Reflections

Can Children’s Books Reduce Hate?

/ still a dreamer / 8 Comments

JohnGrishamI got a letter from John Grisham yesterday.

At least that’s what the envelope said. I found it to be an appeal on behalf of a person and an organization that I’ve heard of, but knew little about – Morris Dees, an Alabama lawyer and friend of Grisham’s, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  It is the mission of Dees and the SPLC to put hate organizations out of business and to teach tolerance.

I read the enclosed piece and was literally horrified at the abuses, savage beatings, murders and more that still go in in this country perpetrated by any number of hate groups upon innocent individuals of some minority status or other. I was beyond horrified; I was deeply saddened. (And mind you, I am not writing this to drum up donations for the Southern Poverty Law Center, but if you want to know what’s going on in this regard, you may want to visit the SPLC web site and find out for yourself – it’s very disturbing.)

What struck me were two things … I hear so many people talking about those in the world who hate and would destroy our country. I wondered, are people aware of how much hatred is alive and well, right here, within our own borders? Do they know that people are still being abducted, beaten, and hung? AND if that weren’t enough, that it’s often being done in the name of the abuser’s God? How have we become a nation with so much hate?

So … as an aspiring children’s book author and illustrator … the second thing I wondered was, what is being read to the young children of those people whose mission in life is to commit violence against people of a color, nationality or religion different than their own? What happened to love? To hope? To tolerance? Compassion? Do these people’s children read the same books as other children do?

Children’s book writers aspire to show a child a world of wonder, fun, sharing, understanding, friendship and caring. Can a mother whose husband goes out to senselessly beat a 16 year old boy into permanent physical and mental damage be reading to her child about caring for others? I am utterly confused and lost.

So I wonder, when a child is raised believing that hate towards others is an acceptable emotion, can a mere book, albeit written from our hearts and souls, have the power to change a young mind?

Writing from the Heart

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

HorsesHead2One of the best recommendations I hear concerning what to write about is to write from your heart. There is no doubt in my mind that that is absolutely the truth. It’s helpful to know what’s up and coming in the market. It’s helpful to know what particular agents and editors are looking for. But writing just FOR that market, agent or editor just to be published is the ultimate betrayal of self. Where else can I write from but the heart?

Question is … what if most people really don’t want to know what I will write from my heart? What if the more I pour my heart and soul into a story, the more frightened the reader becomes … the more they begin to feel somehow responsible, if not for the individual I write about, but for how things have become this way? I can tell you – they want to turn away and run … to not think about it.

What I’m referring to at the moment, because something I read today is so fresh in my mind, is the immense suffering we, as humans, perpetrate on animals. Whether it be horses slammed together in double-decker trailers, trekked for days on end with no food or water to a brutal slaughter in Mexico, or sows imprisoned in metal-barred gestation crates their entire lives … people don’t want to know. Far too many people don’t want to know.

What’s in my heart is a deep and abiding love of animals. It is knowing they are individuals that matters to me – how can anyone simply see millions of dollars in pork sales if you look into the eyes of one desperate, intelligent pig who can never physically move? How can anyone watch a rodeo cowboy lasso a 3 month old calf, pulling back so hard that he breaks the calf’s neck? And then know this mere baby lays in agony, out of sight, sometimes for days, not being released from its suffering. How can anyone attend a circus where highly intelligent animals are beaten with bullhooks until they bleed and scream for the sake of a few tricks, and then are chained in place for 23 hours of every day? How can anyone look into just one of those elephant’s eyes and not drown in her sadness?

You may be pulling back even now – wanting to move away from the painful reality of our own part in all of this. Don’t go yet – it’s not my intention at the moment to explore the horrific suffering animals know at our hands, but rather, how do I write about it in my chosen field? How do I write picture books and bring my heart into it, without watering it down, sugaring it up, and burying the truth?

Children cannot – should not – hear what’s truly in my heart. It’s far too frightening for them, but what can they hear? How can I tell them?

Each of you has something in your heart that you yearn to write about … your heart’s desire, whatever that may be.  How do we bring our heart’s desire to the table in children’s books, to help a child learn to listen closely to his or her own heart, to know the value of all life, before the window closes and they become lost in the routine of daily life, the numbing by TV, the  brainlessness of texting?

How do we bring what’s truly in our hearts to a young child’s reading? I’m yearning to know.

Pushing Buttons

/ still a dreamer

pushbuttonWe all get our buttons pushed. No doubt we push others’ buttons, too. But what happens when we get our buttons pushed is a variety of emotional reactions, none of which is usually very good.

Getting our buttons pushed can make us angry, afraid, resentful, depressed, withdrawn and so many other feelings. The results in the “real” world are that we behave differently than we did “pre-push.” Most often, when buttons get pushed, they are old buttons .. ones that have a history, and were pushed in the past. Maybe a lot. And when they all happen to get pushed at once? by a lot of people? Well, then things happen. Or don’t.

In my case, I fell off my blog entries. Didn’t feel much like writing. What’s always true, with rare exception, is the button-pushers push everyone’s buttons that way – the button pushing is really their issue and never personal. It often feels personal, though, and can be quite tiring. Will those people change who they are? Chances are, no. Can we do anything about it? Sure! We can bring their behavior to their attention, and if they care enough about us, they may try and adjust it. We can also avoid those people or situations, and if that’s not possible, limit exposure to them. Finding a way to deal with the button-pushers is also helpful.

But what really works is understanding that we have buttons and that it’s always old stuff. The button-pushers? Their issue, not personal … let it go and move on.

Liquid Fire on A Busy Day

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

applejuiceHaving a children’s book Mentoring Workshop on the horizon is both exciting and a bit stressful. There’s lots to do and prepare for — in this case a NJ SCBWI Mentoring Workshop — prepping my portfolio to the best I have it so far, getting ready my first pages, critiquing my group’s MS’s, and seeing if I can complete one more illustration for my portfolio before the big day. Of course, the daily demands of my clients do not lessen any.

With a mind charging about like a runaway train, I suddenly was stopped in my tracks and noticed something – beautiful, simple and wonderfully distracting. My glass of apple juice on the dining room oak table had become a crystal of liquid amber filled with fire.

Note to self – never get so crazed that you don’t see these amazing visual moments.

Living By Water

/ still a dreamer

How lucky am I? I live 3 houses away from a river. And walking 4 very short blocks, I can walk onto the bridge that takes me to neighboring PA.

delaware-winter

Yesterday I went out walking for my exercise and decided to take my camera. Something I don’t do often enough. I was immediately drawn to the river on this sunny day – blue sky, no clouds. I headed onto the bridge, not to go to PA, but just to see the river. Even in winter, with not a leaf in sight, it was magnificent.

delaware-winter2

I am happy when living by water. I am always happy to just be near water – the ocean, a lake, a river – there is something calming, inspiring and renewing about it. I wonder if this is universal or something belonging to just some of us. Is it because my family used to go the shore throughout my childhood and my Dad taught me to swim in the ocean? Is it because in my tween and teen years we used to vacation up at Highland Lakes every summer? Or perhaps that we used to go on a Sunday to Cooper’s Pond in the neighboring town and feed the ducks? I took some of my very first photos with my new Brownie camera there. Maybe it’s because I’m a water sign. Maybe I was once a mermaid. Maybe I am just forever enchanted by nature.

Our creativity, in whatever way we express ourselves, is influenced by all of who we are and who we have been. I believe when we reach inside ourselves and touch upon the good things, the meaningful things, in our pasts – or even find them for the first time – we are enriched in every way.  Yet we make so little time for these things … to let ourselves be with our own enchantment … to just let ourselves be. Today, for this, I thank the river.