"It turns out that in the end you were stronger than you thought you were."
Have you heard of the Little Free Library? It's a non-profit that encourages community book exchanges. One of my friends has one in her yard and it charmed me the moment I saw it (and, of course, endeared me to my friend even more!). 150,000 free little library boxes have sprung up around the world!
Maybe because I am the daughter of a pre-school teacher. Or that I became an English major. Maybe because I love to write to figure out how I feel about things. Perhaps because of all these reasons, I love children’s books. Last week I wrote about why Jesus might ask us to be like children.
I’ve also come to love to learn about people who write children’s books, like my beloved friend Betsy Duffey. And E.B. White, and C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. And, most lately, Kate DiCamillo, the author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Desperaux.
Kate was asked by a reader if children’s books authors should tell children the truth or preserve their innocence. Her answer left me in aching, wistful tears, the good kind that make me want to show up in the world. The kind of tears the gospel of truth and grace opens up in me.
(It's a little long for a blog post, but I promise you, it's worth it.)
Here's her response:
Dear Matt [who posed the question],
… You asked how honest we, as writers of books for children, should be with our readers, whether it is our job to tell them the truth or preserve their innocence.
Here’s a question for you: Have you ever asked an auditorium full of kids if they know and love Charlotte’s Web? In my experience, almost all of the hands go up. And if you ask them how many of them cried when they read it, most of those hands unabashedly stay aloft.
My childhood best friend read Charlotte’s Web over and over again as a kid. She would read the last page, turn the book over, and begin again. A few years ago, I asked her why.
"What was it that made you read and reread that book?" I asked her. “Did you think that if you read it again, things would turn out differently, better? That Charlotte wouldn’t die?"
"No,’' she said. "It wasn’t that. I kept reading it not because I wanted it to turn out differently or thought that it would turn out differently, but because I knew for a fact that it wasn’t going to turn out differently. I knew that a terrible thing was going to happen, and I also knew that it was going to be okay somehow. I thought that I couldn’t bear it, but then when I read it again, it was all so beautiful. And I found out that I could bear it. That was what the story told me. That was what I needed to hear. That I could bear it somehow."
So that’s the question, I guess, for you and for me and for all of us trying to do this sacred task of telling stories for the young: How do we tell the truth and make that truth bearable?
When I talk to kids in schools, I tell them about how I became a writer. I talk about myself as a child and how my father left the family when I was very young. Four years agoI was in South Dakota, in this massive auditorium, talking to 900 kids, and I did what I always do: I told them about being sick all the time as a kid and about my father leaving. And then I talked to them about wanting to write. I talked to them about persisting.
During the Q&A, a boy asked me if I thought I would have been a writer if I hadn’t been sick all the time as a kid and if my father hadn’t left. And I said something along the lines of "I think there is a very good chance that I wouldn’t be standing in front of you today if those things hadn’t happened to me." Later, a girl raised her hand and said, "It turns out that in the end you were stronger than you thought you were."
When the kids left the auditorium, I stood at the door and talked with them as they walked past. One boy — skinny-legged and blond-haired — grabbed my hand and said, "I’m here in South Dakota and my dad is in California." He flung his free hand out in the direction of California. He said, "He’s there and I’m here with my mom. And I thought I might not be okay. But you said today that you’re okay. And so I think that I will be okay, too."
What could I do?
I tried not to cry. I kept hold of his hand.I looked him in the eye.I said, "You will be okay. You are okay. It’s just like that other kid said: 'You’re stronger than you know.’"
I felt so connected to that child. I think we both felt seen.
My favorite lines of Charlotte’s Web, the lines that always make me cry, are toward the end of the book. They go like this: "These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days …"
I have tried for a long time to figure out how E. B. White did what he did, how he told the truth and made it bearable.
And I think that you, with your beautiful book about love, won’t be surprised to learn that the only answer I could come up with was love. E. B. White loved the world. And in loving the world, he told the truth about it — its sorrow, its heartbreak, its devastating beauty. He trusted his readers enough to tell them the truth, and with that truth came comfort and a feeling that we were not alone.
I think our job is to trust our readers. I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen. I think our job is to love the world.
Love, Kate
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How does the gospel, in its combination of grace and truth, remind us that we are not alone?
In what ways do you read the gospels again and again to know that you can somehow bear this beautifully broken world? What part do you return to often?
In what ways can you see and let yourself be seen today?
JUDY