If T liked writing, I wouldn’t be sharing this story.
Excerpt of a letter she wrote to Jake Maddox:
You’re one of my favorite authors. I am in fourth grade and I am nine years old. I love reading your books. I wanted to ask you for more hockey books please. As a girl I love hockey and there are just not enough books about hockey. Also could you make them longer. I always finish them in 2-3 days. In addition most of the hockey books I read the main character is a boy. I think that girls that play hockey will enjoy it as well. Thank you for reading this letter.
You can’t tell from that letter, but T is a reluctant reader and writer. The letter is the first time this school year she has been excited about writing.
How do I know all this?
When Amanda, an educator friend of mine who works at T’s school, tried to figure out how to get the letter to Maddox, she discovered that Jake Maddox is not a real person.
“Jake Maddox” is a pseudonym that a publisher used for multiple authors who wrote certain series books.
Amanda then discovered that one of the Jake Maddoxes was me.
So she asked my advice on how to proceed. She didn’t want to burst T’s bubble.
I said it’s perfectly appropriate—in fact advantageous—to explain pen names to young readers and that I’d be happy to do it.
T’s parents gave us permission to document this, so below is Amanda giving T the letter I wrote her. [I’m especially happy with the donut/booger section.]
After T reads the letter out loud, she and Amanda have a short conversation which explains my opening sentence. In short, this feels like a breakthrough.
Text of my letter:
I have a secret to share with you.I got a letter you wrote to the author Jake Maddox, telling him you like his books.But I am not Jake Maddox.Actually, no one is.Most books you read are written by the person whose name is on the cover. But sometimes the author name is a pseudonym—that means it’s made up.Why?Sometimes an author uses a pseudonym when he writes a book on a subject that he hasn’t written about before because he doesn’t want to confuse his readers.For example, let’s pretend I wrote a lot of books about donuts, then wrote a book about boogers. Fans of my donut books might worry all my future books would be about boogers. So I might use a fake name for the booger book.And sometimes the person who decides to use a pseudonym is an editor at the publishing company—as long as the author agrees. In libraries and at bookstores, books are typically arranged alphabetically by the last name of the author: all the A names first, then the B names, and so on. You probably knew that already!In the case of Jake Maddox, the publisher wanted a lot of their adventure and sports books to be next to each other on library shelves. That way, kids who like one could easily find others. But these books were actually written by different authors. If shelved alphabetically, they’d be all over the place!To make sure all of these books were side-by-side on shelves, the publisher gave all of them the same author: Jake Maddox.So when I said I’m not Jake Maddox, that wasn’t 100% true.I was *a* Jake Maddox, which is why I got your letter…but there were many others. All of us appreciate when a reader like you likes our books!And even if I was none of the Jake Maddoxes, I would still be happy to hear how much you like his books, and how much you like reading in general.I no longer write books for the publisher that made up Jake Maddox, so I can’t suggest that Jake write hockey books, or hockey books with girl protagonists, or longer books—though I agree with all of those things!What I can do is encourage you to ask your librarian, your teacher, and your parents to help you find books with all of those things…because plenty are out there!And I can start you off with a recommendation that is not long but is about hockey and does star a girl/woman:It’s about Manon Rhéaume, the first and only woman to play a game in the National Hockey League!And…I know Manon! So if you read the book, and you’d like, I can ask her if she’d send you an autograph. I can’t promise, but it’s always worth asking!In any case, that was so nice of you to write a letter to Jake Maddox. Now you know a secret. and a bit more about authors and publishing.I will end this letter so you have time to go back to reading all those great books.
