10 Most Memorable School Visit Moments: #9

Every school I've had the privilege of speaking at has given me a great experience. Some have given me a great story, too.

"Theme Song"

year: 2009
state: Kansas






Because Clark Kent grew up in Kansas, I made my first trip there to promote Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. The media dubbed it the "Superman's First Home on Earth Tour." ("Media" is misleading. I mean me. No dia. Though two papers did cover it: here and here.)

The final school of my four days in Kansas did something no school I'd spoken at had done before (or has done since).

My presentation was set up in the gym. The 250 or so middle school students filed in and sat on the bleachers. I was the lone man on the floor before them, with the expanse of the empty gym behind me, except for some kind of sound system in the back. When my kind hosts (the principal and media specialist) were ready to introduce me, they surprised me in two ways.

First, someone scurried to the back of the gym and pushed a button on that sound system. The theme from Superman: The Movie filled the room. That music transports me in the cocoon of my iPod, so to hear it blasted in that space for that purpose was, simply, super cool. I had no opening move grand enough to match it.

Then the music stopped. The media specialist, with whom I’d arranged the visit, stepped up to introduce me. In my experience, most school visit intros, regardless of length, are built on the basic facts—where he’s from and what he’s written.

But this one was different.

The media specialist told the story of our “evolution”—how I e-mailed her the previous spring, how she politely but not definitively deflected me, how I tried again, how she had given me a closer look but no commitment, and how I contacted her a third time…at which point, she realized she had some fondness for my efforts…but still thought I was a little too dedicated.

However, she went on to say, something did compel her to take a chance on me. And she came to see that what I was doing was consistent with what I do in all aspects of my career, and what I was about to talk about with the students—the importance of persistence. Only she said it so much nicer.

I was moved that she thought about the process in that way. My presentation added another level to the topic: I mention (as does the book) that Superman was rejected for more than three years before a publisher said yes.

To wrap, back to the music: I find it funny (in a good way) that they played the Superman theme not for a guy who played Superman or even a guy who wrote Superman stories but for a guy who wrote about the two guys who created Superman. Is that six degrees of super-ation?

Read #8.

Read the whole countdown.

10 Most Memorable School Visit Moments: #10

One of the greatest privileges in writing for young people is interacting with young people. I began speaking at schools in 2001 through a New York City volunteer program called Authors Read Aloud and launched my own school visit program in 2004.

It did not get off to an auspicious start, as you are about to see.

Since then, I have visited around 80 schools across 13 states and, like any author, have had experiences from sublime to strange (but mostly sublime).

In honor of those kids heading back to school this week, hot as that is to believe, so begins my first TEN-part series: Most Memorable School Visit Moments.

For the first year or so, I didn’t take photos, but I did take notes. Of course, I have loved something about every school visit. And in a year, this list may be completely different. But for now…

Most Memorable School Visit Moment #10

"Snow Days, Long Drive"

year: 2004
state: Connecticut






To introduce myself to schools, I made my own mailing list. In October 2003, using a school directory web site, I went town by town in my county, calling every public elementary school and asking for the name of the person to whom I should address such a mailing.

In case you missed that word, it was every.

My list ended up including close to 400 schools. Took me the full day every day for a work week to compile.

Then I spent two more days stuffing envelopes and sticking on not one or two but four adhesives—school address, return address, a “teaser” label, and the stamp. The teaser was about a writer and cartoonist wanting to visit their school…so, not such a tease (and therefore, not such a good use of time).

I mailed off those 400…and got one call.

That school, praise be, booked me for January 27, 2004.

Which ended up being the first snowstorm of the season.

We rescheduled for February 6, which—no joke—became the second storm of the season. Look it up.

So we rescheduled for February 25 at 9:30 a.m.

Then one of my best friends had his first child, a son, and scheduled the brit milah (commonly known as the bris) for February 24.

At 5 p.m.

In Washington, D.C.

So my wife and I drove down to D.C., stayed for several hours, then drove the four hours home, arriving in the middle of the night.

The next morning, when I actually could’ve used a snow day, was perfectly clear. So I lugged the slide projector I’d bought on eBay (for $60! Who knew they’d be so expensive?) and did my first official school visit in a state of exhaustion so strong that I came home after and napped for almost as long as the drive from D.C.

A first is always memorable, and that one even more so.

Read #9.

Read the whole countdown.

An urban (and suburban) legend exposed as real

Picture books for older readers do exist:

Well, some in publishing aren't questioning that picture books for older readers exist—rather that a market for them exists. But would there be this many books if there was no market?

Perrot Library, Old Greenwich, Connecticut; 

you know photo is not manipulated because 

my book is not face out

Not pictured: the rest of the section. For more on the subject, see here.

Joe Shuster’s little sister

Joe Shuster, the artist who co-created Superman with writer Jerry Siegel, was in his seventh year when sister Jean joined him (and other brother Frank) in 1921. Here’s the Shuster family in their new digs after the success of Superman (plus a photo of Jerry in his new digs):

Saturday Evening Post 6/21/41

Today, Jean Peavy is Joe’s closest surviving relative. Last fall, I sent her a copy of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. Prior to that, she and I had not connected.

In October 2008, she wrote me a lovely thank you (and, when I recently asked if I could quote from it here, she gave me permission). Not only was I honored to have my first direct contact with a member of the Siegel or Shuster family, but I was touched that her handwriting reminded me of the only grandparent I had growing up, my dad’s mother, who passed away in 1998. (However, I am not saying this with any deeper significance. It seems almost all women of that generation have a shared penmanship.) Excerpts from her note:

In early 2009, I mailed Jean the two photos I had discovered of the Shusters's apartment building of 1934. She had no photos of the building herself. Excerpts from her February 2009 response (which was typed, so not as fun to scan):

Thank you for your letter and especially for the pictures of our old apartment building. If you say you were exuberant in finding them, then I was thrilled. The 1974 picture shows our front entrance on the side of the building. The upper left windows were where Jerry and Joe sat at the dining table where they created Superman. Those pictures bring back treasured memories of those days in the 1930’s where Joe and Jerry spent every day together creating.

With regard to a screen version of Jerry and Joe's story:

...will offer [Brad Pitt] a look at the screenplay to see if there is interest in playing the Joe Shuster character and/or in production. He would make a good looking Joe.

I’m glad my handwriting reminded you of your grandmother’s. Our generation is your history.

That last line struck me. And I loved her sign-off:

With good wishes for our future, Joe Shuster’s sister,

In July 2008, Cleveland hosted a joyous tribute to (and family reunion of) Jerry and Joe, dedicating Jerry’s newly renovated former home and unveiling commemorative fences at both that house and at the site where the 1934 Shuster apartment stood.

The fence at Jerry’s includes a sleek metal “S” done in Joe’s original style.

The fence at Joe’s features a blow-up of the first Superman story, from Action Comics #1.

I tried for months from afar to convince the committee in Cleveland to also include the photos of Joe’s former apartment building on his fence, since fans who make pilgrimage there most likely will never have seen the humble little structure in which Superman was first drawn. I was disappointed when (and still don’t know why) that didn’t happen.

However, the comic book pages do not fill the entire span of the large fence, so I am holding out hope that we may yet be able to add another panel with those photos. I feel it is the single most important piece of Shuster iconography to display there, since that is the actual site and those photos have not been published anywhere else except on this blog last summer and now in Craig Yoe’s book Secret Identity.

A final, somewhat related image: In 2008, Jamie Reigle of Super Collectibles (who’s generously been a nonstop promoter of Boys of Steel) asked any member of the Siegel and Shuster families he met to sign the title page of the unbound copy of Boys of Steel we’d sent before the book was released. I can’t read most of the names from the scan he sent me back, but here it is, visible only here and in Jamie’s private collection:

9/15/21 addendum: I only now learned that Jean Peavy died on 8/20/16. I never had the chance to meet her.

Your life, my book: the morality of writing biographies, part 2 of 2

(First read part 1 of 2.)

In her book about writing biographies, Meryle Secrest describes talking to a source about a subject’s possible connection to organized crime. The source said, “If you quote me, I won’t kill you but I’ll get you killed.”

Makes the threat of a lawsuit seem like an offer for a free chocolate milkshake. No one has threatened to kill or sue me. The worst so far: a few have been testy and one wanted a cut of any profit. There’s that vampire feeling again, even though writers do not need to compensate people they write about. (If they did, newspapers could never have existed.)

The purpose of biography, Secrest says, is “not just to record but to reveal.” That’s what many people would say: that there’s no point in writing, or reading, the life of a famous person if it doesn’t uncover some previously unpublicized piece of personal information.

One exception to this is the picture book biography. They may—but do not need to—contain a bombshell. They do need to tell the person’s story in a compelling way. Most new picture books about Benjamin Franklin don’t overturn previously held beliefs about him, but any new one should come at the subject with a fresh approach. That may be focusing on a little-known incident in an otherwise famous life, or telling a person’s story non-chronologically, or presenting a life in a stylized (but still factual) manner—using, say, rhyme or humor.

…a biography that did not use events in its subject’s personal life to explain his or her renown is almost unimaginable. Still, the premise poses a few problems. For one thing, it leads biographers to invert the normal rules of evidence, on the Rosebud assumption that the real truth about a person involves the thing that is least known to others. A letter discovered in a trunk, or an entry in a personal notebook, trumps the public testimony of a hundred friends and colleagues.

This is why I feel every picture book biography doesn’t need to emphasize—or necessarily even mention—the person’s childhood. The early days of a notable adult are often fascinating, but if not, don’t force it. In some cases, adult greatness simply cannot be traced back to moments in childhood, at least not explicitly. Besides, as the article later states:

People like the notion that a little luck is involved in success—that becoming famous could be sort of like winning the lottery. One day, you’re riding along on your donkey or in your Honda Civic or whatever, a voice speaks to you, and suddenly you are on the way to being St. Paul or Leonard Bernstein.

The essence of the turning point is that it is retrospective. No one realized at the time that when little Johnny Coltrane put down the duckie he would go on to create “A Love Supreme.” But all biographies are retrospective in the same sense. Though they read chronologically forward, they are composed essentially backward. It’s what happened later, the accomplishment for which the biographical subject is renowned, that determines the selection and interpretation of what happened earlier.

Biographies, strictly speaking, are not true stories. They are approximations of true stories. They are true moments strung together in between many more true gaps. Any life is too large for any one book. Every biographer must decide what to put in—and what to leave out. They are separate processes.

In Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, I chose to include the fact that Joe Shuster used his mother’s breadboard as a drawing surface, but within that fact, I chose to leave out the claim that he could not use it on Thursday nights because that’s when his mother needed it to make the challah for Shabbat.

…only a sliver of what we do and think and feel gets recorded...

…and even less makes it into a biography.

A biography is a tool for imagining another person, to be used along with other tools. It is not a window or a mirror.

True. It is more like a fraternal twin—it has some relation, but is not, and never can be, the exact same.

Your life, my book: the morality of writing biographies, part 1 of 2

At one point, August was National Biography Month. I wrote it down a while ago, which means I got it from somewhere. However, Googling it (in quotation marks) now reveals that few sites mention it and only one puts it in August.

Did they discontinue it because the greeting cards didn’t sell?

In any event, now is still an appropriate time (as appropriate as any) to talk about the (print) lives of others.

In 2007, I saved an article from The New Yorker about the process and perils of writing biographies. Just as biographers dissect their subjects, I have dissected this fascinating analysis of people who write intimately about other people they (oftentimes) never met.

This is how the article starts:

At a time when instruments for recording and disseminating information about people’s intimate behavior are cheap and easy to use, and when newspapers and magazines and television programs and Web sites purvey that kind of information without restraint, and when even ordinary people apparently can’t do enough to tell the world everything about themselves, a defense of the professional biographer’s right to pry does not seem something that civilization stands in dire need of.

Even more so now than just two years ago when this was published, our privacy is trading its protected status for status updates. Quite often, the more one says about himself, the less others are interested, yet that isn’t stopping many of us from tweeting our every twitch.

Future biographers of anyone who came of age in the Digital Age will have it both easy and hard. Easy because so many of us are over-documented. (Their lives are already stored online!) And hard because so many of us are over-documented. (Is there anything left to discover?)

About Meryle Secrest, who has written biographies of people including Frank Lloyd Wright and Salvador Dali, and who wrote a book about writing biographies:

Many of her stories about getting the story involve figuring out ways to…massage the relatives, friends, ex-friends, lovers, ex-lovers, work associates, lawyers, dealers, executors, and agents…who obscure a clear view into the private world of famous people.

Anyone who knows or knew the subject of a biography-in-the-making—and who is still alive, of course—is a biographer’s research priority. The conundrum about that is that memory is unreliable, and even if it wasn’t, people lie. Biographers sometimes present a seemingly trustworthy person’s recollection as fact without backup proof because there simply isn’t backup proof—consider, for example, an anecdote from a long-ago cocktail party that (as far as we know) no one recorded or journaled about immediately after. People I’ve interviewed more than once, with months separating the interviews, have contradicted themselves about events they personally experienced.

Secrest:

“The older I get the more sympathy I have for families who discover that some stranger has decided to write about their famous member without, as it were, so much as a by-your-leave. Prurience titillates…leading to bigger sales and better royalties for the writer who is, not to put too fine a point on it, making money from others’ misfortunes.”

So are biographers vampires, feeding not on the blood but on the feats and flaws of others? When I first read what Secrest wrote about "others' misfortunes," I was startled by how uneasy it made me feel—I get paid to write about people who will not get paid. But the U.S. Constitution does grant us the right to speak and write freely. And as Oscar Wilde apparently said (see, I wrote "apparently" because I wasn’t there): “There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

(By the way, I had to look up “by-your-leave.” It means “request for permission.”)

Part 2.

A great cause in a caring city

In October 2008, I was one of 800 volunteers to participate in Read Aloud Day, a program in which those volunteers scatter to every public elementary classroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the same day and read a book.

The sponsoring organization was the School Volunteer Association of Bridgeport. If you are local, please consider becoming a volunteer this year. You will be happy you did, plus there are donuts.

Jerry and Joe, small business owners

Thanks to Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, I've branched out beyond schools and libraries in booking speaking engagements. The new (to me) venues have ranged from Jewish museums to historical societies. Soon I will add my first luncheon keynote address to the list. And to deliver that address, I'm making my third trip to Cleveland (fourth to Ohio) in nine months.

The Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), which I've been told is part of the largest Chamber of Commerce in the country, kindly invited me to speak at their Home Business Network Annual Luncheon, held on 8/26/09. This year's theme is "Spotlight on Success."

To promote the event, COSE set up this radio interview with me:

All professional artists must also be, on some level, businesspeople. Like the interview, the keynote looks at Jerry and Joe's creation of Superman as a home-based business success story. When you know a body of material well enough, you find yourself able to mold it to fit angles you didn't think you'd ever be asked to speak about.

Why so much Siegel and Shuster these days?

Last Son by Brad Ricca.

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.

Secret Identity by Craig Yoe.

The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer (plus the triumphant 2008 campaign he spearheaded to renovate Jerry Siegel's former Cleveland home).

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman by golly.

To name only five.

A friend asked me why I think the last few years have seen a surge in interest in Siegel and Shuster. Good question, and it also begs a more specific one: is this increased interest only within the comics community or also among the general public?

Either way, I don't think it has as much to do with Michael Chabon as some might say. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which came out in 2000) wonderfully helped bring a certain mainstream validation to comics, but I don't think the book inspired the average reader to then pick up, say, Men of Tomorrow. And despite its popularity, it didn't make Siegel and Shuster household names (not that it was necessarily trying to). To comics people, Kavalier & Clay was an engaging new lens through which to consider the Siegel and Shuster story. To non-comics people, it was just another good book.

My friend wondered if the surge in interest might relate to the litigation between the Siegel family and DC Comics. But that is not on the radar of most people beyond the industry, at least not those I talk to.

I think the interest is at least in part because of a suddenly urgent sense of posterity—the last of the Golden Agers are dying now, so people are scrambling to document them while those original creators (or people they knew) are still around to speak for themselves.

I think it also has to do with the timing of the formative years of our generation. Many of the people researching Siegel and Shuster today grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. The superhero culture of that period has had a distinct influence in what has been happening recently at DC:

• the acclaimed mini-series Justice written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross paid tribute to the Legion of Doom from the cartoon Super Friends (which debuted in 1973)
• the Hall of Justice and Wendy and Marvin, also from Super Friends, have been brought into print "continuity"
• other characters created for that cartoon (the Wonder Twins, Black Vulcan, Samurai, Apache Chief) are getting the action figure treatment (strange, when you think about it, that it took as long as it did)
• artists are drawing Superman to resemble Christopher Reeve (the first Reeve Superman movie came out in 1978)
• the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold is based on a comic whose glory days were the 1970s

The 1970s were also the period in which Siegel and Shuster became known to a wider public. In 1975, they won the settlement from Warner Communications, which made the New York Times and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. In 1976, their names were restored to all Superman stories in all media, starting with Superman #302 and culminating majestically with Superman: The Movie (see at 2:45). They (especially Jerry) began to attend comics conventions and at least one movie premiere.

In terms of comics, we are the first generation fueled less by the clinical nature of precedent and more by the emotional nature of nostalgia. We are creating superhero content by deepening the superhero content of our youth, and I think at a certain point, it's natural for that interest to extend from the fictional history to the real life history of these characters.

Though I loved Super Friends and Superman: The Movie and Superman comics, I wrote my book on Jerry and Joe without reflecting consciously on any of the thoughts above. (And at the time, none of the Siegel and Shuster projects listed at the start of this post were out.)

I simply found a surprising gap in the market and wanted to try to fill it with a book for both kids and adults that could do its small part to spread the word about two visionary guys (long gone) and their grand achievement (here to stay). It has been so gratifying that so many others have simultaneously helped bring the men behind the Man out from behind their glasses.

"Nonfiction Is Non-Boring"

That was the title under which I proposed a book on writing vivid nonfiction.

The book, published by Scholastic with the longer, less cheeky, more literal title Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities That Really Work!, is newly available.

Though it will be marketed to teachers of grades 4-6 for classroom use, I wrote it for all writers. And though it specifies nonfiction, most of the activities also pertain to fiction.

The book consolidates every tip I've thrown in my mental backpack over the last decade and features often funny writing exercises on each page. Some have answers, most don't.

It also includes spot art—some quite surreal—drawn by yours truly. (Note: I am not saying that is a selling point.) Its back cover calls me a "nonfiction expert and humorist." (Note: I admit I like that but swear I did not write that.) And, as always, it is loaded with name-dropping of my friends.

Here is a close approximation of the introduction to the book:

In a batch of thank you letters I received after one of my school visits, a comment from a girl named Shannon stood out: “My teacher told us you wrote nonfiction and I thought ‘Oh, great!’ But I was wrong!”

I’ve written books or articles about the creators of Superman, the invention of the telephone, foxes, ghosts, the planets, the Liberty Bell, Kwanzaa, Greece, the history of junk food, the origins of everyday pets, the reasons we laugh, myths about pirates, Rosa Parks, Juan Ponce de León, the Great Chicago Fire, and more. As a whole, those topics don’t have much in common, but most of the material I wrote about them does.

In each case, I strove to make my nonfiction come alive. All writers owe it to their readers to do this. If writers are bored when writing, how will readers feel when reading their work?

Shannon wasn’t the only young person I’ve met who felt that only made-up stories can hold her interest. Therefore, I was thrilled I helped her realize that nonfiction means non-boring. And I did it without saying “Truth is stranger than fiction.” For starters, that’s a cliché, and clichés, of course, spoil good writing like mold on cream cheese. But more to the point, truth can also be more exciting, scarier, funnier, or sadder than fiction.

This book is designed to demonstrate that by giving students tools to create strong nonfiction. Loaded with reproducibles both fun and functional, it breaks down nonfiction to its many components, letting students strengthen their skills one sentence at a time. While the approach includes some grammar, it is largely concerned with content, style, and structure. Sprinkled throughout are “Quick Tips” for adding a little extra life or lyricism to writing.

Just because a true story is compelling does not mean it is easy to put into print or memorable once it’s in print. One of my professors used to say it’s not enough to have a good story. You need a good story, well told. Sometimes, a good writer can take even a story that at first seems unremarkable and type gold from it.

Whether your students are writing descriptive, expository, narrative, or persuasive nonfiction, they are usually assuming several roles at once without even realizing it: storyteller, detective, reporter, historian, teacher, maybe even rebel. Tell them that and they may feel empowered. They may see that with a mix like that at work inside them, it is hard to imagine not writing something intriguing. The difference between non-exciting nonfiction and exciting nonfiction is a well-equipped writer.

One author, five questions

Michael Spradlin, a fellow author with a diverse range of offerings, has a feature on his blog called "Five on Friday." It's not about cocktails.

Rather it's about other authors. Every week, Mike generously invites another one onto his property to answer five rapid-fire questions about his books, past and future. My Q&A is up. Thanks Mike!

Thank you again, librarians

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman was named a Notable Children's Book 2009 (middle readers category) by the Association for Library Service to Children.

According to the announcement on Booklist, "[l]ibrarians throughout the U.S. helped to select the titles from the several thousand children’s books published during 2008."

Lousy at sports

Google “boys of steel” (come on now, don’t let me be the only one) and you’ll find that the majority of results have to do with a book called Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.

According to that book, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster were “lousy at sports.”

So I find it funny (come on now, don’t let me be the only one) that buried among those results are two related to athletics.

The first non-book “Boys of Steel” is a charity golf tournament. It’s sponsored by SME Steel (whose short web site intro, one of the few ever that I haven’t immediately skipped, strikes me as a cross between a cyborg movie trailer and an electronica rap video). It benefits a Utah school called West Ridge Academy. The logo says it’s the sixth annual but the text says it’s the seventh. Either way, it’s going strong, as steel tends to do.

In 2008, I contacted the school to see if we could partner in some way, thinking the synergy was too good to pass up. (On a secondary level, I wondered if this could also be my overdue motivation to learn to play golf.) I emphasized that I felt the book would tie in nicely with a youth competition because its central theme is the importance of persistence. That is a universal message but one with heightened relevance for athletes (and artists). The school declined this year, but perhaps for the seventh (or eighth)?

The second non-book “Boys of Steel” is a boys-only gymnastics class. It’s offered by Energyplex, a Canadian family recreation center that opened in 2009. I contacted them, too, because when you say “gymnastics,” the first thing most people think of next is “picture books.”

Joking aside, there is always possibility. I pitched them ideas including a special offer—sign up for the class by a certain date and the cost includes a copy of the book. The class is good for the body, the book is good for the mind! The owner kindly suggested that I check back in the fall, when enrollment is likely to pick up.

It’s not just the book that is about persistence.

Spot the difference

The last time I was in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in New York City, I was pleasantly surprised to see Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman face out. This is typically a small rush for most authors, and some manufacture this rush on their own if a bookstore has not done it for them. (I don't think this is illegal.)

Can you spot the difference between these two photographs?

as first seen:

before I left:

"Boys of Steel" turns one, kiddos

A year ago today, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman was released.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the book by purchasing it, borrowing it from the library, spreading the word about it, attending one of my speaking engagements, and all other ways super and small.

Most comics fans didn't need Boys of Steel to learn who created Superman—the names if not the details. One of the most rewarding aspects of promoting this book has been watching kids (with teachers, librarians, and parents alongside them) discover the story for the first time. At numerous events over the past year, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster have gone from unfamiliar to household names.

A discovery I made recently: Boys of Steel is one of the select group of titles recommended by James Patterson's Read Kiddo Read (the ages 6 and up category). Here's the site's description of the program:

James Patterson has been the number-one selling author in America for the past three years, with more than 16 million books sold in North America during 2007 alone. He is the first author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times adult and children's lists.

Patterson is a champion of reading and for several years sponsored the James Patterson Pageturner awards, which rewarded people and organizations that spread the excitement and joy of books and reading. Through this and other efforts he has given millions of dollars to people and causes that are working to spread the joy and excitement of reading. READKIDDOREAD—which helps parents and educators connect their children with the books that will turn them into lifelong readers—is his latest innovation in this area.

Basketball and boy bands

Twenty-three (and possibly counting) people from Washington state and northern California visited my blog within the last hour. A pattern like that is usually the result of a regional link, such as an article in a local newspaper.

However, this time, it was because they had all searched the same question:

"What do Shaq, Jon Bon Jovi, and Joey Fatone have in common?"

That led them here not because I've written about basketball, hair bands, or boy bands but rather because I've mentioned that all three have Superman tattoos. (And this was not the first time this question for the ages has sent unsuspecting innocents to a blog about book publishing.)

Hope one of you won the radio station giveaway.

The “Bad” Beginning, part 2 of 2

Mike’s insistence and my persistence call to mind the age-old question, what wins in a fight between an irresistible force and an immovable object?

Whichever of the two Mike was that day (November 21, 1987), he won. I signed up to sing (“sing”) my version of “Bad” in the talent show.

I was so nervous that I sat the whole time.


Note two things about the next photo:

1. the album cover next to the DJ
2. the gender of everyone visible in the front row


The crowd, to my relief, did indeed love it. I’d never been cheered for before. And the effect on me was immediate and profound. At the dance that followed the talent show, I went up to a cute girl I had recently met and, in front of her friends, asked her to dance. She (in front of her friends) said no, but Rachel and I did become friends, and still are today.

The next day we left. Our pre-departure ritual sounds so quaint today: we wrote our friends little notes and chaperones distributed them on our respective bus rides home. The reviews were in:

Opinions expressed at age 15 are not necessarily still in effect 20 years later.

“Bad” did more good than boosting my confidence around girls. It was a giddy reminder of how much I liked writing—and an early sign of how much I would like being before an audience.

I wrote talent show sketches or song parodies for every subsequent convention throughout high school. I won chapter and then regional BBYO board positions. I took a public speaking course and felt in my element.

And at nearly every Sweet 16 party I attended that had a DJ, I was asked to do “Bad” for the video. (Those videos may still be out there somewhere. I know my sister's bat mitzvah one is.) As will be no surprise to people who know me, I kept track of the performances—twelve total, though I did note at the time that the list was “possibly not complete.”

Here are photos from a few:

2/5/88

8/88

4/28/90

The sheet on the wall behind us covered the word "BAD" written in masking tape; I ripped it down at the start of the first chorus. I remember thinking this was feverishly exciting.

You can see a bit of the "BAD" in masking tape. My friend Seth was discreetly helping me unzip my jacket, which was on backwards in a primitive attempt to mimic one of Jackson's looks. I ripped it off at the start of the third chorus. This revealed a shirt to match that chorus, which is about someone wearing plaid. Again, high drama.

6/5/90

The last performance of "Bad," and most ill-fated, but not only because of that outfit. Separately, pink shorts and baby blue tank tops are misguided. Together, with brown shoes thrown in as a bonus offense, they are unforgivable.

In college, I joined a comedy troupe, reported for the campus TV news, and directed a play I wrote. Today, as an author, I speak often to students, teachers, and various other groups at schools, conferences, libraries, museums, and other venues nationwide. Throughout all of this, “Bad” has remained at the front of my mind.

When Michael Jackson was first publicly accused of child molestation, I was devastated because I believed those accusations. But I would have been devastated even if I hadn’t, because so serious a charge clings to you for life no matter what the truth is. Mike said he was going to stop listening to Jackson’s music.

After Jackson died, I read about the psychology of the man and the specifics of the allegations and was surprised that my opinion changed. I now believe Jackson, however perplexing he could be, did not harm children. He did things I would not do and do not condone, such as sleep in a bed with children who were not his own, but he openly admitted this, possibly because he was somehow too childlike himself to see it as inappropriate. Besides, a person of his means was likely never alone, and I want to believe that his staff would not stand by silently and let victimization happen in the next room. The rationalizations in either direction will continue to go on and on.

It may seem that I am being colored by the magnitude of his talent viewed through the permanent lens of death, but given what Jackson did to prove his innocence (and I’m not talking about the highly publicized payouts), combined with certain details of the case and trial that are beyond the scope of what I would like to get into here, his innocence is what now seems more plausible to me.

When Michael Jackson was “Bad” he was great, and if he was bad, it is beyond sad. Yet even if I am wrong about his innocence, it would not change that a defining shift in my evolution will forever be linked to him. And though I am conflicted about it, I still enjoy his music and marvel at the way he could move (which puts me in good company with, oh, most of the free world).

This troubled superstar whom I never met still occasionally influences little things in my little life. Most recently, my one-year-old son earned the nickname the “King of Poop.”

Inspiration is simple. Legacy is complex. Put another way, inspiration is a thriller and legacy is dangerous.

8/12/19 update: I watched Leaving Neverland. I now believe he did molest children.

The “Bad” Beginning, part 1 of 2

Since June 25, I have debated posting on this topic. Coming up on a month later, I won the debate. (That’s one nice thing about debating yourself—you always win.)

I owe my writing career to Michael Jackson.

In 1987, starting my sophomore year in high school, I was a bit adrift, more withdrawn than I’d ever been. People who had been my friends in middle school had gone in a different direction without me. But people I had been friends with back in grade school were coming back into my orbit—one in particular, Mike (still one of my best friends today).

Mike saw things quicker than most people. He and these other kids I was becoming reacquainted with were members of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, an international Jewish youth group. Since the spring of our freshman year, Mike had been trying to persuade me to join—not because he had anything to gain from it but simply because he thought I’d thrive in it. Ever the sly pitchman, he would work me, casually mentioning the aspects of BBYO he thought would most appeal specifically to me.

I resisted until the fall. The tipping point, which in retrospect should’ve been the most obvious ploy, was when Mike told me “Every weekend we have sleepovers. With girls.”

Even though this turned out to be only partially true—it was not every weekend—joining would be a step up for a guy who spent most Friday and Saturday nights home (doing what, I honestly don’t remember). So I went to my first meeting, and felt warmly welcomed by new-old friends and strangers alike.

At the same time, one of the most eagerly anticipated follow-up albums in rock history had just come out and was dominating the pop culture landscape: Bad by Michael Jackson.

I liked the title song so much that I wrote a parody of it. It was also called “Bad.” (I wrote it the nights of October 12 and 13, 1987. I just checked—those were not weekend nights. And for the record, this was a full four months before the most famous parody of the song—“Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Fat”—was released.)

I shared my parody with Mike, already my comedy-writing partner for articles for our BBYO chapter’s newspaper. He loved it.

A month later, some two hundred BBYOers from my region bused up to the frosty Catskills in New York for the annual Fall Convention—two nights in a hotel without parents. (Hence these conventions were anticipated even more eagerly than follow-ups to blockbuster albums.)

The programming highlight of these conventions was the Saturday night talent show. Perhaps I should write “talent” show. But still, there were always at least a couple of funny performances and watching bad ones could be just as fun.

I was still on the shy side when Mike directed me to the talent show sign-up sheet and encouraged me to sing “Bad.” Not breaking with tradition, I resisted. He assured me that the audience would love it. And to prove it, he was willing to put himself—and the other four guys in our little gang—on the line. He said they’d all come up there with me and “dance in the background.”

I thought all of this was a bad idea.

Really, really bad.

No singing ability.

No choreography.

No rehearsal.

No idea that this four-minute parody I wrote for myself was about to turn me back into the person I was and the person I was perhaps destined to be.

Part 2 (including photos) tomorrow.

Capitol Choices

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman was named a 2009 Capitol Choices title (ages 7 to 10 category). Since 1996, this Washington DC-based group of librarians, teachers, booksellers, children’s literature specialists, reviewers, and magazine editors have annually highlighted "noteworthy books for children and teens."

How you found me: part 3

Lots of click-throughs to this blog result from straightforward searches including "Boys of Steel" and "picture book biography."

Lots, but luckily, not all.

This is part 3 in an irregular series revealing some of the irregular search phrases—all verbatim, most strange—that have led people here:

• topless beach Fairfield CT
• motivational speakers superhero elementary
• bee keeper speakers in Houston
• some biographies than one kid did
• students prefer non-fiction picture books
• is their a name for books with text and some pictures
• book steel and kindness
• the characteristics of a noble man
• Batman vs. Hitler
• sticker mania
• how you found me

A different type of father

Today, when the creative force behind an iconic character dies, it's unthinkable that this would not be mentioned in mainstream news and entertainment publications.

Yet when Batman co-creator and original writer Bill Finger died, in 1974, no obituary ran in the New York Times...or Variety...or anywhere else...

...except two lesser-seen DC Comics publications (neither was a regular monthly comic book). One was an oversized special called Famous First Edition: Batman #1 (1975).

This is the inside front cover:

"Last February, The Batman lost a father. One of his two real fathers, that is."

The one who is never officially named as a father, despite the undisputed paternity test on record here and elsewhere.

The query that sold "Boys of Steel"

At the Wooster (OH) Young Authors' Conference, an aspiring author (and mother of one of the Young Authors) was asking me about getting published. We've stayed in touch and this week, she e-mailed me two questions.

One of the questions: "Do you have any suggestions as to how I can sell myself to an editor when I have never been published previously?"

Every editor is different so there is no one-pitch-fits-all answer. But generally, it doesn't matter if you've been published. What matters is if you wrote a good book. (Every author used to be an unpublished writer. And every author, regardless of how many well-received books s/he's had published, can still turn out a subpar book.)

Of course an editor will not get to your good book unless you introduce it both in a professional manner and in a way that makes it irresistible. In the query letter, describe your book as if it were flap (or back cover) copy, or even a poster tease, engineered to hook that casual browser.

Here is the query I sent Janet Schulman, the editor who eventually bought Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (which, at that time, was Boys of Steel: The Subtitle Is Undetermined):

I'm a writer who's authored over [oops—should have been "more than"] 40 books with publishers including Scholastic, HarperCollins, and Dutton. I also write regularly for magazines including Nickelodeon and National Geographic Kids. I don't work with an agent, which is why I'm contacting you directly.

May I have your permission to submit a picture book manuscript? I ask you because of The Boy on Fairfield Street. My manuscript is similar in that it focuses on the origin of another 20th century icon. Here's a one-line summary:

In the thrilling days of yesteryear, after a sleepless summer night, two shy boys create a character who will become the greatest icon in the history of pop culture.

I know the picture book market is tough right now, but this would be the first book on this subject in this format; plus the subject is as kid-friendly as they come. With all due respect to Ben Franklin, Pocahontas, Rosa Parks, and Neil Armstrong, the shelves are starving for some new blood, and my subjects are particularly inspirational. I'm confident that this book would appeal to a whole bunch of libraries, school and public. And there's a whole other active market for it which will be obvious once you read it.

If I may send it, to what address?

I didn't give the title or even specify the subjects of the book. Funnily, the book itself doesn't include the word "Superman" in the story proper. But that's off-topic.

The other question the aspiring author asked this week: "What is currently the turnaround time from putting an article or query letter in the mail to receiving the editors acknowledgment and answer?"

There is no "currently." It varies from editor to editor, day to day.

I e-mailed the above query on 2/22/05 at 11:10 a.m. I heard back at 11:26 a.m. But I e-mailed other editors queries before that...and, in some cases, have yet to hear back. So again, it varies.

(I should clarify that industry protocol typically dictates that unpublished writers not e-mail an editor unless submission guidelines or the editor him/herself has stated that is okay.)

Magazine covers and pop culture museums

Coincidence 1 of 2

Hard as it is to believe, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman is the first standalone biography (for any age) of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. (They’ve been a part of more involved comics histories, of course, but they’d never had a book to themselves.)

Why was I the fortunate one who got to benefit from this odd oversight?

Because my uncommon last name sounds like one of Superman’s colleagues?

Because one of my high school friends turned out to be Lois Lane’s grandson?

Because my daughter has the same name as Superman’s Kryptonian mother—though I swear I didn’t remember that when we named her?

Or is it because of March 14, 1988?

That day was a milestone for both Superman and me. It was the date of the issue of Time magazine that featured Superman’s 50th anniversary on the cover.

It was also my 16th birthday—when a boy becomes a man. Wait, that’s 13…or is it 18? No, 21…

Regardless, sixteen is significant because it’s the age You’ll Believe a Man Can Drive.

I had first become acquainted with Superman a decade earlier, but I like to believe it was on that day when our destinies synced up. Exactly twenty years later, Boys of Steel came out.

Coincidence 2 of 2

This also involves Superman and also requires mention of a(nother) high school friend, a one Mr. Barker. (Stay with me—I’m also not done with Coincidence 1 of 2.)

Unlike most of my friends, I was not able to line up a post-college job before graduating. So I went to my hometown, Cheshire, Connecticut. It’s lovely, but not a place with much opportunity for a young person who wants to work in the popular arts.

After a demoralizing summer of fruitless searching, I finally landed a position at Abbeville Press, a book publisher in New York. (This was the company at which I would publish my first book and meet my future wife.)

A couple of years later, I learned that the Barker Animation Art Gallery and the Barker Character, Comic, and Cartoon Museum opened…in Cheshire. A world-class collection of pop culture prints and obscure memorabilia, side by side…in Cheshire.

(I asked my high school friend Barker about it, and the founders are his cousins.)

My parents had left Cheshire soon after I moved to New York, so I rarely went back. When I did, if I saw the Barker comic compound, it was only from my passing car. Always in a hurry but not always with good reason, I never stopped.

Flash forward to 2008. To promote Boys of Steel, I went to the 30th annual Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, also a lovely town but even sleepier and more remote than Cheshire. Yet it does boast a pair of rather unusual tourist attractions.

Being the “official” home of Superman, it is home to the world’s only Superman Museum. It also has the Americana Hollywood Museum. I marveled at the seemingly endless array of pieces this place houses, including collectibles related to superheroes, film noir, science fiction, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, James Bond, probably Jesse James for all I know. Life-sized models of classic monsters, TV Guide issues, old board games, movie props, and more kitsch are arranged high and thick in room after room.

I was astounded that such a collection was assembled in this unassuming town. Some of the people who lived nearby probably didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of it, or even know about it. I remember thinking that the town was lucky to have this sprawling time capsule of pop culture icons in their collective backyard and remember thinking how much I would’ve loved to have lived near a place like it when I was a kid.

Flash forward to this past weekend. It just so happened to be the 31st annual Superman Celebration and I just so happened to be not in Metropolis but in Cheshire. For the first time, I went inside the Barker Character, Comic, and Cartoon Museum. But I felt like I was back in the Americana Hollywood Museum.

It hadn’t occurred to me that they could be two of a kind—maybe the only two of their kind in the world?

And one of these rare places, a place I would’ve loved to visit as a kid and work for as a young adult, was in my hometown…just too late for me.

But not in every way.

In the fall I will be doing a Boys of Steel event at the Barker Museum…

…which, incidentally, perhaps coincidentally, displays a copy of the March 14, 1988 Time.

Library book shelving: a cautionary tale

I only recently became aware that some libraries are shelving Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman according to its Library of Congress number, 741.5—the drawing/cartoons section.

Yet I want it to be shelved with all the other picture book biographies. The picture book bios of Muhammad Ali are not shelved in sports and the picture book bios of John James Audubon are not shelved in birds...

Libraries can overrule the LOC designation, and indeed some have shelved Boys of Steel in biographies—but, for example, only 10 out of the 130 or so libraries in my home state.

I wonder if some librarians shelved it in 741.5 only because they didn't realize it is a biography. They don't have time to become familiar with every book they process, given the volume. They see "Superman" on a cover and the shelving response is automatic. Who would figure a book with that word in the subtitle is nonfiction?

What I did not realize until this past weekend is that no picture book biographies (at least none I checked) are catalogued as biography. Therefore, it is always up to librarians (or library distributors) to determine when a book would be better served shelved in biography rather than with the subject. In other words, my original plan to try to get the Library of Congress to re-designate Boys of Steel is, mercifully, unnecessary.

The effect of the book will be limited if it remains in the drawing/cartoons section. Kids who look there typically want books on how to draw. They would not necessarily be surprised to find a biography on Superman's creators there—yet they also may not pay it much mind given their purpose in looking in that section.

I feel circulation of Boys of Steel would increase significantly if it were shelved in an area where more kids regularly browse (often because a biography assignment forces them to). Some of those kids would be pleasantly surprised to stumble upon unconventional picture book nonfiction among the multiple books each on Abraham Lincoln, Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart, and Ashton Kutcher.

Thank you to Marc Aronson at Nonfiction Matters for helping me spread the word about this by posting a slightly different version of this post even before I did, and thanks to Betsy Bird, also at School Library Journal, for offering to do the same.

Librarians! Please reshelve! Picture book biography authors! Check your shelving!

More on this.

6/17/09 addendum: A sage poster on Betsy Bird's blog explained a detail that makes the difference: the Library of Congress adds a "B" to the catalog number if the book is a biography, meaning the librarians are explicitly signaled that the book can be shelved either with its subject matter or with biographies. Thank you, B, and thank you, BB!

The kids have spoken

I'm humbled to report that Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman made the Children's Choices 2009 list. Here is how the list is described on the International Reading Association site:

A booklist with a twist! Children themselves evaluate the books and write reviews of their favorites. Since 1974, Children’s Choices have been a trusted source of book recommendations used by teachers, librarians, parents—and children themselves. The project is cosponsored by IRA and the Children’s Book Council.