I post writing prompts here on Fridays. Most will work for fiction writers and memoirists and for both kids and adults. To surprise yourself, when you are ready to commit to writing, scroll down past the photo for a writing prompt!
Fiction writers:
Write a story about an April Fool’s joke that goes terribly wrong.
Memoir writers:
What do you remember about April Fool’s Day from your childhood? Or from when your children were young? Were you ever embarrassed by a trick that didn’t work out right? Or if you have no April Fool’s Day memories, write about an embarrassing memory of another kind.
DID YOU DO IT?
I’d love to know. Tell me in a comment or share an excerpt from what you wrote.
If you are an American reader who admired and loved Judith Kerr’s novel based on her family’s escape from Germany in the 1930s, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, there is something you need to know immediately. It is the first book in a trilogy! She wrote two more books about what happened afterwards! The second, Bombs on Aunt Dainty, is about Anna’s teen years in London during the war and the third, A Small Person Far Away begins with her as a young wife after the war.
Four years ago I stared yearningly at these books prominently on display in a Waterstone’s in Oxford asking myself how it could possibly be that I didn’t know that they existed. Are you wondering the same thing? It’s because, although we share a common language and although Britain is not so far away, and although these books obviously sell extremely well in Britain, for some reason, tragically, they don’t seem to have been published in the U.S.
Waterstone’s in Oxford
I was feeling very guilty about spending any money at the time I came upon these books. I had taken a half-year unpaid leave from my job and wasn’t bringing in any income. Everything in the UK was very “dear,” as they say. My progress on the novel I was trying to write was slow and painful. One day I stood in a village shop for several minutes agonizing over whether it was morally acceptable for me to buy the expensive pack of index cards that I wanted to plot out my novel with. I ended up buying a set of blank postcards instead because they were cheaper. But that day in Waterstone’s, even though I was feeling nervous about money, I had to buy these two books immediately. I’m so glad I did.
I recently took Bombs on Aunt Dainty down from my shelf and read it again. I found in it one of those blank British postcards I had bought to organize my novel with. Evidently I had been using it as a bookmark. And once again, I was struck by the power and beauty of this book.
Although it is written in a style very like When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit—simple, spare sentences, that nonetheless manage to be absolutely direct and telling and at times heart-rending—this is not the kind of book Americans give to children. It grapples with some difficult reality. Early on in the book, young Anna hears her elderly father getting something from a doctor so that he and his wife can be prepared in case Hitler does invade England. She is never told what it is, but she knows nonetheless. At another point we hear about the first man Anna is in love with. Kerr writes beautifully about the way Anna’s joy suffuses the world around her and blends with her awakening joy in visual perception and in drawing:
“She loved everything. She felt as though she had been asleep for years and had just woken up. In the mornings, when she took the bus down Putney Hill to the tube station, she stood outside on the platform, so as not to miss a moment of the view in the early light.” (pp. 232-3)
Judith Kerr
The novel also includes realities that I have seen very little represented, depicted with a spare, straightforward, unflinching honesty. Anna’s uncle, who has escaped from a concentration camp, is terribly emotionally and mentally damaged by the experience. We also see Anna herself as a young teen in a cellar during the London Blitz feeling it shake around her and experiencing sheer terror that she will be suffocated, trying not to panic so that she will use less oxygen. Of course people in London were not able to “keep calm and carry on” absolutely all the time, but you don’t often see that reality represented this vividly and honestly.
The fact is that some children’s lives contain a lot that isn’t appropriate for children. This is a beautiful book, but it would have a hard time finding an audience in the US, because it falls between genres. Evidently this doesn’t trouble people in the UK, which is a wonderful thing, because otherwise these books wouldn’t exist.
So if you want to read it, how can you? Out of curiosity I checked, and even my very good public library interlibrary loan network does not have it. At the time I’m writing this, it isn’t even available in print from massive online retailers, though you can get an electronic text. If, like me, you vastly prefer a real, physical book, you’ll have to plan a trip to the UK! Or—and I have absolutely no financial stake in the matter—but I do see that you can also buy copies from amazon.co.uk.
On Fridays, I post prompts for writers who feel like trying something new to spark creativity. Most will work for both memoir writers and fiction writers.
Most will work for teachers to use with kids, too.
DID YOU DO IT? If you wrote for half an hour or longer (or, for kids, whatever time the teacher sets), even if you didn’t complete a story or an episode, you have met the writing challenge! You can post “DID IT!” in the comments!
If you’d like to post a bit of something you wrote in the comments, I’ll be very excited to see it. Please do!
Scroll down past the picture when you are ready to write:
Fiction writers:
Write a story beginning with the following sentence:
“Ni’chelle was always picked second, never first, when they chose up teams.”
On Fridays, I post prompts for writers who feel like trying something new to spark creativity. Most will work for both memoir writers and fiction writers.
Most will work for teachers to use with kids, too.
DID YOU DO IT? If you wrote for half an hour or longer (or, for kids, whatever time the teacher sets), even if you didn’t complete a story or an episode, you have met the writing challenge! You can post “DID IT!” in the comments!
If you’d like to post a bit of something you wrote in the comments, I’ll be very excited to see it. Please do!
Scroll down past the picture when you are ready to write:
Fiction writers:
Write a story that begins with the following sentence:
“Steven is the only person I have ever met who doesn’t like chocolate.”
Memoir writers:
Write about something that was odd or distinctive in the way your family ate.
On Fridays, I post prompts for writers who feel like trying something new to spark creativity. Most will work for both memoir writers and fiction writers.
Most will work for teachers to use with kids, too.
DID YOU DO IT? If you wrote for half an hour or longer (or, for kids, whatever time the teacher sets), even if you didn’t complete a story or an episode, you have met the writing challenge! You can post “DID IT!” in the comments!
If you’d like to post a bit of something you wrote in the comments, I’ll be very excited to see it. Please do!
Scroll down past the picture when you are ready to write:
Games.
What active games did you play as a child?
Hide and seek? Sardines? Mean orphanage? Flying School? (OK, my childhood friends and I invented those last two!)
Memoir writers:
Narrate an incident from your life that took place during a game.
Fiction writers:
Write a story in which something embarrassing or something magical happens during a game.
On Fridays, I post prompts for writers who feel like trying something new to spark creativity. Most will work for both memoirists and fiction writers, and for children as well as adults.
If you write something you’re happy with, you are welcome to post a paragraph from it with your name attached in the comments section.
Or you can just post “Did it!” in the comments!
Scroll down past the picture when you are ready to write:
Flowers.
Remember an incident from your life that involves flowers. Maybe you have a memory involving flowers that grew in your yard. Maybe you remember cut flowers that someone gave you—and what you did with them.
This week’s moment of literary joy comes from chapter 11 of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, which I’ve just been teaching in my Nineteenth-Century British Fiction class.
Here’s the passage:
Fanny agreed to it, and had the pleasure of seeing him continue at the window with her, in spite of the expected glee; and of having his eyes soon turned, like hers, towards the scene without, where all that was solemn, and soothing, and lovely, appeared in the brilliancy of an unclouded night, and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods. Fanny spoke her feelings. “Here’s harmony!” said she; “here’s repose! Here’s what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only can attempt to describe!”
Now, many readers, even avid Jane Austen fans, dislike Fanny Price, the heroine of this novel. She’s too meek and good, too compliant and quiet and shy for the taste of many Austen readers. Many who love witty, clever, talkative, imperfect Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice can’t abide her.
Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice
I love Fanny. Is it because this was the first Jane Austen novel I ever read (in Martin Price’s class at Yale)? Is it because I was a quiet, shy girl myself? Hard to say. But I love Fanny, despite her perfections.
But what I love even more are the moments in Mansfield Park where Fanny is not so perfect. You have to look really hard for them. This is one of them.
Fanny is in love with her cousin Edmund. (Her first cousin?! Yes. That’s a subject for another day.) Edmund, however, is in love with Mary Crawford, who is everything Fanny is not—witty, quick, clever, sharp of tongue, irreverent.
Fanny must endure many moments of agony first watching Edmund and Mary together and then listening to him sing her praises after she has left.
This passage comes at such a moment. Mary has just trotted off to join in a glee with Edmund’s sisters. Fanny is pleased that he doesn’t follow Mary to the pianoforte to listen, but evidently his design in staying behind is to enjoy mooning over Mary to the long-suffering Fanny.
Another Austen heroine at the pianoforte!
He has just said: “There goes good–humour, I am sure,’ . . . .There goes a temper which would never give pain!’”
Fanny agrees, of course. She never overtly disagrees when he praises Mary, at least not until much further on. But then notice what she does. She looks out at nature rather than in at the singing women. And she says, ““Here’s harmony!” . . . . “here’s repose! Here’s what may leave all painting and all music behind.”
She echoes Edmund’s phrasing “There goes, there goes”/”Here’s, here’s”—but she implicitly corrects him in doing so. She praises nature, not Mary. That is where what is praiseworthy is to be found.
And she gets in a final, subtle dig. While Mary is singing, Fanny tells Edmund that the beauty of nature leaves all music behind.
Mostly perfect. Almost always perfect. But not quite perfect. That’s why I love Fanny Price.
On Fridays, I’m going to post prompts for writers who feel like trying something new to spark creativity. Most will work for both memoir writers and fiction writers.
Most will work for teachers to use with kids, too.
DID YOU DO IT? If you wrote for half an hour or longer (or, for kids, whatever time the teacher sets), even if you didn’t complete a story or an episode, you have met the writing challenge! You can post “DID IT!” in the comments!
If you’d like to post a bit of something you wrote in the comments, I’ll be very excited to see it. Please do!
Scroll down past the picture when you are ready to write:
Fiction writers
Write a story that begins with the following sentence:
“The water fountain at the zoo was definitely broken.”
Memoir Writers
Write out a memory involving an experience at the zoo. It might involve an animal you loved or an animal you were frightened by. Maybe you got lost at the zoo. Maybe you begged your parent to buy you something special to eat. Maybe a child begged you to buy her something. Was it a hot day or a cloudy day or a wintry one? Did something dismaying or odd or unexpected happen at the zoo?
Or, if you’ve never been to a zoo, narrate a memory involving any animal.
I had another “small world” moment today when I came across GeorgeElla Lyon’s delightful nonfiction picture book, Mother to Tigers, illustrated by Peter Catalanotto (Atheneum 2003).
This is another terrific picture book to buy for children who love animals and true stories. It would also be great for elementary school teachers looking for irresistible nonfiction for the classroom. In simple, engaging prose, this book tells the story of a woman, Helen Martini, who nursed rejected lion and tiger cubs from the Bronx Zoo in her New York City apartment in the 1940s.
At first Martini did this for free, and then in 1944 she talked the zoo into letting her establish an animal nursery. She became the first woman keeper at the Bronx Zoo.
No tigers born at the zoo had ever survived before, but Helen raised twenty-seven! The vivid, energetic illustrations and lucid telling of this compelling narrative make this book an absolute winner, and I’m so glad that I came across this book and learned this story.
Helen Martini, photo from My Zoo Family
I especially enjoyed an incident involving Helen’s attempt to do laundry in an apartment bathroom while mothering three rambunctious tiger cubs. It turns out that tigers, unlike domestic cats, love water!
I definitely need to read Helen Martini’s memoir, My Zoo Family (Harper 1955), next. It is long out of print, but, via the magic of interlibrary loan, it is winging its way to me even as I type.
But here’s my “small world” moment. Reading the “Author’s Note” in the back of the book, I was mildly astonished to discover that Helen Martini (then Helen Delaney) went to Joan of Arc Junior High on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Helen Martini with Bagheera, photo from My Zoo Family
Why?
Because that’s where my father, Jean-Pierre Meyer, first went to school in America when he arrived as a French Jewish refugee in November of 1942. And that’s where my grandmother, Germaine Meyer, learned English in night school classes.
Joan of Arc Junior High
So in my second novel, Skating With the Statue of Liberty (coming out on April 12), which was inspired by my father’s first months as a French Jewish refugee in the United States, that’s where twelve-year-old Gustave first goes to school and negotiates the complex strangeness of America.
I mean, what are the odds? There are a lot of public junior highs in New York! So it’s really kind of remarkable.
It is all the more so because I had another “small world” moment about Joan of Arc Junior High a little over a year ago. I was speaking at a Wondermore “What’s New in Children’s Books” event in Boston along with Eric Velasquez. He’s the illustrator for New Shoes, and I was excited to meet him for the first time. He spoke before I did and he described a graphic memoir he is writing that is in part set at the junior high he attended, which was—wait for it—Joan of Arc Junior High!
Eric Velasquez
The school isn’t even all that enormous. I find this odd because I’ve never met anyone in my adult life who went to Dumbarton Junior High, in Maryland, where I suffered through 9th grade.
I don’t know whether Joan of Arc keeps a record of its notable alumni.
But here are three.
Helen Frances Theresa Delaney Martini, a student in the 1920s. First woman zookeeper at the Bronx Zoo.
Jean-Pierre Meyer, my father, a student in the 1940s. Algebraic topologist and long-time Math Department Chair, The Johns Hopkins University.
Eric Velasquez, a student (I’m guessing) in the 1970s. Artist and writer.
On Fridays, I’m going to post prompts for writers who feel like trying something new to spark creativity. Most will work for both memoir writers and fiction writers.
Most will work for teachers to use with kids, too.
DID YOU DO IT? If you wrote for half an hour or longer (or, for kids, whatever time the teacher sets), even if you didn’t complete a story or an episode, you have met the writing challenge! You can post “DID IT!” in the comments!
If you’d like to post a bit of something you wrote in the comments, I’ll be very excited to see it. Please do!
Scroll down past the picture when you are ready to write:
Clothing.
Remember a piece of clothing you hated when you were a child. Why did you hate it? What did it feel like when you wore it? How did people react?
Memoir writers: Write out your memory.
Fiction writers: Narrate an episode in which a child has to wear that piece of clothing.
