Stories We Could Tell

Sometimes I like to give my father all the credit for my love of books. It was, after all, his life's work to bring the printed work to the masses. I learned about offset presses and binding machines by wandering through the press room and eventually finding myself working there one summer. It gives me shivers to see the spine of a book stressed to its maximum, laying face down on a couch or coffee table. The stitching and glue are strong enough, but show a little care, please.
For all the philos for biblio I may have found at my father's feet, I would still point to my year in Miss Stuart's fourth grade class as the point in my life where there was no turning back. Miss Stuart's room was lined with bookshelves, and it was a rare occasion when we needed to leave the friendly confines to search the school's library for something to read. Miss Stuart is the one who gave her class the rules for book etiquette: Don't lick your fingers before you turn the pages. It will turn the corners yellow and cause them to rot. Book marks should be thin, like a piece of paper, not thick like a pencil or ruler. And she was in complete agreement with my father about leaving books face down while unattended. Following these rules was the simple reason why she was able to amass such a wide selection of kids' books. We all shuddered when we saw the way other classes mistreated their library books. We knew that many of them might not last the year. We knew that if any kid tore a page or wrote in Miss Stuart's books, that kid might not last the year.
She was, as the phrase goes, "a tough old bird." She is the one who set me to writing. I had some brief success back in the second grade with "The Drunken Snake" and an account of how our dog, Snoopy, helped the Denver Broncos win a football game, but it wasn't until the fourth grade that I found my audience, my voice. It was Miss Stuart's suggestion that I write and illustrate a "picture-story book." I wrote "Arthur The Fish," a tale of loneliness and desperation from under the sea. It was eight pages long and had a happy ending. The fact that each page only had a couple of sentences on it along with a clever cartoon did not hinder me in the least. It worked for Maurice Sendak, so why not me? It was Miss Stuart who put the vision of Newberry and Caldecott Medals in my head. They became my driving inspiration for my next effort, "Larry the Lion." It was a tale of loneliness and desperation from the jungle. It was ten pages long and had a happy ending. I had found my stride. When another kid in my class asked if I would illustrate his book, "Bubbles the Bear," I recognized it as a cheap Arthur the Fish knock-off, but took the gig anyway. Everyone said their favorite thing about Bubbles was the funny pictures of the cute bear. I knew what I was doing.
I turned my attention next to science fiction, with a tale of loneliness and despair called "The Day It Snowed Ten Feet Deep." I was way ahead of "2012" and "The Day After Tomorrow" on this one. It was about this time that Miss Stuart started sending me on book tours. At first, it was next door to the other fourth grade class, where I became instantly aware of my mild celebrity status. Then I moved to the Kindergarten circuit, where I showed up as awesomely clever and wise.
And so it went. Each time I finished a story, it was carefully typed up for me and then handed back to me to carefully fill the lower half of the page with my most imaginative illustrations. I thought about Maurice Sendak. I thought about Robert Lawson. I thought about the time when I would simply ascend out of Miss Stuart's class and be well on my way to being an internationally famous children's book author. I had Xerox copies of my books at home so that I could practice in front of the mirror, peeking down at my upside-down text just enough to keep each reading fresh. The originals were kept in the classroom, on a shelf not far from where my inspirations dwelled.
My father was the one who got those stories typed up. He was the one who got them neatly bound with a plastic comb binding and a clear plastic cover to preserve his son's work. My father's love of books may not have been as profound as that of Miss Stuart's, but it was for those books written by his son.