A:  "I taught mostly math in older elementary grades and many kids missed the humor in math. The Try-a-Different-Approach Thinking that most brilliant thinkers have. Since then a math book has always been in the back of my head. It grew for a long time. I just kept putting together little bits and pieces in a monster folder; vignettes, fits and starts, things that came and went. But the thing that pulled it together was the funny little word problems that I know kids groan at. There was a bunch of really cool math stuff out there, like Marilyn Burn's work, but they didn't really bring an original story with it. I wanted to write a book with math in mind, not as an afterthought, or a thing you tack twenty lesson onto."

Q:  Can you say something about working with Lane Smith, the illustrator and Molly Leach, the book designer?

A:  "Since The Stinky Cheese Man, our books have been a real collaboration between Molly Leach's design, Lane's art, and my words. The book becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Because the collaboration is integral to the process, it makes our work recognizably different."

Q:  The True Story of the Three Little Pigs touched off so many new books, what changes do you think Math Curse will create?

A: " I would love to see this book touch off the same kind of revolution in mathematics that happened in whole language as a result of our earlier books, but it might be tough because there are more mathphobes. The world of elementary school teachers has a lot of readers, but I don't think everyone is convinced that math is good. No one seems to trust having a good time with math."

Q:  What made you trust math?

A:  "I had the good fortune to have teachers that introduced me to what a goof math was. They were so knowledgeable about their subject that they weren't phased by questions like, 'Why are we doing this?' or 'What is this for?'  Those are great questions for kids to ask, but people who are uncomfortable with math say, 'Don't ask that, we're going to do this page and this is how we do it!' That's the wrong approach because it completely baffles kids and you need to help them make those larger connections and allow for different thinking and different problem solving. All the best scientist and mathematicians take a new look at a problem, have an Aha moment, and imagine what if. Teachers deeply inside the subject can anticipate that kids are going to wonder and recognize the brilliance of kids."

Q:  One of the things that surprised me was that the book didn't have answers?

A: "They're not actually in the book, but on the back cover. I originally wanted to put the wrong answers on the book. I wanted people not to focus on the answers. I thought in advance I would hate to see kids in classrooms being tortured by the obvious assignment of answering every question in the book, so I thought I'd better give them the answers."

Q:  Have you ever thought of sitting in on committees to formulate national mathematics test?

A:  "If I did, I'd put in answers like e. it makes no difference or f. who cares?"

Q:  Your books are so different than many children's books. Why is this?

A:  "People don't understand that kids' brains work differently; they're not built the same way adult brains are because they've been stimulated differently. I see kids' brains as a net, they're all over the place. I really see them as the biological equivalent of the Internet. The way they think makes those of us who have been raised in a more more left-to-right, top-to-bottom way nervous. That's why the design part of our books is crucial because it speaks to them, it's all over the place and it's a visual literacy most adults don't have. Kids read the page and they need books produced by people who are trained in that stuff. A lot of people try to imitate that design by turning things crazy and wacky and sideways, but in our books, it's a very intentional turn of phrase, or color, or picture."

Q:  The book does have a very layered, intentional feel to it. Do kids pick up that up?

A:  "Kids are discriminating and they reverberate in the weirdest ways. For instance, the kids who have heard of the ancient Mayan numerals will love seeing that in a book. Most people would say, 'Don't include that because not everyone knows what that is!' But I think the exact opposite, put everything in there! I was just sorry I couldn't fit in decimals, tessellation, topology and topography, knot theory and twenty million other things."

Q:  What's your favorite part of the book?

A:  "Hard to say. (He thumbs through the book) I think the money part is stunning. It's got just the great kind of things I know Lane will come up with, those zany little eyeballs looking out of Abe's head. I also really like the chalkboard nightmare room because it's crammed with some of my favorite mathematical formulas. There aren't that many people who are in touch with the quirkiness of kids."

Q:  Do you have personal favorite children's book writers who do have a sense of the zany?

A:   "I was making my own mental list the other day, trying to write my own piece recommending humor books to people."

Q:  Who's on it?

A:  "It's a short list. I was just wandering around in my favorites: Arnold Lobel, James Marshall, Daniel Pinkwater, Paul Jennings, Roald Dahl."

Q:  Will there be a science sequel?

A:  "I hadn't thought about that until I read Math Curse to kids. I thought this young girl being fraught with science problems as just a great ending, but that was one of the very first questions kids asked when I read the book with them. I've started considering the possibility because one of my other favorite subjects is science. I'd kind of love to let kids point the way because I'm sure they'll start writing things up and sending them in."

Q:  So there might be a possibility of a sequel?

A:  Yeah, if we can figure out the nature of consciousness and how it is and where it is. That's the stuff I've been reading lately, should be a simple job. (He laughs)

Below Scieszka's patina of humor and playfulness, there is a respect for kids that shapes his work.  "I gravitated to fairy tales because it's the genre that kids are in charge of, can take control of, and be in on the joke."  His books may appeal to adults,  but they are created for, motivated by, and support the vision of kids.

This dimension is even more apparent in Scieszka's Time Warp Trio series.  Joe, Fred and Sam are three wild and crazy guys who have traveled in time in The Good, the Bad and the Goofy (Viking, $11.00),  The Not-So-Jolly Roger (Viking, $11.00)  and Knights of the Kitchen Table (Viking, $11.00).  Now the ten year olds travel to prehistoric times where they face earthquakes, a saber tooth, and the frustrations of  communicating with cave people in Your Mother Was a Neanderthal (Viking, $10.99).

All Scieszka's skinny time travel novels are fat with adventure, laughs and tension.  Their seventy-plus pages feature wacky heroes who are consistently kid-like and each book fulfills a promise of wild adventure and giggles galore while making  history come alive.  Scieszka hit on the idea while teaching sixth grade.  "History's just  full of stories that you can hardly match for sheer bizarreness in the fiction world."

Scieszka's motivation to write novels also grew from teaching.  He saw  "precocious second graders who leap out of picture books and have no where to go."  Then he taught fifth, sixth, and seventh graders and saw those "who are slower to start  reading and need something that looks cool, but is small, and manageable"    He  learned that he couldn't sell reading by lecturing about how much fun it is.   "For some  kids, reading's painful torture. You have to show them reading's fun, not just be flapping  you gums."  Scieszka also saw how kids feared being wrong and wanted to find  materials that were worth their risking. Scieszka sees reading as "a connected web of allusions to other things... the more you read, the more connections you make.  I  wanted to give kids a way to start."   Looking through text books showed him "how  things shouldn't be written" and knowing that kids learn from seeing things done wrong  he thought, "wouldn't it be fun to wreck stuff?"

He tried out his narratives orally on his nine year old daughter, "a tough critic",  and hit on the the success of cliff hangers because "if it's exciting, you don't have to talk them into reading."  Each chapter of Your Mother Was a Neanderthal ends  breathlessly.  One chapter finishes with the boys considering the potential of becoming  dinosaur lunch and the next leaves the three boys trapped in a cave jail wondering if  the cave women are cannibals.

Scieszka gives kids "the power over the language in the book."  Fred, one of the  trio, teaches a caveman, Duh, to cook "boog" (a cave term for a "completely rotten, maggot-covered piece of meat") into burgers.  If you know Scieszka's penchant for  having fun while he writes, you know what's coming next.   Duh calls it "booger".  Under the slapstick of word and action, there's also subtlety that challenges kids to higher levels.   At another point, the trio fears becoming "woolly mammoth toe jam".  This is the kind of quiet statement that  keeps a reader on his toes, so that he doesn't miss a Scieszka joke.

"The art is knowing where to draw the line and not go completely overboard, but allude to those things in a literary way."  Scieszka's use of language reflects the way he sees from a kid's eye view.  "The greatest thing I ever did was to be in second grade again.  We forget sometimes, we get socialized to not say things we think of.  We try to explain how the world works, but it doesn't have to work that way, kids know we can change.  I see myself as one of them....I'd at least like to be an honorary kid again.  I  see myself as an arrested development second grader."

The Time Warp Trio react and relate with kid standards.  "They may seem just like stupid gross characters, but that's how kids connect with each other."   Under the time warp trio's taunting and teasing, "there's sensitivity and sensibility for each other.  For me that comes from growing up with five brothers.  We get back together semi-regularly and drive all our extended families crazy."  Reminiscent of the Time Warp Trio is the Scieszka Sextet and Jon enjoys this same kind of play with his collaborator Lane Smith whose like "an honorary Scieszka brother."

And where will the Trio go in the fifth adventure?   "Number five is up for grabs,  maybe into the future, or maybe into the creepy magic of Egypt where the boys turn into girls, or maybe even into a comic book."  This spring, The Not-So-Jolly Roger and The  Knights of the Kitchen Table will be released in paperback. (both from Puffin, $3.25)   To celebrate, Puffin is hosting a contest to find out where Time Warp Trio fans want to see their heroes travel next.  Entry coupons will be in the new books and available through bookstores.  Winners will be selected on the basis of creativity and originality from 6-10  and 11-14 year olds who write a two hundred word essay describing where the boys should go and why.

It's just one more way Scieszka and Smith have found to connect with kids.  They'll take the idea and "pull the adventure off in our classic Scieszka-Smith de-construction of style!"

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©Susie Wilde 1998