Celebrate!

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Celebrate today, May 23rd, with me and say a "Happy Birthday" to a truly gifted author of;
“I like dogs
Big dogs
Little dogs
Fat dogs
Doggy dogs
Old dogs
Puppy dogs
I like dogs
A dog that is barking over the hill
A dog that is dreaming very still
A dog that is running wherever he will...I like dogs.” 
― Margaret Wise Brown, "The Friendly Book"

As a dog lover I love this prose. The story goes that Margaret had to teach illustrators to draw the way a child see things. She gave two puppies to an illustrator. He painted several pictures one day and then fell asleep. He discovered the pictures he painted were blank. This is the part of the story I can identify with, the "model" puppies had licked all the paint off the artist's paper. Back to the drawing board.

Millions of children worldwide still have their childhoods shaped by her musical-like qualities of lyrical overtly simplistic prose. Born in 1910, she died tragically young in 1952 from an embolism, following a surgery. Her debut book, "When the Wind Blew" was published in 1937. Thankfully, she left hundreds of unpublished manuscripts at the time of her death. She wrote all the time and dreamed many of her classic stories. Upon awaking, she would write them down in the morning before she forgot them.

She said of writing, “One can but hope to make a child laugh or feel clear and happy-headed as he follows the simple rhythm to its logical end. It can jog him with the unexpected and comfort him with the familiar, lift him for a few minutes from his own problems of shoelaces that won’t tie, and busy parents and mysterious clock time, into the world of a bug or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of a story.” 

Margaret Wise Brown was an insightful author ahead of her time. So many of her books have a gentle pattern of rhythm to them or repeat a word pattern. Her writing brilliance, places a hard word into the story because she intended for children to think harder and expand their critical thinking while they read. Her genius coupled with delightful and unique illustrations shine through on every wonderful page.

Did you know that she crafted a beautiful birthday book? "The Golden Birthday Book" is a delightful combination of Margaret Wise Brown’s writing and Leonard Weisgard’s illustrations. These are pages from my copy of the book with some of her magical words.Take a page from her happy little book and celebrate by being your "own true rabbit". You too, can write a story to influence children and adults for centuries to come. 

Happy 103rd Birthday, Margaret Wise Brown! You continue to make a difference, even in the lives of children and adults in the twenty-first century.

Soulful Impressions

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

April is poetry month. Poetry is not a genre that comes natural to my word flow. When someone says write a poem, I feel like a deer caught in headlights. Frozen.

Recently, a writers group discussion about poetry writing changed my response. Through the poetry exercise, I realized writing a poem forces me to tell a story in prose which equates to a tight writing style. Publishers like tight writing. 

It reminded me that when my children were small and we read 30 minutes minimum everyday, they gravitated to rhyming books. To this day my now grown children can recite the rhymes from their childhood read-alouds.

Here are some of our favorites;
"In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed. They smiled at the good and frowned at the bad and sometimes they were very sad. They left the house at half past nine in two straight lines in rain or shine — the smallest one was Madeline."---Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, 
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”---How the GrinchStole Christmas By Dr. Seuss

"When Katy caboose rambled down the train tracks,
The engines were steamers with puffing smoke stacks.
She was a caboose who disliked being last
With an endless black cloud of smoke rolling past
'It's not only smoky,' the caboose would complain,
'There's the jerks and the jolts of this noisy freight train'.
Often Katy would wish that someday she could be
Something quiet and simple like a lovely elm tree."
---The Caboose Who Got Loose By Bill Peet

"From cans to flat tires
to old paper bags, 
to sofas and soupspoons, 
to old clothes and rags."...
"Then what they all saw
made them cheer, dance and sing: 
"An amazing invention!"
"A most beautiful thing!""...
"Protect our dear earth. Don't throw it away. You, too, could make magic from garbage someday." 
---A Pig's Tale By Olivia Newton John and Brian Seth Hurst

"Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light, and the red balloon..."
---Goodnight Moon By Margaret Wise Brown

As Meg Ryan's character in the movie, You've Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly says, "When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does." All I would add is when the text poetically rhymes it will stay with your soul. 

Grab a children's rhyming book and read it aloud, listen for the rhythm, play on words, and immediately write your own poem. 

You may write the next best children's book, one that impacts generations.