Writing for Young Readers
Children's books that appeal to a range of
ages.
By Harriet Kahn
"In Our Image: God's First Creatures," by
Nancy Sohn Swartz, Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998, 32 pages, $16.95
"The Milly Stories," by Janice Lindsay, DK Publishing, 1998,
131 pages, $15.95
Two N.U. alumnae have recently published children's books. Although
the books are written for different ages and are therefore very dissimilar,
they're alike in that they both are delightful and, ultimately, successful
in appealing to their intended audiences.
As I turned each page of In Our Image: God's First Creatures, I became
convinced that this was a book young children would really love and be
able to understand. Nancy Sohn Swartz, Ed'67, has taken the story of Genesis
and brought an enchanting twist to the tale of creation. Many of us remember
hearing how God created "the heaven and the earth, and the light and
the darkness, and the waters and the land, and the trees and the plants,
and the sun and the moon and the stars, and the fish in the waters and
the birds in the sky, and all the wild creatures upon the earth,"
and finally man and woman. And now the twist: what role did nature play
in the creation of humankind?
With Melanie Hall's vibrant and playful illustrations, which often fill
whole pages, we see all the animals cavorting about and full of excitement
as they respond to God's request that they give their gifts to man and
woman, "for in Our image will I make them." Each animal thinks
about which gift to give to humankind, so that people and animals will
always be connected to one another. The lizard yawns, "Make them lazy."
"Keep them busy," buzzes the bee. "Make them loud,"
roars the lion. And so each animal suggests a characteristic it wants to
share. (When the birds chirp, "Let them fly," God answers, "They'll
have to figure that one out for themselves.") And then God assures
the animals and all of nature that man and woman will also have the gifts
of goodness, kindness, and love to care for all of God's creatures in the
universe. And so, "in the image of God and the image of nature,"
God created man and woman and "nature lived in humankind."
In Our Image was published by Jewish Lights Publishing in Woodstock,
Vermont. It is Swartz's first book. She is an elementary school teacher
living in Randolph, Massachusetts, with more than thirty years experience
in various educational settings. Melanie Hall has illustrated more than
twelve children's books and teaches children's book illustration at the
Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Together they have created a visually
gorgeous book and presented a Biblical story in a way that will appeal
to children as well as adults. The book has been endorsed by Protestant,
Catholic, and Jewish leaders as a nondenominational and nonsectarian tale.
Swartz's writing is simple yet lyrical; Hall's illustrations are colorful,
energetic, and a joy to behold. What a lovely way to introduce a Bible
story to eager listeners ages four and up.
Turning to a very different book, we find The Milly Stories spinning
a tale that rates high on "the weirdness index," to use a term
from the story-just the thing for the book's preteen audience.
As a kid, didn't you always want to spend Halloween night in a funeral
parlor, touring all the rooms and seeing a casket with a real live dead
body in it? This happens to our heroine, Milly, and her best friend, Josie,
along with ten other kids. (I really did grow up on a street with a funeral
home at the end of it and remember going into the parlor one Halloween
to trick or treat-no casket with a body in it, though.)
Milly lives in the funeral home with her Uncle Edgar, the funeral director,
and her Aunt Gloria, an opinionated but loving woman who cares for Milly
after her mother's sudden death. Sadly, Aunt Gloria also dies suddenly
(of a heart attack), but in her head Milly continues to hear Aunt Gloria's
reprimands-"Stand up straight!" "Don't stick your nose where
it doesn't belong!" "Mind your own business!"-as if the
aunt were still alive. Can Milly recover from her losses and become more
of her own person as she lives alone with Uncle Edgar?
"Joyabounding" is a term that Milly and Josie use to describe
a great idea. These ideas form the basis of each chapter of the book as
we follow the two girls and their friends in their fun and often weird
adventures in the small town of Bentwood.
Milly gets to know many of the strange and peculiar (that's Aunt Gloria's
description) people in her town, and Josie rates them on her weirdness
index. The girls gradually come to understand that these friends, relatives,
and neighbors are actually extraordinary, rather than strange, because
they are all special in some way: Blane, Milly's cousin, helps kids with
homework as he drives an ice cream truck after school; Flora, the owner
of the New Age Flower Shop, also runs a summer writing institute; Zeena
Fovia, the mysterious neighbor who comes out only at night and loves to
order from catalogs, gives poor people clothing; Sarah, Milly's grandmother,
who rides around on her Harley-Davidson preaching to neighbors, also helps
those in need. And of course there's Uncle Edgar, who helps Milly adjust
to life in Bentwood by welcoming her friends and sharing in her escapades.
The Milly Stories is a treat for kids from ages nine to twelve. Janice
Lindsay's style of writing is engaging and the episodes are funny and suspenseful.
This is her first book and she has done a wonderful job of capturing how
these girls feel about themselves and the people around them who become
important parts of their lives. Each episode is full of the unexpected;
every character becomes a well-developed addition to the array of folks
who share Milly's adventures. The unique attributes of a small town come
alive: sharing a common history and having close-knit relationships with
members of the community.
Milly is a charming, cautious preteen who seems to mature with each
passing day. She ultimately becomes more confident in her own abilities
and learns that she has much to offer others in ordinary and extraordinary
ways. As she no longer hears Aunt Gloria's words in her head, Milly feels
she is really growing up. She finds her place at last and finally begins
to feel at home.
Lindsay is a graduate of Northeastern (LA'65) and Harvard Divinity School.
She has spent most of her writing career in corporate communications and
as a freelance writer of nonfiction. The Milly Stories is her first book.
Harriet Kahn is the director of the Russell B. Call Children's Center
at Northeastern.
Understanding Diversity: A Learning-as-Practice Primer
By Barbara F. Okun, Jane Fried, and Marcia L. Okun
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1999
This "primer" is designed to help
doctors, police officers, professors, and professionals of all kinds to
improve their interpersonal skills in culturally diverse environments.
Barbara Okun, a professor of counseling psychology at Northeastern, has
collaborated with her daughter Marcia (a high school history and psychology
teacher) and Fried (who teaches school counseling and student development
at Central Connecticut State University) to present a behaviorally focused
approach to bridging cultural differences among individuals. Their workbook
draws on role plays, self-awareness exercises, and communication techniques
to help readers identify their own beliefs and behaviors and then use that
understanding in relating to others.
Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women
By Virginia Valian, MA'68, PHD'71
MIT Press, 1998
In Why So Slow?, Valian, a professor of psychology
and linguistics at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, uses psychology,
sociology, economics, and biology to explain why so few women occupy positions
of power and prestige in the professions. She argues that men and women
alike hold "gender schema"nonconscious beliefs about sex differences
that lead to skewed perceptions and evaluations of others. As a consequence
of these schema, Valian concludes, men tend to be overrated, and women
underrated, in professional life. Having made visible what she calls the
"invisible factors that retard women's progress," the author
sets out several specific remedies for perceptually based gender inequality.
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