Product Description Review Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Author Gary D. Schmidt Q: Did you always want to become a writer? A: Nope. In high school, I wanted to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and become a career naval officer. Then, late in high school, I wanted to be a vetโ€”mostly because of the James Herriot books and the PBS show, I suppose. Then, in college, I decided to become a lawyerโ€”until my senior year, when I switched to an English major to become a teacher, which I did become. Somehow becoming a writer happened along the way. Q: What did you read when you were a kid? A: In my school, we were trackedโ€”meaning that we were put into classes depending on how well we had done in testing. This happened in first grade. I had tested poorly and ended up in the pumpkin groupโ€”no kidding. We were the poorest readers, and so since I was told I wasnโ€™t any good at this, I didnโ€™t read much. Then I got taken up by Miss Kabakoff, who just liked me, and who brought me into her class and taught me how to read. Once that happened, I read everything I could. The Freddy the Pig books, the Doctor Dolittle books, any Greek mythology I could get my hands on, and the Norse mythology that I liked better, the biographies in the Childhood of Famous Americans series, the tales of the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen, the Herbert series and the Henry Reed series, Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson, Howard Pyleโ€™s The Adventures of Robin Hood and His Merry Men, Bambi , anything by Jack London or Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, the Horatio Hornblower books, Treasure Island, and of course the Hardy Boys series and the Tom Swift series, which I collected whenever I could. Q: How often do you write? A: Every day I am not teachingโ€”so two or three days a week, and sometimes at nightโ€”unless itโ€™s really cold out and the woodstove needs a lot of tending. Q: How much do you write each day? A: I work on three projects at a time, and they are all at different stages. One may be a first draft, one may be almost finished, and one might be in proofsโ€”or perhaps just being conceived. I try to write about five hundred words a day on each project. Most American writersโ€”Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Jack Londonโ€”all wrote about five hundred words a day. It seems the right pace for me. It keeps me from going too fast at a project. There are some childrenโ€™s book writersโ€”like Enid Blytonโ€”who supposedly wrote ten thousand words a day. This seems impossible to me, but even if it is true, one should not judge oneself by the absurd outlier. Q:Where do you write? A: I have a study in a small outbuilding away from the house. It has a desk, a lamp, more books than should be in any one room, and a woodstove. I work at a typewriter, and keep lots of scrap paper around me. This means, by the way, that if anything comes out pretty awful, I can just open the woodstove and burn it all. The feeling of relief is remarkable. On my desk are a dictionary and a thesaurus, books by Emerson and Whittier and Longfellow and Darwin, Henry David Thoreauโ€™s journals, a collection of Churchillโ€™s war speeches, two volumes of Shaker hymns, some Tolkien, some Avi, some Katherine Paterson, some Elie Wiesel, The Giver, and a statue of a greyhound that has been in my family for four generations. Q:You work at a typewriter? A: You canโ€™t believe how hard it is to find typewriter ribbons for a 1953 Royal. Q: Your books often are very serious. Shouldnโ€™t you lighten up? A: You think life in middle school isnโ€™t serious? Are you kidding? Living is a serious business. Funny is good, of course. We all like to laugh. But I want more than that. Much more. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his first great book, called life "a veil of gloom and brightness." We all wish it could be brightness all the time. And maybe for some people it is. I doubt it, but maybe. But there is gloom for us all, too. And maybe books even for kids shouldnโ€™t ignore that. Geez, read Where the Wild Things Are, or Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, or just about any Grimm folktale, or Crow Boy, or Bridge to Terabithia, or Nothing but the Truth, or No, David, or Octavian Nothing, or The Tale of Despereaux, or Stitches, or The Storm in the Barn, and then try to tell me that writers for kids should try not to be too serious. Q: What is your favorite book that you have written? A: Hmmm... If I give one title, then all the other books get sort of cranky and jealous, and they start to rearrange themselves loudly at night to push each other off the shelves. Then I have to pick them all up in the morning instead of walking the dogs and then the dogs get irritated and they take their sweet time on the walk so I get back home late and miss most of breakfast and the kids get to school after the bell has rung and the day just goes downhill from there. Letโ€™s just say theyโ€™re all my favorites. Q:What is your favorite book that you have not written? A: An easy question. It is The Little World of Don Camillo. There is no other book like it, so sweet, so funny, so moving, sometimes suspenseful. I wish I had written it. Q:What book are you working on now? A: Sorry. Writers should never talk about what theyโ€™re working on next. It will be done when itโ€™s done, and then Iโ€™ll be glad to talk about it. But not now. Product DescriptionAs a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him. So begins a coming-of-age masterwork full of equal parts comedy and tragedy from Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt. As Doug struggles to be more than the โ€œskinny thugโ€ that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicerโ€”a fiery young lady who โ€œsmelled like daisies would smell if they were growing in a big field under a clearing sky after a rain.โ€ In Lil, Doug finds the strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town, and the return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from Vietnam. Together, they find a safe haven in the local library, inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubonโ€™s birds, and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage. In this stunning novel, Schmidt expertly weaves multiple themes of loss and recovery in a story teeming with distinctive, unusual characters and invaluable lessons about love, creativity, and survival.
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CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS <IN THIS APPLICATION or ON THIS SITE, as applicable> COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
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