It’s almost Halloween!
And you know what that means, right?
On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin will rise out of his pumpkin patch and fly through the air with his bag of toys for all the children! (This is according to Linus, and I’m afraid I can’t vouch for him. Lucy either. You can’t trust those Van Pelts. Just ask Charlie Brown and his football.)
Simon Spotlight has released a lap board book edition of everyone’s favorite Halloween special. I’m “sincerely” thrilled by this big, sturdy book full of nostalgic scenes.
There’s Snoopy fighting the Red Baron, Charlie Brown and his rocks, and smitten Sally blindly following her pumpkin patch Romeo.
This got me to thinking—what’s NOT in this Peanuts classic?
THE PARENTS.
Think about it: the Peanuts Gang always arranges escapades themselves. They produce Christmas plays, serve Thanksgiving meals (with a little help from Snoopy & Woodstock), and generally carry on without adult interference. When there is an adult nearby, we never see them; we only hear a fuzzy WAH-WAH-WAH-WAAAAH from a trombone-like ghost.
As a child, I wanted the same autonomy as Charlie Brown and his friends. I didn’t want to be told what to do. I didn’t want help from an adult. I wanted to create kid-only hijinks. And my brother and I did—unbeknownst to our parents, we hosted a casino and an auction in our basement and profited $18, which was a lot of money in 1979!
But I digress.
I took Schulz’s NO ADULTS ALLOWED format to heart when I became a picture book writer. With rare exception, parents don’t appear in my stories. They’re not necessary. The fun is all kid-led and kid-approved.
In THE MONSTORE, Zach keeps buying monster after monster to spook his little sister Gracie, but never does a parent interject with “that’s a bad idea”. In YOUR FIRST DAY OF CIRCUS SCHOOL, an older brother leads his younger brother through the ups and downs of unusual academia, but never does a parent step in to catch the sibling’s fall from great heights.
When I do picture book critiques, I’ve noticed that some writers bring parents into their stories as a voice of reason. Typically with these lines, I hear the writer themself trying to refocus their character’s attention. I interpret this device as an “I’m not sure what to do here” move. My advice is thus: take out the parent and try another method. Introduce an action that makes the characters realize (or not) their mistakes. Make their world adult-free.
My philosophy is that children are constantly being told what to do—by their parents, their teachers, and other adults of authority. A picture book should be an escape from the real world. Another adult admonishment is unwelcome. Let the kids roam free! Let chaos ensue.
And let them figure it all out! You’ll find that those kiddos are pretty darn smart.
Many thanks to Simon Spotlight for supplying a copy of IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN to a lucky blog reader (US).
Just leave a comment below to enter and a random winner will be selected in November.
Good luck!
Source : Unpacking Peanuts: How Charles M. Schulz Informs My Writing (plus a giveaway)
