leap forward and sat down to write the great American novel. Doesn’t everyone? I did not approach this 384-page undertaking lightly. If I didn’t know much about writing, at least, I knew exactly what I was going to write about.

Following a short but blissful stint living in Manhattan, my husband and I had been forced to retreat with our growing babies to the raw, newly built garden-apartment development in Queens. The brand-new “efficient” apartments, set out on newly-seeded lawns planted with shrubs and saplings—all was not well in this young Eden. Here were my perfect subjects…kitchen sinks, baby carriages, Mah Jong games, unhappy young wives, ambitious young husbands.

We lived for three and a half years in this Peyton Place setting, with its lusty young families, its dangerous liaisons, its gossips, intrigues, and vendettas. The Garden Dwellers, as my completed novel was titled, was taken up by a prominent New York agent, Paul Reynolds. He believed in the book and he struggled for a year-and-a-half to sell it. Doubleday took a significant nibble. But, in the end, there was no sale. The manuscript sits in my study to this day in a big red cardboard box.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d had an early success with my first novel. I always especially liked realistic fiction and memoirs that had an ethnic aspect…Henry Roth, Pietro di Donato, Philip Roth, Frank McCourt, and — ethnic or not — Richard Yates. I was awfully young and hadn’t been anywhere much. Could I have kept up the pace? My earliest impressions of people, places, and human responses were important and valuable to me. But life experience, travel, and a wider view have since, of course, continue to open up numerous new world.

A few years ago I gave my seventeen rejects a tough re-reading and threw out eight of them. I couldn’t bear to part with the other nine. They still mean a lot to me. They were full of truth, and they were me then.

Why “boy books” aren’t always the solution

I have seen it happen in bookstores and libraries, time and again. A mom or dad looks down at a book and sees a girl on the cover, then shakes their head and says something like, “No, not that one. I have a son. I need a boy book.”

I know what they mean. It’s conventional wisdom. Boys read: fart jokes, battle scenes, and cartoons. Girls read fairies, princesses, and anything pink. There are lots of things in the middle (notably animal stories, everyone likes dogs), but the big rule of thumb tends to be that if there’s a girl on the cover, a boy won’t read it, despite the fact that if there’s a boy on the cover, a girl will.

(Of course, given the success of The Hunger Games, we can assume that if you introduce enough battle scenes, boys will read a book about a girl, but probably only then.)

Recently, I was talking to someone who sits on a state book award committee, and this person told me that they look for books that have an equal amount of “girl appeal” and “boy appeal.” The statement made sense, but something about it bothered me. I wasn’t sure what at first.

Now I know. And looking down the list of state award-winning books, I feel fairly confident that my friend isn’t the only person who evaluates gender this way. Most of them seem to be about boys.

When we assume that boys won’t read books with girls on the cover, and then institutionalize that assumption by leaving the “girlie” books out of award nominations (as well as school wide reads, story times, etc.), we insult them. By suggesting that on the whole our boys have a limited capacity for empathy, an inability to imagine a world beyond their own most obvious understanding, and an unwillingness to stretch.

In the same stroke, we neglect our girls. Not because they can’t read “boy books” (they do and will). But because when they see those awards, they also learn something —to accept a world in which they are rarely the central players. They learn, at a formative age, that the “best” books are the ones about boys. (Or dogs, as previously mentioned. Dogs are good.)

It’s a problem. And when we play into it, when we accept it as THE TRUTH, we’re reaching for the simplest solution, not the best one. Because the best solution would require us to push against the gender bias in the world, and in ourselves. It’s easier to say, “Boys naturally gravitate to these things, and we want them to read, don’t we?”

But when a kid likes candy and French fries, we do not feed them candy and French fries in an attempt to be certain they eat. We accept that they like what they like, then we fill their plate with a broad range of foods, a variety of flavors, in hopes they’ll find new favorites.

Look, I’m a mother of sons. I have two little boys at home who love fart jokes, battle scenes, and cartoons. I remember the holy glow in my older son’s eyes when he saw his first Transformer, and the first time my younger son turned a stick into a gun. But last year we also read our way through the Little House books, and those same boys clamored for more each night. We read Pippi Longstocking, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Charlotte’s Web and Ramona.

When we go to the bookstore my boys gravitate to Bone, Amulet, Wimpy Kid, and Percy Jackson, and that’s fine. We read those books too. But if I never even suggested that they might want to reach beyond that initial attraction, I’d be cheating them out of a broader understanding of literature and the world. More than that, I’d be giving them an expectation that life should meet their needs. That life should accommodate their preferences.

Which, to be honest, isn’t a message I think little boys need at all. Given that most of them plan to grow into men.

Laurel Snyder’s last “girl book” was Bigger than a Bread Box. Her next “girl book” is Seven Stories Up.

Boys Will Be Boys, and Girls Will Be Accomodating was originally published in Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chapter 1: You’re Supposed to Cry

The following is the first chapter of Seven Stories Up, a new children’s novel by Laurel Snyder (Jan 28, 2014, Random House Books for Young Readers).

You’re supposed to cry when your grandma is dying. You’re supposed to be really sad. But as Mom and I sped through the dark streets of Baltimore, I couldn’t stop bouncing in my seat. At last I stuck my head out the window and leaned into the muggy night. My hair whipped around. The sharp rush of air felt good on my face.

I’d always wondered about my grandmother. That might sound funny, but Mom didn’t talk about her family at all. If I asked a question, even for a school project, she’d find a way to change the topic. She’d suddenly decide that she had to pay the bills “pronto,” or she’d remember that Dallas was on TV “right this very minute.”

If I kept pushing, she’d make her sad face and say something like, “Kiddo, let’s leave that story in the past, where it can’t cause trouble.” I never understood what exactly the trouble might be, but I didn’t like to see Mom unhappy, so I’d learned to invent my own stories. Like in the first grade, when I told Mrs. Johnson that my mom was an orphan princess from Idaho. She’d made me build a diorama about it, in a shoe box. That was how I learned that Idaho is a mountainous region bordering Canada, full of colorful gems and potatoes.

Idaho aside, here’s what I knew:

1. My mom grew up in Baltimore but left for college in Atlanta.

2. Her dad had been dead a long time, but her mother was still alive.

3. She had aunts somewhere, who sent big glittery Christmas cards each year.

I also knew that my dad had skipped out on us in 1975, right after I was born, but that was different. Mom didn’t mind talking about him. She said she couldn’t be too mad, even though he was kind of a louse, because without him she wouldn’t have me, and I was her very best thing in the world.

We did have one lonely Polaroid of my grandmother in our scrapbook. I was a chubby baby in the picture, and my grandmother, in gray curls and an ugly plaid pantsuit, held me out stiffly to the camera with both hands. She looked afraid she might drop me.

I’d stared at that photo for hours, memorizing her clothes and posture, the paisley wallpaper in the background. I knew her name was Mary. That was all I’d ever expected to know.

Until now! Now I was in a strange city at midnight, racing toward her deathbed. Her deathbed? It was like a scene from a movie. If only I could stop imagining her gasping her last breath in a pantsuit.

I pulled my head in the window again and tried to comb my wind-snarled hair with my fingers. Mom had turned the radio on and Michael Jackson was singing softly. I watched the city rush by, row houses lining each street. Everything narrow and brick. As we went over a bridge, I saw boats rocking gently in a harbor. I sneezed at a strong scent of—was it cinnamon? Weird.

Without realizing it, I’d started to chew my thumbnail. I could feel the ragged needle of a hangnail with my tongue. I yanked it off with my front teeth, winced, and jammed my hand in the pocket of my jean shorts.

At last Mom turned onto a shadowy tree-lined street and slowed the car to a crawl, inching past enormous town houses with tall doors and tiny squares of garden. After a few blocks, we pulled into a driveway. I unsnapped my seat belt and scrambled out into a wide drive of gray bricks. Staring up at a tall stone building, I forgot to breathe.

It was past midnight, but the moon was full and there were street lamps, so I could make out the grinning gargoyles over the double glass doors. HOTEL CALVERT, read the brass sign that peeked out through a tangle of ivy. I was surprised. Usually we stayed at a Holiday Inn or a HoJo. Someplace cheap, with scratchy sheets and a half- empty candy machine in the lobby.

Mom was rooting in the trunk for our suitcase. I listened to her thump and cuss; then I looked back up at the hotel. That was when I noticed the dark windows. There was just one square of brightness along the side of the building, all the way up on the top floor. One window that blazed. Everything else was dark.

“Hey, Mom,” I said slowly. “I don’t think this place looks open.”

“It isn’t,” Mom said, slamming the trunk. “I have a key.”

“You have a key?”

Mom started up the overgrown drive with our bag, her clogs clacking in the darkness. I shut my door and hurried after her, stumbling over a loose brick. “Wait,” I called. “You said we were going straight to my grandma’s house.”

“This is it,” said Mom, stopping and gesturing tiredly at the hotel.

“This?”

“It’s hers.”

“The whole thing?”

Mom nodded. “The whole thing. Though I guess it’s about to be mine. Or—ours. I grew up here.”

“Here?” I stared up at the leering gargoyles. “You grew up here?”

She shrugged. “I tried to, anyway.”

“Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “This place is amazing, like out of a novel or Europe or something!”

Mom sighed as she rooted in her big straw purse. “A novel . . . You don’t know the half of it.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t. But this is an even better story than Idaho!”

“Maybe a good story,” she said grimly. Then she added in a softer tone, “Look, Annie, I know I owe you a lot of explanations. Just—not tonight. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “But wow. You grew up like Eloise.”

“Not quite like Eloise,” said Mom. “I never had a pet turtle.” She groaned as she hefted the suitcase up the three moss-covered steps that led to the double doors, but the bag tipped over as rain began to spit down. I caught the bag as it fell. It almost sent me tumbling.

“Rain?” Mom looked up at the sky like she was asking it a question. “Perfect.” She grabbed the handle of the suitcase back from me. Then she stuck a key in the lock, opened one of the massive doors, and hurried inside. She called over her shoulder, “Let’s get this over with. Then maybe we can watch a movie, if Mother ever figured out how to hook up the VCR I sent.”

A movie was the furthest thing from my mind. I stood in the rain and felt the drops hit my face. I stared up at the ledges of the old windows, at curling vines that gripped the stone, at the building above me, which looked like something from a dream.

Then I stepped into the lobby, and it was beyond any- thing I could have invented or wished for. I let the door fall shut and stared up, up into the tallest room ever. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, an icy shower of diamonds in the darkness. It wasn’t on, but it shimmered like magic in the dim light. I felt a tremble, like I was shimmering too.

Mom had already crossed the black-and-white checker- board floor. Now she turned back to me, at the foot of a marble staircase. “I can’t imagine how it must seem to you.” She gestured at a grand piano in the corner. “All this glitz. Kinda crazy, huh?”

“Kinda,” I said. “But good crazy. Totally awesome crazy.”

Mom frowned slightly. “I wish I could see it like you’re seeing it. For the first time. I guess it is totally awesome.” Then she added, “Come on,” and turned back around to flip a switch that shed warm light down a hall- way. “Time’s up, kiddo. Let’s get gone.”

As I followed her across the cavernous room, I sneezed. Dust and cobwebs hung on to every surface: the antique end tables and lamps, the reception desk with its tarnished brass top.

I reached out to touch a statue, a white angel that tiptoed above a pedestal at the foot of the staircase. Beneath the dust, the marble gleamed a bright white. I stared into the angel’s face. How many years had she been waiting like that, dusty in the darkness? Alone.

Mom was tapping her foot. “Annie, seriously, come on!”

I sprinted over to where she stood in front of an old elevator. The doors were heavy and gilded, engraved with a pattern of vines and flowers. I reached out a hand to feel the grooves in the metal as they slid open.

Inside, Mom pushed the 7 button, the highest number on the panel, and though the button didn’t light up, the doors slid together and the elevator began to move. A bell rang when we arrived with a clattering metallic brrrrring!

We stepped out into an unlit hallway with wall-to-wall carpet that made it hard to pull the suitcase. I reached up to put a hand on Mom’s arm so that I wouldn’t trip and fall, as together we fumbled along in the whispery darkness. Farther down we made a right turn, then almost immediately Mom had her keys jangling at another door.

“Great,” she grumbled, “now the key is sticking. C’mon. Work!” She kicked at the door.

“Here,” I said, “let me try. . . .”

I leaned toward Mom, pushed her hand aside, and turned the key. When I gripped the glass knob, it felt good, smooth and cool in my hand. The door unlocked right away with an even click. I pushed and it swung inward.

“Thanks,” said Mom.

We stepped together into a living room that was small and impossibly neat. It was air-conditioned, and the change in temperature took my breath away. I looked around. There was a beige-and-white-striped sofa with a matching recliner. Dried flowers stood in a white vase on a glass coffee table. There were no smudges on the glass. The carpet was creamy and the walls were tan. The room felt bland and unused, like a display in a department store.

Across from us a woman slept upright in a chair with a paperback on her lap. She was wearing green hospital scrubs and purple eye shadow. Beside her chair was a closed door.

“Hello?” Mom called softly.

The lady started and opened her eyes. Without missing a beat, she put a finger to her lips, set her book on the floor, and stood up.

Mom walked across the room and whispered something in the woman’s ear. Then they both turned to look at me. The lady shook her tightly permed hair and frowned. I squinted to read her name tag: EMERY ROTH, RN.

“Annie,” whispered my mom gently. “You go on ahead in there.” She pointed to an open door on the other side of the couch. “Take our stuff and get yourself settled. There’s a bathroom, and you can watch TV. Just try not to make too much noise.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

She nodded at the closed door beside her. “In here for a sec.”

“But I want to go with you,” I said.

“No, ma’am. What’s in that room is not . . . fun.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t care.”

“You don’t care because you don’t get it,” Mom said. “This is serious, Annie. It isn’t some adventure from a book. My mother is sick, and I need to see her. In case she . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence.

“Dies?” I asked.

Mom flinched.

“This might be my only chance,” I argued. “I’m old enough to handle it, I promise. I’ll be in middle school this fall.”

Mom crossed her arms and stared down at me. “Even so, kiddo, you need to trust me on this one.”

“I’m not scared.”

“You’re never scared,” said Mom. She leaned down and touched my face. “But this isn’t about you, Annie. Please? Help me out here?”

I could have argued with her, but Mom looked so tense I actually did feel a little scared. “O-okay,” I said.

Mom straightened up, turned her back on me, twisted the knob, and slipped through the door. Emery Roth, RN, sat back down and picked up her book as if I wasn’t there, so I dragged our suitcase away, carving a groove in the plush carpet.

There wasn’t much to look at in the other room. Just furniture, a small television, and an open door that led to a bathroom. I looked out the one window and saw that it was raining harder. In the distance, lightning flashed above the clouds, but I didn’t hear thunder. I guessed it was still too far away.

Along one wall there was a display of framed photos. The pictures were mostly black-and-white, but a few were in color. I leaned in for a better look.

The color photos were of a young couple and their curly-haired baby. Was that Mom? I guessed so. The dad wore a hat and had a thin mustache. The mom was delicate and pretty, with dark curls and red lips. I could see how she might grow into a gray-haired grandma in a pantsuit. The man and woman weren’t touching. Not one arm around a shoulder. No smiles.

The older photos, the black-and-white ones, were of a larger family, all dressed up in old-timey clothes, derby hats and frilly dresses. Most of those shots were of special occasions, Christmases and weddings, taken in the lobby downstairs. Were these the glittery Christmas card aunts? Maggie? Ginny?

On a low shelf in the cabinet beneath the bedside table, I came across a scrapbook, with fancy gold lettering that read MY SCHOOL DAYS. I flipped it open, and the delicate paper tore away from the binding. Property of Mary Moran, the torn page read in cramped, careful handwriting. I began to turn the pages gently, but the book was almost empty. There were a few birthday cards, and clippings from newspapers: about Amelia Earhart, John F. Kennedy, Princess Elizabeth. I found a curl of dark hair tied with a tiny ribbon, and a couple of dead earwigs. That was it. No love letters. No secrets.

I put the scrapbook back and heaved our suitcase onto the flowered bedspread so I could pull out my nightgown and kit bag. Then I walked into the bathroom to arrange my stuff: toothbrush, inhaler, vitamins, hairbrush, and my prized strawberry Lip Smacker, the only makeup Mom allowed.

That was when I heard voices. Sharp but quiet sounds, murmurs coming from the towel rack mounted on the back of a white door. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I reached behind the soft folds of terry cloth and felt for a knob. When I turned it, I crossed my fingers. The door opened a crack, and a sharp smell wafted in at me, a mixture of carnations and poison. A hospital smell.

On the other side of the door, in a dimly lit room, my mom stood beside a bed. I put my ear to the crack and strained to make out the voices. It wasn’t easy, because of another sound, a machine that wheezed and hissed like a gasping metronome. I listened hard.

“No, Mother—calm down,” Mom was saying. “It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it, Ruby?” said a shaky voice. Then I heard a shallow rattle of coughs.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard as I had a sudden flash of memory. My best friend Susie had a Grandma Roxy, a loud woman who shouted “Hells bells!” and wore hot-pink lipstick. Grandma Roxy had once taken me along for a fancy lunch and a manicure with Susie. I’d loved that day! The three of us laughing, joking, toasting with our Shirley Temples (me and Susie) and pink wine (Roxy). Secretly I’d pretended Susie and I were cousins, that Roxy was my grandma too.

For some reason, when I heard the voice through the bathroom door, that thin wheeze, I thought of Roxy. There was nothing loud and laughing about my real grandmother.

For a minute I listened to the machine gasping. I wondered if the old woman had fallen asleep. Or maybe it was over already. Could people die that fast? I opened the door a little further. Mom was sitting beside the bed.

Then I heard the tired voice rasp out, “Hello! Hello? Who’s there?”

I froze.

I waited.

Nothing happened for a second. But when I tried to close the door, it creaked, and the raspy voice called again. “Who is it? I know you’re here. Come out where I can see you!”

Definitely not dead.

Excerpt copyright © 2013 by Laurel Snyder. Published by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

Your kid’s sad. That’s okay

Like most parents, I share a basic instinct—to shield my children from danger, and the elements in the world they can’t quite handle on their own. For instance, at ages six and seven, my sons are not yet allowed to drive the car. They drink apple juice with dinner instead of whiskey. I’m strict like that.

These things—driving and whiskey—are not bad things. On the contrary, they’re nice things I hope my kids will eventually experience, along with other adult treats, like backpacking through Slovakia, and colorful profanity. Such experiences will come when my boys are ready. When it’s time.

That, to me, is the key. Time.

But I don’t always agree with other parents about what constitutes “danger,” and lately, I see people trying to protect their kids in another way—from sadness. As though sadness—like whiskey—is something for later on.

This confuses me. In the happiest life, there is sadness. Babies cry because they’re cold or hungry, because they have been—however momentarily—abandoned. Toddlers cry because they can’t find the words to express their emotions, or because they want a muffin NOW. First graders cry because they get picked last for kickball, or because their best friend doesn’t like them anymore. It’s heartbreaking to watch our kids experience these emotions, but learning to navigate and manage them is part of growing up.

Recently, a friend of mine secretly replaced a dead goldfish with an identical pet, so that her kid wouldn’t have to experience loss. “She’s so sensitive,” my friend said. “I don’t know if she can handle it.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. It was hardly my business, but isn’t a dead goldfish the perfect way for a kid to learn about loss? Isn’t that almost a cliché? And what does it say about our level of privilege that we have this option, to protect our kids like that? Does a mother in a refugee camp hunt down a goldfish, to keep her child from experiencing loss?

But okay, let’s say that we—in our 21st-century cocoon of antibiotics and foreign wars—are able to shield our kids from certain kinds of sadness. We turn off NPR when the kids are in the car. We send our dogs off to live on imaginary farms when they get decrepit. How then will our children manage loss when it finds them?

When I was a little girl, I was in love with an old yellow book of fairytales called The Princesses, and especially a heartbreaking Oscar Wilde story called “The Birthday of the Infanta,” which ended like this:

‘Mi bella Princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again. It is a pity, for he is so ugly that he might have made the King smile.’

‘But why will he not dance again?’ asked the Infanta, laughing.

‘Because his heart is broken,’ answered the Chamberlain.

And the Infanta frowned, and her dainty rose-leaf lips curled in pretty disdain. ‘For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,’ she cried, and she ran out into the garden.

It was brutal, and I adored it. I read the story over and over, making myself cry. And while I know most kids aren’t Wilde fans these days, it seems so important to me that they have books like that. Beautiful books that break their hearts.

I was a selfish kid, an older sister, bossy. I wasn’t just weeping because the story was sad. I was weeping because I knew I was a little like the Infanta myself, and I didn’t want to be. That story taught me something important about empathy, and fault. It taught me that life can be tragic. In some ways, this was a big exotic idea for me, and in other ways, it mirrored something I’d already figured out—that life was going to be hard sometimes, and painful. Reading the book, I felt less alone with my own sadness.

I can’t help wondering if people let their kids read books like that today. Old Yeller? The Diary of Anne Frank? I know parents now monitor what their kids read very closely. I see reviews that criticize books for being too “grim.” Is tragedy something we’ve set aside now, along with our dead goldfish?

Of course, I loved happy stories too as a kid, and I read lots of them. I read everything! But all stories can’t be happy ones. Because there’s a big difference between a book through which a reader learns to sit with sadness, and a book where the sadness vanishes just in the nick of time. The villain leaves town. The bully changes heart. These are fantasies.

In real life, the bully rarely wakes up a changed person and picks your kid first for kickball.

Happy endings, replacement pets. I can’t help wondering if maybe kids today are becoming extra sensitive because we aren’t letting them learn about sadness, and really process it. Is it possible they need tragedies, once in awhile, the way they might need to know about the goldfish?

I think about kids I know who burst into tears when their pink tights are dirty or the cookies have icky raisins in them, and I wonder—is that tragedy today? And how does it end? What happens when a sensitive kid who’s never lost a goldfish or read a sad book turns into an adult? Is there a magical age, I wonder, when she becomes less sensitive? Shifts over from childhood to adulthood? She turns 16 and gets a car. She turns 21 and hurrah—whiskey!

At what age does she suddenly know how to be sad?

Laurel Snyder’s last sad book was Bigger than a Bread Box. Her next sad book is Seven Stories Up.