"I've always loved Frog and Toad and George and Martha. Those are the ultimate friendship books. They hold up to a million kinds of reading," says Jon Scieszka, one of two authors who will be coming to the Triangle in September to sign new books with the theme of friendship --Scieszka picture book, Cowboy and Octopus (Viking, $16.99, ages 4-9) and Deborah Wiles' novel The Aurora County All-Stars (Harcourt, $16.00, ages 9-12).
Cowboy and Octopus, rivals the classic friendship stories with the humorous twist that has won Scieszka his well-deserved reputation. The book's intial pages show the matching genius of illustrator Lane Smith as two cardboard characters emerge from disparate worlds-- Cowboy cut from a paper doll book and Octopus sheared from a comic book. The two are plunked down in child-like collages and then comes the mission of the Scieszka and Smith's sixteenth collaboration, can they make us believe in this unlikely friendship?
"The challenge was to get the characters out of the stereotypical picture of what they were." Viewing Octopus Scieszka thought "Look at the head on that guy! That's a friend who gets a lot of stuff, but sometimes misses the most elemental thing because he's overthinks things. And Cowboy just does. It's part of what makes it tough being around him, but it also makes him a solid friend-you know he'd be honest, and straightforward and dependable and completely loyal."
The friendship starts with an attraction...and a joke. When Octopus solves Cowboy's query about how to work a teeter-totter they become friends as they "shake hands...and shake hands, and shake hands, and shake hands...". Fun and friendship last throughout a series of short chapters. Cowboy, whose mind seems as slow as his drawl, means well, but he doesn't get Octopus' knock-knock jokes, and serves a dinner of beans and bacon in lieu of sea foods his friend might prefer. Octopus is kind, remarking on Cowboy's new Spanish fedora "that is really...um...different." Octopus asks Cowboy about his hat, he's told it looks "like something my horse dropped behind him."
Scieszka who once played around with little army guys and hopes today's kids can imagine the two friends in a slew of situations and "play around with ideas about what it is to be a friend and that there's not just one way to be a friend. That's what makes a good friendship. Two cowboys hangin' around isn't always entertaining. They'd just be eating beans and bacon."
The book speaks to all ages. "There are little bits of Cowboy and Octopus in everyone. People at my publishing house have been trying to figure out who they are. It's like an inkblot picture book. They're the ultimate cardboard characters that people can project all their stuff on."
Deborah Wiles' third novel about the fictional Aurora County, Mississippi, The Aurora County All-Stars (Harcourt, $16.00, ages 9-12), finds central character, twelve-year-old House Jackson, up to his eyeballs in friendship challenges. House, pitcher of the Aurora County All-Stars, has been secretly reading classic books to the dying 88 year-old-town recluse, Norwood Boyd, known to every child in town as Mean-Man Baby-eating Boyd. House's best friend Cleebo Wilson's protests at the betrayal are nothing compared to the team outcry House faces when he can't rescue the All-Stars from participating in the 200th Anniversary pageant that's been scheduled at the same time as the 4th of July game against their primary competitors. House wants to live up to his deceased mother's motto, to "swallow your toads early in the day and get the hardest things over with first", but responsibility, loyalty, and truth blur into confusion.
What's Wiles' most difficult toad? "The one most difficult for me to swallow is and always has been injustice. I can't swallow people being mean to one another. Children have a hard time too. They pump themselves up for becoming mean back or pretend it doesn't matter, they put on all this armor to make it seem okay, but it never really is." Wiles's grew up traveling with her Air Force father and she "can remember wanting friends badly, wanting someone to talk to and identify with. Friendships are proving and learning grounds where we try and make peace with ourselves and with one another."
In The Aurora County All-Stars Wiles' presents the complexities of friendship and House does a lot of wondering. Wiles combines quotes from Walt Whitman, baseball greats with her own image-rich writing. "In the schools that I visit, I see fractured, busy lives with no time for reflection. My stories' slower pace creates introspective characters and gives you time to spend with them. These characters don't mirror the outside lives that kids have today, but I know they mirror the inside lives because we're all human and all have moments of wondering what's it all about."
In her books, adults back off and let the children work out their problems. Wiles believes in "Martin Luther King's 'Beloved Community' where people respect each other, give each other a voice, and young people have a right to work out what their needs and desires are. They have the right to compromise, conversation and challenge. Those are important values that children are entitled to and it teaches them what friendship is all about."
The authors will both be appearing at Quail Ridge Books, Deborah Wiles on September 17th at 7 pm and Jon Scieszka on September 22nd at 11:00 a.m..
Coming in October: Short Novels for Independent Readers
Please send your recommendations to susiewilde@bellsouth.net