Todd Strasser's Blog
November 13, 2019
YES, I DON’T REMEMBER WOODSTOCK
Just about everybody over the age of 60, it seems, knows someone who went to Woodstock. The original crowd estimate was around 400,000, but thanks to the movie, web sites, books and other media relating to the event, almost anyone can recite in detail what it was like: The rain, the lack of food and shelter, the amazing, and not so amazing performances, the wonderful feeling of togetherness despite the challenging conditions.
I, on the other hand, hardly remember anything about Woodstock. And you know what that means? I must have been there.
Over the 50 years since that iconic 3-day festival of Peace, Love, and Mud, I’ve spoken to others who were there and have trouble remembering. We agree that part of the problem was certainly lack of sleep and abundance of illicit chemicals, but just as daunting is the memory’s inclination to conflate what we experienced at the festival with what we later saw on the screen in the movie that followed a year or so later. I suspect that just about everyone who went to Woodstock also saw the movie, and probably more than once. Why? To see if they could find themselves on the big screen, of course.
I went to the movie at least three time when it came out roughly six months after the festival (Alas, I am one of the roughly 390,000 people who are easily unidentifiable). But as a result of seeing the movie then, and several times since, I have reason to believe that my memories of the original event have become seriously compromised.
I still have some recollections that I’m nearly certain are real: Riding up Rt 17 through the rain on my motorcycle with my girlfriend early Saturday morning. Stopping at the Red Apple Rest and finding it jammed with long hairs like myself. Snaking around the fifty gallon drums the state police had used to block the exit we needed to take. Riding along the edges of lawns and fields once the road became too clogged with trudging longhairs and abandoned cars. Leaving the motorcycle parked on a dirt (or was it gravel?) road, after which my girlfriend and I waded into the crowd to find a patch of grass where we could spread a sleeping bag and sit down. We’d hardly gotten settled when, 25 yards in front of us, a naked woman suddenly jumping up to face the crowd, shouting incoherently and gesturing wildly with her hands and arms until two people near her put a blanket over her shoulders and got her to sit back down.
After that, my memories start to get as muddy as the ground we sat on. I’m pretty sure we settled down beside a fellow wearing a necktie around his head like a bandanna who shared a joint and a peanut butter sandwich with us. I think he was the one who warned us not to eat the corn from the surrounding fields, saying some people had tried it, and had gotten diarrhea because it was feed corn for animals, not humans. I kind of remember taking a handful of coco puffs from a box being passed around. And that fellow wearing a poncho who was leading a sheep on a leash and carrying a sign about loving, not eating, our animal friends may have passed nearby. Or is that something I only know about because of the movie?
From there on, my memory gets even soupier, surely thanks to lack of sleep and the endless stream of joints and bottles of wine being passed around (at least, I think that’s what happened). I think I remember Country Joe doing the Fish cheer on Saturday afternoon, and being one of the tens of thousands who joined in. I think I went up to a concession stand to buy some hot dogs (or were they hamburgers?). I might remember the set Santana played, but after that, most of my memories of the music from late Saturday afternoon into early Sunday morning have become too reminiscent of the movie to be trusted.
I have no recollection of the Grateful Dead playing in the rain around midnight (their performance isn’t in the movie), nor of the rain itself that night. And unless I somehow mastered astral travel (not entirely out of the question given the amount of drugs that were said to be available) it’s impossible that I could have been close enough to the stage to see the rose-colored glasses that Sly (of Sly and the Family Stone) was wearing. The one memory from that night that I hope is authentic is very early Sunday morning while The Who performed on the stage down in the glen where it was still dark, the first light of morning beginning to turn the tops of the surrounding hills gray. (I’d be interested to know if anyone else shares that recollection).
A few years ago, I had lunch with my former girlfriend, hoping that she might help spur some recall of what we did during the day on Sunday. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, she couldn’t remember that day at all, but she did help solve one mystery -- where we spent Sunday night, and why, on Monday morning, she was gone. Also, why, unlike most of the remaining crowd Monday morning, my clothes were dry. (Did anyone back then think to bring a change of clothes to a three-day event? Not me. Underwear? It was the 60s; did we even own underwear?) Anyway, my former girlfriend was pretty sure we’d stayed in a tent with some guys who were leaving at five in the morning to go back to the city. She’d left with them to get to her job.
I must have slept well in that tent Sunday night (so any memory I have of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, or Ten Years After would have to be from the movie) because my recollection of Monday morning is much clearer. Sadly, I missed one of my favorite groups, The Butterfield Blues Band, but I recall seeing Sha Na Na, followed by Hendrix’s famous closing set, and then hiking back to the road, where my motorcycle was still standing. I’d half expected it to be gone, or at least be knocked over during the exodus that began during the wind and rain storm Sunday afternoon and continued through the night (Where did my girlfriend and I find shelter during that afternoon rain storm? We’ll never know).
Over the years I have met a few people who do have very precise memories from Woodstock, but most of them weren’t there for the entire event. I’ve also spoken to some who were there and hardly remember any of it, including how they got home after it ended. Even without the impediments of sleeplessness and elicit chemicals, and the intrusion of the movie on our fragile recollections, the ability to remember certainly does vary greatly from person to person. But as a rule, I go by a slightly modified version of the famous slogan of that entire decade: if you remember it (well), you (probably) weren’t there.
I, on the other hand, hardly remember anything about Woodstock. And you know what that means? I must have been there.
Over the 50 years since that iconic 3-day festival of Peace, Love, and Mud, I’ve spoken to others who were there and have trouble remembering. We agree that part of the problem was certainly lack of sleep and abundance of illicit chemicals, but just as daunting is the memory’s inclination to conflate what we experienced at the festival with what we later saw on the screen in the movie that followed a year or so later. I suspect that just about everyone who went to Woodstock also saw the movie, and probably more than once. Why? To see if they could find themselves on the big screen, of course.
I went to the movie at least three time when it came out roughly six months after the festival (Alas, I am one of the roughly 390,000 people who are easily unidentifiable). But as a result of seeing the movie then, and several times since, I have reason to believe that my memories of the original event have become seriously compromised.
I still have some recollections that I’m nearly certain are real: Riding up Rt 17 through the rain on my motorcycle with my girlfriend early Saturday morning. Stopping at the Red Apple Rest and finding it jammed with long hairs like myself. Snaking around the fifty gallon drums the state police had used to block the exit we needed to take. Riding along the edges of lawns and fields once the road became too clogged with trudging longhairs and abandoned cars. Leaving the motorcycle parked on a dirt (or was it gravel?) road, after which my girlfriend and I waded into the crowd to find a patch of grass where we could spread a sleeping bag and sit down. We’d hardly gotten settled when, 25 yards in front of us, a naked woman suddenly jumping up to face the crowd, shouting incoherently and gesturing wildly with her hands and arms until two people near her put a blanket over her shoulders and got her to sit back down.
After that, my memories start to get as muddy as the ground we sat on. I’m pretty sure we settled down beside a fellow wearing a necktie around his head like a bandanna who shared a joint and a peanut butter sandwich with us. I think he was the one who warned us not to eat the corn from the surrounding fields, saying some people had tried it, and had gotten diarrhea because it was feed corn for animals, not humans. I kind of remember taking a handful of coco puffs from a box being passed around. And that fellow wearing a poncho who was leading a sheep on a leash and carrying a sign about loving, not eating, our animal friends may have passed nearby. Or is that something I only know about because of the movie?
From there on, my memory gets even soupier, surely thanks to lack of sleep and the endless stream of joints and bottles of wine being passed around (at least, I think that’s what happened). I think I remember Country Joe doing the Fish cheer on Saturday afternoon, and being one of the tens of thousands who joined in. I think I went up to a concession stand to buy some hot dogs (or were they hamburgers?). I might remember the set Santana played, but after that, most of my memories of the music from late Saturday afternoon into early Sunday morning have become too reminiscent of the movie to be trusted.
I have no recollection of the Grateful Dead playing in the rain around midnight (their performance isn’t in the movie), nor of the rain itself that night. And unless I somehow mastered astral travel (not entirely out of the question given the amount of drugs that were said to be available) it’s impossible that I could have been close enough to the stage to see the rose-colored glasses that Sly (of Sly and the Family Stone) was wearing. The one memory from that night that I hope is authentic is very early Sunday morning while The Who performed on the stage down in the glen where it was still dark, the first light of morning beginning to turn the tops of the surrounding hills gray. (I’d be interested to know if anyone else shares that recollection).
A few years ago, I had lunch with my former girlfriend, hoping that she might help spur some recall of what we did during the day on Sunday. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, she couldn’t remember that day at all, but she did help solve one mystery -- where we spent Sunday night, and why, on Monday morning, she was gone. Also, why, unlike most of the remaining crowd Monday morning, my clothes were dry. (Did anyone back then think to bring a change of clothes to a three-day event? Not me. Underwear? It was the 60s; did we even own underwear?) Anyway, my former girlfriend was pretty sure we’d stayed in a tent with some guys who were leaving at five in the morning to go back to the city. She’d left with them to get to her job.
I must have slept well in that tent Sunday night (so any memory I have of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, or Ten Years After would have to be from the movie) because my recollection of Monday morning is much clearer. Sadly, I missed one of my favorite groups, The Butterfield Blues Band, but I recall seeing Sha Na Na, followed by Hendrix’s famous closing set, and then hiking back to the road, where my motorcycle was still standing. I’d half expected it to be gone, or at least be knocked over during the exodus that began during the wind and rain storm Sunday afternoon and continued through the night (Where did my girlfriend and I find shelter during that afternoon rain storm? We’ll never know).
Over the years I have met a few people who do have very precise memories from Woodstock, but most of them weren’t there for the entire event. I’ve also spoken to some who were there and hardly remember any of it, including how they got home after it ended. Even without the impediments of sleeplessness and elicit chemicals, and the intrusion of the movie on our fragile recollections, the ability to remember certainly does vary greatly from person to person. But as a rule, I go by a slightly modified version of the famous slogan of that entire decade: if you remember it (well), you (probably) weren’t there.
September 20, 2018
Children Die in Wars
As we celebrate this International Day of Peace, I hope we keep in mind that among the many reasons to be against war is that children die in them. They die either as a direct result of being shot or blown up, or indirectly due to the starvation and disease that are always the byproducts of war. They died by the tens of thousands in World War One, World War Two, the Korean War, and the War in Vietnam. They continue to die in the current the Forever Wars of the Middle East and Africa.
(One Family’s Toll on a Cruel Day: 7 Children with Amputated Legs https://nyti.ms/2leRxdc)
The following is part of an article published by UNICEF in 1996. “Children have, of course, always been caught up in warfare. They usually have little choice but to experience, at minimum, the same horrors as their parents—as casualties or even combatants. And children have always been particularly exposed. When food supplies have run short, it is children who have been hardest hit, since their growing bodies need steady supplies of essential nutrients. When water supplies have been contaminated, it is children who have had the least resistance to the dangers of disease. And the trauma of exposure to violence and brutal death has emotionally affected generations of young people for the rest of their lives.”
During the 20th century, the numbers of children, and of all innocent civilians, who died in wars steadily increased. According to UNICEF, this was partly due to “advances” in technology. “Aerial bombardment has extended the potential battle zone to entire national territories. World War II saw a massive increase in indiscriminate killings, with the bombings of Coventry and Dresden, for example, and the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And this pattern was repeated in the Vietnam war, which is estimated to have cost 2.5 million lives.”
The UNICEF report goes on to say, “A further cause of the rising death toll for civilians is that most contemporary conflicts are not between States, but within them. Rather than being set-piece battles between contending armies, these are much more complex affairs—struggles between the military and civilians, or between contending groups of armed civilians. They are as likely to be fought in villages and suburban streets as anywhere else.”
“Families and children are not just getting caught in the crossfire, they are also likely to be specific targets. This is because many contemporary struggles are between different ethnic groups in the same country or in former States. When ethnic loyalties prevail, a perilous logic clicks in. The escalation from ethnic superiority to ethnic cleansing to genocide, as we have seen, can become an irresistible process. Killing adults is then not enough; future generations of the enemy—their children—must also be eliminated. As one political commentator ex-pressed it in a 1994 radio broadcast before violence erupted in Rwanda, "To kill the big rats, you have to kill the little rats."*
A much more recent example of this is what is currently happening in the Syrian civil war, where researchers have found significant evidence that bombs were targeting civilians, including women and children. According to a recent report, “In the past seven years, barrel bombs have killed [Syrian] civilians almost exclusively, an international team of scientists report Wednesday. Civilians comprised 97 percent of the deaths from these bombs.”
(A barrel bomb is essentially a large metal container filled with explosives and shrapnel. These bombs can be incredibly powerful, decimating entire city blocks. They are very imprecise weapons. Often, they are dropped from low-flying helicopters onto densely populated parts of cities.)
In addition, “The study also finds a dramatic rise in the number of children killed as the war [in Syria] has progressed. Children represented a small proportion of deaths, about 9 percent, in the first two years of the war. But since 2013, that proportion has more than doubled. Now nearly 1 in 4 civilian deaths are children. So far, at least 14,000 children have been killed in Syria by snipers, machine guns, missiles, grenades, roadside bombs and aerial bombs. About a thousand children have been executed. And more than a hundred were tortured and then executed.”
Nearly a million civilians have died in wars and conflicts since 2001. A significant percentage of them have been children.
*For the record, this line of thought has been used many times before. In Vietnam, the United States believed that a victory over the Vietcong was to be achieved by quantifiable “kill ratios,” to reach that elusive tipping point where the insurgency could no longer replenish its troops. This approach hard-wired incentives to secure a high “body count” down the chain of command, with the result that U.S. soldiers often shot civilians dead to pad their tallies and thereby move up the ranks. It is estimated that more than 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed in that war.
(One Family’s Toll on a Cruel Day: 7 Children with Amputated Legs https://nyti.ms/2leRxdc)
The following is part of an article published by UNICEF in 1996. “Children have, of course, always been caught up in warfare. They usually have little choice but to experience, at minimum, the same horrors as their parents—as casualties or even combatants. And children have always been particularly exposed. When food supplies have run short, it is children who have been hardest hit, since their growing bodies need steady supplies of essential nutrients. When water supplies have been contaminated, it is children who have had the least resistance to the dangers of disease. And the trauma of exposure to violence and brutal death has emotionally affected generations of young people for the rest of their lives.”
During the 20th century, the numbers of children, and of all innocent civilians, who died in wars steadily increased. According to UNICEF, this was partly due to “advances” in technology. “Aerial bombardment has extended the potential battle zone to entire national territories. World War II saw a massive increase in indiscriminate killings, with the bombings of Coventry and Dresden, for example, and the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And this pattern was repeated in the Vietnam war, which is estimated to have cost 2.5 million lives.”
The UNICEF report goes on to say, “A further cause of the rising death toll for civilians is that most contemporary conflicts are not between States, but within them. Rather than being set-piece battles between contending armies, these are much more complex affairs—struggles between the military and civilians, or between contending groups of armed civilians. They are as likely to be fought in villages and suburban streets as anywhere else.”
“Families and children are not just getting caught in the crossfire, they are also likely to be specific targets. This is because many contemporary struggles are between different ethnic groups in the same country or in former States. When ethnic loyalties prevail, a perilous logic clicks in. The escalation from ethnic superiority to ethnic cleansing to genocide, as we have seen, can become an irresistible process. Killing adults is then not enough; future generations of the enemy—their children—must also be eliminated. As one political commentator ex-pressed it in a 1994 radio broadcast before violence erupted in Rwanda, "To kill the big rats, you have to kill the little rats."*
A much more recent example of this is what is currently happening in the Syrian civil war, where researchers have found significant evidence that bombs were targeting civilians, including women and children. According to a recent report, “In the past seven years, barrel bombs have killed [Syrian] civilians almost exclusively, an international team of scientists report Wednesday. Civilians comprised 97 percent of the deaths from these bombs.”
(A barrel bomb is essentially a large metal container filled with explosives and shrapnel. These bombs can be incredibly powerful, decimating entire city blocks. They are very imprecise weapons. Often, they are dropped from low-flying helicopters onto densely populated parts of cities.)
In addition, “The study also finds a dramatic rise in the number of children killed as the war [in Syria] has progressed. Children represented a small proportion of deaths, about 9 percent, in the first two years of the war. But since 2013, that proportion has more than doubled. Now nearly 1 in 4 civilian deaths are children. So far, at least 14,000 children have been killed in Syria by snipers, machine guns, missiles, grenades, roadside bombs and aerial bombs. About a thousand children have been executed. And more than a hundred were tortured and then executed.”
Nearly a million civilians have died in wars and conflicts since 2001. A significant percentage of them have been children.
*For the record, this line of thought has been used many times before. In Vietnam, the United States believed that a victory over the Vietcong was to be achieved by quantifiable “kill ratios,” to reach that elusive tipping point where the insurgency could no longer replenish its troops. This approach hard-wired incentives to secure a high “body count” down the chain of command, with the result that U.S. soldiers often shot civilians dead to pad their tallies and thereby move up the ranks. It is estimated that more than 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed in that war.
July 21, 2018
Interview at Adventures in YA Publishing
We're thrilled to have Todd Strasser stop by to share more about his latest novel, PRICE OF DUTY.
Todd, what was your inspiration for writing PRICE OF DUTY?
As a teenager in the 1960s I was deeply moved by the anti-Vietnam War movement, and by many of the anti-war folk songs of the time. Certainly, by Dylan’s Masters of War (“You hide in your mansion while young people's blood flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud.”) And Phil Och’s I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore (“It's always the old to lead us to the war. It's always the young to fall.”) The idea of writing about young people and the military was probably spawned close to a decade ago, but for many years I couldn’t find the storyline. Finally, about four years ago, I was doing a Skype about my book, The Wave, with a class from Mississippi, and I noticed that five or six of the students were wearing uniforms that looked somewhat military in nature. I asked them why and they told me they were members of the school’s JROTC unit. No sooner did the Skype end than I finally had the storyline I’d been searching for.
What did this book teach you about writing or about yourself?
It’s said that the author’s purpose is to persuade, to inform, and to entertain (PIE). But I believe there is a fourth purpose as well – that is for the writer to learn about, and explore, his or her own feelings about a topic. Often when I begin a book, I’m not entirely sure what my ultimate point or message will be. For me, revisions don’t just hone the writing, but sharpen the focus and thrust of the story as well. Among the many things I learned while writing this book was about the enormous number of civilian deaths that have accompanied modern wars. It is a fact that since the First World War, far more civilians have died than soldiers. And even while this makes me feel more opposed to war than ever, through creating this book I also came to realize that we must have a military and we must be prepared to go to war.
What's your writing ritual like? Do you listen to music? Work at home or at a coffee shop or the library, etc?
Writing is the default activity of my life. I’ve been doing it for more than 50 years. I’ve never had to make myself write. Instead, I have to make myself find other things to do so that I don’t wind up writing all the time. To that end, I read, play tennis, surf, and play the guitar badly. I’ve never been much of a TV watcher, but recently I discovered some shows that are beautifully written. My current favorite is The Wire. It turns out that a number of very accomplished crime novelists – Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, among them – have written for that show. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s so good. Finally, one aspect of “my ritual” that does surprise me is what my brain does while the rest of me is asleep. We’ve all heard authors say that creating a novel is like putting together a puzzle. I often wake in the middle of the night to the realization that another piece has been put in place while I slept.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Price of Duty
by Todd Strasser
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Yo
Released 7/17/2018
Jake Liddell is a hero.
At least, that’s what everyone says he is. The military is even awarding him a Silver Star for his heroic achievements—a huge honor for the son of a military family. Now he’s home, recovering from an injury, but it seems the war has followed him back. He needs pills to get any sleep, a young woman is trying to persuade him into speaking out against military recruitment tactics, and his grandfather is already urging him back onto the battlefield. He doesn’t know what to do; nothing makes sense anymore.
There is only one thing that Jake knows for certain: he is no hero.
Purchase Price of Duty at Amazon
Purchase Price of Duty at IndieBound
View Price of Duty on Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shortly after Todd was born in New York City his parents moved to Roslyn Heights, New York (Long Island). Todd went to the I.U. Willets Elementary school and then attended the Wheatley School for junior high and high school. His best subject was science. He also liked to read, but had difficulty with spelling and grammar, and struggled in English. His favorite sports were tennis, skiing, and fishing.
Todd went to college at New York University for a few years, and then dropped out. He lived on a commune, then lived in Europe where he was a street musician. All the while, he wrote songs and poems and lots of letters to his friends back home.
After returning to the United States he studied literature and writing at Beloit College. After college, Todd worked as a reporter at the Middletown Times Herald-Record newspaper in Middletown, New York, and later at Compton Advertising in New York City.
In 1978, he sold his first novel, Angel Dust Blues, and used the money to start the Dr. Wing Tip Shoo fortune cookie company. For the next 12 years, Todd sold many more fortune cookies than books.
In 1990, Todd moved with his family to Westchester County, N.Y. He is the author of more than 140 books for teens and middle graders including the best-selling Help! I’m Trapped In series, and numerous award-winning YA novels including The Wave, Give A Boy A Gun, The Accident, Can’t Get There From Here, Boot Camp, If I Grow Up and Fallout.
Todd (right) with news photographer
at West Point in 1975
Several of his books have been adapted for television and his novels The Wave and How I Created My Perfect Prom Date became feature films. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he has also written for television, newspapers such as The New York Times, and magazines such as The New Yorker and Esquire.
Todd now divides his time between Westchester and Montauk, NY. He likes to read and watch movies, spend time with his grown children, play tennis and ski, but his favorite new sport is surfing.
---
Todd, what was your inspiration for writing PRICE OF DUTY?
As a teenager in the 1960s I was deeply moved by the anti-Vietnam War movement, and by many of the anti-war folk songs of the time. Certainly, by Dylan’s Masters of War (“You hide in your mansion while young people's blood flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud.”) And Phil Och’s I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore (“It's always the old to lead us to the war. It's always the young to fall.”) The idea of writing about young people and the military was probably spawned close to a decade ago, but for many years I couldn’t find the storyline. Finally, about four years ago, I was doing a Skype about my book, The Wave, with a class from Mississippi, and I noticed that five or six of the students were wearing uniforms that looked somewhat military in nature. I asked them why and they told me they were members of the school’s JROTC unit. No sooner did the Skype end than I finally had the storyline I’d been searching for.
What did this book teach you about writing or about yourself?
It’s said that the author’s purpose is to persuade, to inform, and to entertain (PIE). But I believe there is a fourth purpose as well – that is for the writer to learn about, and explore, his or her own feelings about a topic. Often when I begin a book, I’m not entirely sure what my ultimate point or message will be. For me, revisions don’t just hone the writing, but sharpen the focus and thrust of the story as well. Among the many things I learned while writing this book was about the enormous number of civilian deaths that have accompanied modern wars. It is a fact that since the First World War, far more civilians have died than soldiers. And even while this makes me feel more opposed to war than ever, through creating this book I also came to realize that we must have a military and we must be prepared to go to war.
What's your writing ritual like? Do you listen to music? Work at home or at a coffee shop or the library, etc?
Writing is the default activity of my life. I’ve been doing it for more than 50 years. I’ve never had to make myself write. Instead, I have to make myself find other things to do so that I don’t wind up writing all the time. To that end, I read, play tennis, surf, and play the guitar badly. I’ve never been much of a TV watcher, but recently I discovered some shows that are beautifully written. My current favorite is The Wire. It turns out that a number of very accomplished crime novelists – Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, among them – have written for that show. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s so good. Finally, one aspect of “my ritual” that does surprise me is what my brain does while the rest of me is asleep. We’ve all heard authors say that creating a novel is like putting together a puzzle. I often wake in the middle of the night to the realization that another piece has been put in place while I slept.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Price of Duty
by Todd Strasser
Hardcover
Simon & Schuster Books for Yo
Released 7/17/2018
Jake Liddell is a hero.
At least, that’s what everyone says he is. The military is even awarding him a Silver Star for his heroic achievements—a huge honor for the son of a military family. Now he’s home, recovering from an injury, but it seems the war has followed him back. He needs pills to get any sleep, a young woman is trying to persuade him into speaking out against military recruitment tactics, and his grandfather is already urging him back onto the battlefield. He doesn’t know what to do; nothing makes sense anymore.
There is only one thing that Jake knows for certain: he is no hero.
Purchase Price of Duty at Amazon
Purchase Price of Duty at IndieBound
View Price of Duty on Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shortly after Todd was born in New York City his parents moved to Roslyn Heights, New York (Long Island). Todd went to the I.U. Willets Elementary school and then attended the Wheatley School for junior high and high school. His best subject was science. He also liked to read, but had difficulty with spelling and grammar, and struggled in English. His favorite sports were tennis, skiing, and fishing.
Todd went to college at New York University for a few years, and then dropped out. He lived on a commune, then lived in Europe where he was a street musician. All the while, he wrote songs and poems and lots of letters to his friends back home.
After returning to the United States he studied literature and writing at Beloit College. After college, Todd worked as a reporter at the Middletown Times Herald-Record newspaper in Middletown, New York, and later at Compton Advertising in New York City.
In 1978, he sold his first novel, Angel Dust Blues, and used the money to start the Dr. Wing Tip Shoo fortune cookie company. For the next 12 years, Todd sold many more fortune cookies than books.
In 1990, Todd moved with his family to Westchester County, N.Y. He is the author of more than 140 books for teens and middle graders including the best-selling Help! I’m Trapped In series, and numerous award-winning YA novels including The Wave, Give A Boy A Gun, The Accident, Can’t Get There From Here, Boot Camp, If I Grow Up and Fallout.
Todd (right) with news photographer
at West Point in 1975
Several of his books have been adapted for television and his novels The Wave and How I Created My Perfect Prom Date became feature films. His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he has also written for television, newspapers such as The New York Times, and magazines such as The New Yorker and Esquire.
Todd now divides his time between Westchester and Montauk, NY. He likes to read and watch movies, spend time with his grown children, play tennis and ski, but his favorite new sport is surfing.
---
July 16, 2018
Price of Duty Pubs. Why I Wrote It
With the book officially pubbing tomorrow, I was asked again today why I feel it's an important subject to address, given that it doesn't feel like we're at war at the moment. The first thought that comes to mind is that the United States is indeed at war, in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. I suspect we don't hear much about these conflicts because they are dangerous to cover, and because the American news-consuming public isn't particularly interested in them.
The American public wasn't very interested in war on Sept. 10, 2001. But that changed dramatically the next day. I pray nothing like that ever happens again, but history does have a way of repeating itself, and the United States rarely seems to go very long without becoming involved in a war somewhere.
I wrote Price of Duty to ask what I felt were important questions about the military and young people that have not been previously addressed in any depth in YA literature. Questions such as: At what age should high school (and in some cases, even middle school) students be encouraged to select a track that will lead to military service?
There are more than 3,000 JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps) units in high schools around the country. Are students in 9th and 10th grade mature enough to make decisions that will affect the entire course of their lives? Currently, military recruitment is allowed in many high schools. Should that continue? If the answer is yes, does the military have an obligation to present an honest assessment of the risks and dangers?
The issue is not whether we need a military. Sadly, given the world we live in, we must maintain the ability to protect ourselves. To me, the issue is, if young people are going to be enticed into the military with financial bonuses and promises of advancement and heroism, shouldn't they be made thoroughly aware of the potential dangers?
As Bertrand Russell wrote, "War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
The American public wasn't very interested in war on Sept. 10, 2001. But that changed dramatically the next day. I pray nothing like that ever happens again, but history does have a way of repeating itself, and the United States rarely seems to go very long without becoming involved in a war somewhere.
I wrote Price of Duty to ask what I felt were important questions about the military and young people that have not been previously addressed in any depth in YA literature. Questions such as: At what age should high school (and in some cases, even middle school) students be encouraged to select a track that will lead to military service?
There are more than 3,000 JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps) units in high schools around the country. Are students in 9th and 10th grade mature enough to make decisions that will affect the entire course of their lives? Currently, military recruitment is allowed in many high schools. Should that continue? If the answer is yes, does the military have an obligation to present an honest assessment of the risks and dangers?
The issue is not whether we need a military. Sadly, given the world we live in, we must maintain the ability to protect ourselves. To me, the issue is, if young people are going to be enticed into the military with financial bonuses and promises of advancement and heroism, shouldn't they be made thoroughly aware of the potential dangers?
As Bertrand Russell wrote, "War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
March 7, 2018
If I Grow Up
"Another student whose father faces deportation and works two jobs to support his mom and two younger siblings, finds escape in "If I Grow Up" by Todd Strasser. My male students of color, who often struggle to find books that they connect with, pass it around like treasure. I can't keep it on my shelves."
By Jacqueline Fitzgerald
The morning after the Parkland shooting, my students eyes are narrowed, arms crossed across their chests, bodies sunken into their chairs. They're making themselves smaller, keeping themselves safe. Twenty years ago as a freshman, I stood in my living room ready to run from the television screen where bodies fell out of windows at Columbine. Here we are again and again and again.
They need to talk.
"Why haven't we done anything about gun control?" my student asks.
It gets quiet. The quiet resonates with fear and betrayal by those in power who are supposed to protect them.
In this country, we can't ban AR-15s, which make it easy for a teen to murder, but we can ban books. And my school district did.
The week before the Florida shooting, Beaverton School District Deputy Superintendent Steve Phillips overrode the decision of a hearing committee to keep the novel "Stick" by Andrew Smith in our schools and instead banned the book from 9th and 10th grade classrooms due to inappropriate content and vulgar language.
Inappropriate content is social media feeds with live videos of dead teenagers in school hallways. Vulgar language is calling teen shooters "psycho" and "murderer" when they are victims themselves. Victims of broken systems with inadequate access to mental health services. Victims with absent parents holding down two jobs or an opioid addiction. Victims of the politicians who divide us.
ADVERTISING
Meanwhile in Beaverton, two more books have hearings this month. The danger of banning books containing sexual violence, homosexuality or any human experience is that it justifies banning books with similar content.
"Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a freshman named Melinda going silent after she is raped at a party. After my freshman class read this last year, a student filled with vivacious energy in September who had begun to collapse into herself, came to me with tears in her eyes.
"I want to tell you something... I am Melinda. That book gave me courage to come forward about what happened to me and heal."
One of my gay students made a nearly fatal suicide attempt in October after his parents shunned him when he came out. He is now living with a foster family. I asked him what's helping him get through. "Books," he said, "they help me feel less alone."
"The Hate You Give" by Angie Thomas is one of his favorites and was banned in a Texas school district last year.
Another student whose father faces deportation and works two jobs to support his mom and two younger siblings, finds escape in "If I Grow Up" by Todd Strasser. My male students of color, who often struggle to find books that they connect with, pass it around like treasure. I can't keep it on my shelves.
Smith, the author of "Stick," when interviewed about the ban in Beaverton said, "When somebody just comes in, blocks, interferes with a kid's access to information or viewpoints, that's absolutely the opposite of what we need right now."
English teachers refer to books as windows and mirrors. They reflect our students' experiences and allow them access to new perspectives that build empathy. And in a nation where kids are killing kids, what more can we hope for students but to become more empathetic and connected.
Do you remember a book that changed you? Helped you reach out rather than retreating into yourself? Can you imagine what your life would be without it?
I wouldn't want to. And our students should never have to find out.
-- Jacqueline Fitzgerald is a language arts teacher at Westview High School. She lives in Southeast Portland.
By Jacqueline Fitzgerald
The morning after the Parkland shooting, my students eyes are narrowed, arms crossed across their chests, bodies sunken into their chairs. They're making themselves smaller, keeping themselves safe. Twenty years ago as a freshman, I stood in my living room ready to run from the television screen where bodies fell out of windows at Columbine. Here we are again and again and again.
They need to talk.
"Why haven't we done anything about gun control?" my student asks.
It gets quiet. The quiet resonates with fear and betrayal by those in power who are supposed to protect them.
In this country, we can't ban AR-15s, which make it easy for a teen to murder, but we can ban books. And my school district did.
The week before the Florida shooting, Beaverton School District Deputy Superintendent Steve Phillips overrode the decision of a hearing committee to keep the novel "Stick" by Andrew Smith in our schools and instead banned the book from 9th and 10th grade classrooms due to inappropriate content and vulgar language.
Inappropriate content is social media feeds with live videos of dead teenagers in school hallways. Vulgar language is calling teen shooters "psycho" and "murderer" when they are victims themselves. Victims of broken systems with inadequate access to mental health services. Victims with absent parents holding down two jobs or an opioid addiction. Victims of the politicians who divide us.
ADVERTISING
Meanwhile in Beaverton, two more books have hearings this month. The danger of banning books containing sexual violence, homosexuality or any human experience is that it justifies banning books with similar content.
"Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a freshman named Melinda going silent after she is raped at a party. After my freshman class read this last year, a student filled with vivacious energy in September who had begun to collapse into herself, came to me with tears in her eyes.
"I want to tell you something... I am Melinda. That book gave me courage to come forward about what happened to me and heal."
One of my gay students made a nearly fatal suicide attempt in October after his parents shunned him when he came out. He is now living with a foster family. I asked him what's helping him get through. "Books," he said, "they help me feel less alone."
"The Hate You Give" by Angie Thomas is one of his favorites and was banned in a Texas school district last year.
Another student whose father faces deportation and works two jobs to support his mom and two younger siblings, finds escape in "If I Grow Up" by Todd Strasser. My male students of color, who often struggle to find books that they connect with, pass it around like treasure. I can't keep it on my shelves.
Smith, the author of "Stick," when interviewed about the ban in Beaverton said, "When somebody just comes in, blocks, interferes with a kid's access to information or viewpoints, that's absolutely the opposite of what we need right now."
English teachers refer to books as windows and mirrors. They reflect our students' experiences and allow them access to new perspectives that build empathy. And in a nation where kids are killing kids, what more can we hope for students but to become more empathetic and connected.
Do you remember a book that changed you? Helped you reach out rather than retreating into yourself? Can you imagine what your life would be without it?
I wouldn't want to. And our students should never have to find out.
-- Jacqueline Fitzgerald is a language arts teacher at Westview High School. She lives in Southeast Portland.
December 2, 2015
What Writers Can Learn From HOME ALONE
The 25th anniversary of the release of Home Alone is this month and I suspect it will bring back pleasant memories for many. It was an enormously popular movie, and perhaps one of the first to achieve that rare distinction of being able to make grownups laugh just as hard as children.
A few people may remember that Home Alone was also a paperback movie novelization. For me, as the author of that novelization, it served as a lesson in how what appeared to be a fluffy comedy could mask a serious and disciplined writing effort.
The process of novelizing a movie begins and ends with the script, and possibly a few stills to give guidance to what the characters look like. Movies are often composed of quick cuts between a number of different scenes, and the job of the novelizer is to organize those quick cuts into longer, more chapter-like episodes, as well as provide description, and supplementary scenes and dialogue where needed.
What I saw so clearly as a novelizer was that the foundation of any story is the message, the moral, the main idea. Movie-goers seeking entertainment aren’t supposed to be aware of the foundation and framework upon which the story is built. But if it’s a good story, the foundation must be there, and there’s no better way to recognize it than to take the thing apart, reorganize it, and put it back together.
We may think that a moral is limited to a fable or children’s tale, but it’s not. In serious movies we’re meant to be aware of the moral, but not so much in comedies (with certain exceptions: Fail Safe, Groundhog Day, Forrest Gump and even Finding Nemo come to mind.) But, because it is an essential component of all good stories, the moral must be present, even in a comedy.
If you ask people about the moral of Home Alone, you generally get two answers. Either “don’t forget one of you kids when going on a family vacation,” (which is what the parents in the movie do), or “don’t wish your family would disappear,” (which is what Kevin does).
I disagree with both. To understand the moral, look at Kevin at the beginning of the movie. John Hughes, the scriptwriter, makes sure to let us know that he is incompetent, helpless, and vulnerable. He can't take care of himself; he can’t even pack a suitcase. "You're completely helpless. Everyone has to do everything for you," complains one older sibling. “You are what the French call les incompetent,” says another.
It’s no surprise that Kevin wishes his verbally abusive family would disappear, and the next morning they’re indeed gone. After a brief celebration of his new-found independence, Kevin settles into a state of fearful unease. He’s scared --- of the basement furnace, of old man Marley (whom his brother warned was the snow shovel killer), of the gangsters in the TV movie he watches, of the burglars lurking outside.
But gradually Kevin begins to learn that he can function on his own. He can order in pizzas, go to the store, do laundry, and even tell the scary furnace in the basement to shut up when it threatens to terrify him. None of these scenes are random. They’re all designed to prepare the viewer for what comes next: the burglars.
When the bad guys first arrive, Kevin is frightened. Believing that he caused his family to vanish, he sneaks out of the house to find the nearest department store Santa Claus. He has one Christmas wish this year, and it’s not toys or games. He just wants his family back. On the way home he runs into Old Man Marley at church, and learns something important: that even grown-ups can get scared. (Marley: “You’re never too old to be afraid.”) This gives Kevin license to face his worst fears and deal with them.
What follows is the romp, in which Kevin rises to the threat and does what no one ever thought even remotely possible. He takes care of himself and his home, at the expense of a lot of pain to the bumbling, hapless burglars. And, having eventually dispatched them, does something even more amazing: he cleans the house!
When his family returns home, they have no idea of the magnitude of what he’s accomplished. The final joke is that they’re merely amazed that he’s been self-sufficient enough to go to the store and buy milk, eggs, and fabric softener. And that he didn’t burn down the house. As one older sibling states, “He went shopping? He doesn't know how to tie his shoe. He's going shopping?”
I wish John Hughes was still with us. Even though his films have been criticized in recent years for a lack of racial diversity, he still wrote so many great movies (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Pretty in Pink, and Uncle Buck, to name just a few) that are enjoyed to this day. I’d love to ask him if he ever meant for us to get the moral of Home Alone -- that we are all capable of doing a great deal more than we think we can. My guess is that he didn’t. He just knew that without it, he couldn’t have written a great movie.
A few people may remember that Home Alone was also a paperback movie novelization. For me, as the author of that novelization, it served as a lesson in how what appeared to be a fluffy comedy could mask a serious and disciplined writing effort.
The process of novelizing a movie begins and ends with the script, and possibly a few stills to give guidance to what the characters look like. Movies are often composed of quick cuts between a number of different scenes, and the job of the novelizer is to organize those quick cuts into longer, more chapter-like episodes, as well as provide description, and supplementary scenes and dialogue where needed.
What I saw so clearly as a novelizer was that the foundation of any story is the message, the moral, the main idea. Movie-goers seeking entertainment aren’t supposed to be aware of the foundation and framework upon which the story is built. But if it’s a good story, the foundation must be there, and there’s no better way to recognize it than to take the thing apart, reorganize it, and put it back together.
We may think that a moral is limited to a fable or children’s tale, but it’s not. In serious movies we’re meant to be aware of the moral, but not so much in comedies (with certain exceptions: Fail Safe, Groundhog Day, Forrest Gump and even Finding Nemo come to mind.) But, because it is an essential component of all good stories, the moral must be present, even in a comedy.
If you ask people about the moral of Home Alone, you generally get two answers. Either “don’t forget one of you kids when going on a family vacation,” (which is what the parents in the movie do), or “don’t wish your family would disappear,” (which is what Kevin does).
I disagree with both. To understand the moral, look at Kevin at the beginning of the movie. John Hughes, the scriptwriter, makes sure to let us know that he is incompetent, helpless, and vulnerable. He can't take care of himself; he can’t even pack a suitcase. "You're completely helpless. Everyone has to do everything for you," complains one older sibling. “You are what the French call les incompetent,” says another.
It’s no surprise that Kevin wishes his verbally abusive family would disappear, and the next morning they’re indeed gone. After a brief celebration of his new-found independence, Kevin settles into a state of fearful unease. He’s scared --- of the basement furnace, of old man Marley (whom his brother warned was the snow shovel killer), of the gangsters in the TV movie he watches, of the burglars lurking outside.
But gradually Kevin begins to learn that he can function on his own. He can order in pizzas, go to the store, do laundry, and even tell the scary furnace in the basement to shut up when it threatens to terrify him. None of these scenes are random. They’re all designed to prepare the viewer for what comes next: the burglars.
When the bad guys first arrive, Kevin is frightened. Believing that he caused his family to vanish, he sneaks out of the house to find the nearest department store Santa Claus. He has one Christmas wish this year, and it’s not toys or games. He just wants his family back. On the way home he runs into Old Man Marley at church, and learns something important: that even grown-ups can get scared. (Marley: “You’re never too old to be afraid.”) This gives Kevin license to face his worst fears and deal with them.
What follows is the romp, in which Kevin rises to the threat and does what no one ever thought even remotely possible. He takes care of himself and his home, at the expense of a lot of pain to the bumbling, hapless burglars. And, having eventually dispatched them, does something even more amazing: he cleans the house!
When his family returns home, they have no idea of the magnitude of what he’s accomplished. The final joke is that they’re merely amazed that he’s been self-sufficient enough to go to the store and buy milk, eggs, and fabric softener. And that he didn’t burn down the house. As one older sibling states, “He went shopping? He doesn't know how to tie his shoe. He's going shopping?”
I wish John Hughes was still with us. Even though his films have been criticized in recent years for a lack of racial diversity, he still wrote so many great movies (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Pretty in Pink, and Uncle Buck, to name just a few) that are enjoyed to this day. I’d love to ask him if he ever meant for us to get the moral of Home Alone -- that we are all capable of doing a great deal more than we think we can. My guess is that he didn’t. He just knew that without it, he couldn’t have written a great movie.
October 14, 2015
The Strange, Unlikely, and Circular Story Behind THE BEAST OF CRETACEA
The idea to write a sci-fi adventure novel based on Moby Dick, and with environmental overtones, evolved in a slow and serendipitous way, beginning with an article in the New York Times about space junk -- those nuts, bolts, parts of old satellites and rockets that orbit the earth and are numerous enough to be a danger to working satellites, space vehicles, and stations.
If you saw the movie, Gravity, you may remember this scene where the space station is destroyed when a loose field of debris blasts through it. In an earlier scene another debris field had destroyed the space shuttle.
My original thought was to write about space junk collectors who sail through space on solar winds, pulling vast nets much the way sea-going trawlers on Earth gather fish.
Only they’d be gathering space debris.
The concept of trawling through space for junk was my original idea, but not the idea of ships sailing on solar winds.
That I remembered from a story called The Sunjammer by Arthur C. Clarke which appeared in a 1964 issue of Boy’s Life.
Originally, my purpose in writing the book was to point out (in an exciting and entertaining way, of course), that we humans have not only managed to pollute the earth with our garbage, but much of the near space around us as well.
We often hear people complain about invasive species, that is, plants, animals, or pathogens that are non-native to a particular ecosystem, and whose introduction to that ecosystem causes or is likely to cause harm to the native life. Zebra mussels, West Nile virus and Dutch elm disease all qualify.
But none of them hold a candle to the most enduring, and damaging, invasive species ever -- humans.
Not only have we ruined a great deal of the Earth, but the near space around us as well.
To make the story entertaining and exciting, it would need danger, and to my mind that led to space pirates. But, as is always the case in creating stories, that also led to a problem. Why would space pirates care about nuts, bolts, spent rocket stages, broken satellites, and other floating detritus?
They probably wouldn’t.
So I decided that the quest would have to be for something much more valuable (more along the lines of the wonderfully named Unobtanium from the movie Avatar), something that space pirates would crave.
It was around this point in my thinking that I started to listen to the audio version of Nathaniel Phillbrick’s book, Why Read Moby Dick? which I’d picked up because at the time (well, actually, even today) I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around what makes that novel such a famous and renowned work of fiction.
While I’m not sure Philbrick’s book ever quite answered its titular question, it did inspire me to incorporate the plot of Moby Dick in my story… up to a point. Melville’s famous novel does not include run-ins with pirates, nor does it feature a clan of enlightened and highly-evolved islanders.
And finally, as to the amazing, earth-shattering, utterly surprising ending to The Beast of Cretacea?
I believe I can take credit for that single-handedly ;-)
Incidentally, the evolution of The Beast of Cretacea recently came full circle when I was contacted by the editors of Boy’s Life and asked to contribute a short story about Cretacea to the magazine.
Thus, a novel that is partly inspired by a 1964 story in Boy's Life returns the favor in 2015.
If you saw the movie, Gravity, you may remember this scene where the space station is destroyed when a loose field of debris blasts through it. In an earlier scene another debris field had destroyed the space shuttle.
My original thought was to write about space junk collectors who sail through space on solar winds, pulling vast nets much the way sea-going trawlers on Earth gather fish.
Only they’d be gathering space debris.
The concept of trawling through space for junk was my original idea, but not the idea of ships sailing on solar winds.
That I remembered from a story called The Sunjammer by Arthur C. Clarke which appeared in a 1964 issue of Boy’s Life.
Originally, my purpose in writing the book was to point out (in an exciting and entertaining way, of course), that we humans have not only managed to pollute the earth with our garbage, but much of the near space around us as well.
We often hear people complain about invasive species, that is, plants, animals, or pathogens that are non-native to a particular ecosystem, and whose introduction to that ecosystem causes or is likely to cause harm to the native life. Zebra mussels, West Nile virus and Dutch elm disease all qualify.
But none of them hold a candle to the most enduring, and damaging, invasive species ever -- humans.
Not only have we ruined a great deal of the Earth, but the near space around us as well.
To make the story entertaining and exciting, it would need danger, and to my mind that led to space pirates. But, as is always the case in creating stories, that also led to a problem. Why would space pirates care about nuts, bolts, spent rocket stages, broken satellites, and other floating detritus?
They probably wouldn’t.
So I decided that the quest would have to be for something much more valuable (more along the lines of the wonderfully named Unobtanium from the movie Avatar), something that space pirates would crave.
It was around this point in my thinking that I started to listen to the audio version of Nathaniel Phillbrick’s book, Why Read Moby Dick? which I’d picked up because at the time (well, actually, even today) I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around what makes that novel such a famous and renowned work of fiction.
While I’m not sure Philbrick’s book ever quite answered its titular question, it did inspire me to incorporate the plot of Moby Dick in my story… up to a point. Melville’s famous novel does not include run-ins with pirates, nor does it feature a clan of enlightened and highly-evolved islanders.
And finally, as to the amazing, earth-shattering, utterly surprising ending to The Beast of Cretacea?
I believe I can take credit for that single-handedly ;-)
Incidentally, the evolution of The Beast of Cretacea recently came full circle when I was contacted by the editors of Boy’s Life and asked to contribute a short story about Cretacea to the magazine.
Thus, a novel that is partly inspired by a 1964 story in Boy's Life returns the favor in 2015.
October 4, 2015
The Island of Connecticut: a short graphic memoir
My daughter Lia and I collaborated on this short memoir about an incident that occurred when my brother, Leigh, and I were young. Lia also created the cover for The Beast of Cretacea.
Here's the link to the memoir: https://goo.gl/97IpQz
Here's the link to the memoir: https://goo.gl/97IpQz
April 17, 2015
To Reading Teachers
Dear Teacher,
I know there must be a reason for the phrase “reluctant reader,” but sometimes I wish it could be “emerging,” or “gradually improving,” or even “promising reader.”
To my ear “reluctant” sounds too gloomy and unpromising. Maybe that’s because I truly believe that every young person has the potential to love reading… once they learn to overcome their difficulties and master the skill.
I’m sure that I myself would have been labeled a reluctant reader. In June of 1958, when I reached the end of third grade, my parents were told by the school principal that due to my poor my reading ability I was not ready for fourth grade. Instead I would have to repeat third grade the following year.
Back then, labels like “reluctant reader” and “learning disability” didn’t exist. Dyslexia probably did, but I don’t recall hearing it applied to me. Instead, I was labeled an underachiever, which basically meant I was lazy.
To this day I don’t know why I struggled with reading, or why I still read slowly, or why I still have difficulty spelling. I do know that I was fortunate to have parents who cared enough to send me to a reading tutor that summer, a tutor who got me to read by doing two pretty simple things:
1) Upon learning that I loved animals and hoped to work at the Bronx Zoo someday, she found the wonderful (and sadly not always in print) stories of Gerald Durrell, a naturalist and zookeeper who traveled the world collecting critters.
2) She motivated me to read those stories by supplying me with pretzels and ginger ale (we weren’t allowed to have candy, salty snacks, or soda at home).
As a result, I spent the summer reading (and only gained a few extra pounds), and was able to go into fourth grade the following fall. Even more importantly, I developed a life-long love of reading.
These days, I have a special place in my heart for those “promising,” and “gradually improving,” readers. When I’m doing school visit or Skyping with classes, I make a point of telling students about my personal struggles with learning to read and write. Because I think they need to know that it’s okay to struggle, and it’s even okay to fail … as long as they keep trying.
After all, that's what I learned to do.
Sincerely,
Todd
I know there must be a reason for the phrase “reluctant reader,” but sometimes I wish it could be “emerging,” or “gradually improving,” or even “promising reader.”
To my ear “reluctant” sounds too gloomy and unpromising. Maybe that’s because I truly believe that every young person has the potential to love reading… once they learn to overcome their difficulties and master the skill.
I’m sure that I myself would have been labeled a reluctant reader. In June of 1958, when I reached the end of third grade, my parents were told by the school principal that due to my poor my reading ability I was not ready for fourth grade. Instead I would have to repeat third grade the following year.
Back then, labels like “reluctant reader” and “learning disability” didn’t exist. Dyslexia probably did, but I don’t recall hearing it applied to me. Instead, I was labeled an underachiever, which basically meant I was lazy.
To this day I don’t know why I struggled with reading, or why I still read slowly, or why I still have difficulty spelling. I do know that I was fortunate to have parents who cared enough to send me to a reading tutor that summer, a tutor who got me to read by doing two pretty simple things:
1) Upon learning that I loved animals and hoped to work at the Bronx Zoo someday, she found the wonderful (and sadly not always in print) stories of Gerald Durrell, a naturalist and zookeeper who traveled the world collecting critters.
2) She motivated me to read those stories by supplying me with pretzels and ginger ale (we weren’t allowed to have candy, salty snacks, or soda at home).
As a result, I spent the summer reading (and only gained a few extra pounds), and was able to go into fourth grade the following fall. Even more importantly, I developed a life-long love of reading.
These days, I have a special place in my heart for those “promising,” and “gradually improving,” readers. When I’m doing school visit or Skyping with classes, I make a point of telling students about my personal struggles with learning to read and write. Because I think they need to know that it’s okay to struggle, and it’s even okay to fail … as long as they keep trying.
After all, that's what I learned to do.
Sincerely,
Todd
December 20, 2014
The Beast of Cretacea
I'll probably be writing a lot about this novel, which won't be released until late in 2015. But I'd like to begin by gratefully acknowledging my daughter Lia, who created the cover for this book, and my son, Geoff, who read a nearly 500-page version of the manuscript and made many insightful and useful editorial suggestions. It’s not only more enough to make the old man proud; it brings a tear to his eye as well.
