Poll: Most Memorable Meals in Children's Literature

By Susan Chapek

Inspiration for this poll:

In the delicious FICTITIOUS DISHES, photographer Dinah Fried highlights a wide range of notable literary meals—from HEIDI's comforting toasted cheese to THE BELL JAR's poisonous crabmeat-stuffed avocado. 

So what would the Route 19 Writers put into our own collection of Memorable Meals?


Our resident poet Andrea nominates Maurice Sendak's classic CHICKEN SOUP WITH RICE, "due to the combination of the soup as comfort food, and the lovely repetition at the end of each month's poem."

Happy once
Happy twice
Happy chicken soup 
with rice.


Kitty, who not only writes but teaches children's literature and writing for children, was struck by the way Naomi Shihab Nye  (HABIBI) gives small details, "things that are familiar and things that are just a bit different, that help young readers take in different cultures without being given a lecture.”

The owner, a nice man about Poppy’s age, brought them steaming bowls of aromatic lentil soup, saying once they tasted it, they would keep coming back for more. The table filled up with olives, purple marinated turnips, plates of baba ghanouj and hummus, and hot flat breads, even before the real lunch came.”



Devoted to historicals and classics, SCPoe admires how Charles Dickens could make a three-act drama out of one dish: 

. . . Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bear witnesses—to take the pudding up and bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose—a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. 



For Dave,who's been concentrating on serious contemporary YAs, scenes of food deprivation can prove even more memorable than scenes of feasting. Out of several finalists, he finally chose a scene from Jerry Spinelli's MILKWEED.  

"It is early in the novel and the main character (Misha), known at this time by the name Stopthief, because he is always trying to steal food to feed his hunger, is brought into a barn where there is a large group of homeless,Jewish boys. They are so happy because they have been able to raid some of the finer German stores. . . . They have the food stacked in large piles in the corner of the barn. Sausages. Buns. Bread. Fresh fruit. They ask him if he is a Jew. He doesn't know what that is. So one of the boys in the barn explains what a Jew is. (The description is unbelievably scary and powerful.)"




In contrast, Marcy (Dave's partner in our monthly reviews of exciting YA debuts) chooses THE HUNGER GAMES, a series replete with scores of gourmet dishes. Nevertheless, Marcy zeroes in on something simple and familiar--a time when Katniss can't sleep and seeks comfort in a mug of warm milk and honey. 




YA writer Jenny would love to chow down at "any and all meals served in the Hogwarts Dining Hall from the Harry Potter books, especially the beginning of the year kick-off dinners."

He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.




My own nominee comes from Louisa May Alcott's JACK AND JILL. Sensitive, artistic Merry feels out of place in her drab farmhouse surroundings. In a coming-of-age episode, she longs to experiment with fancy pastry, but what her father wants is plain old corned beef and cabbage:  

She was repaid at noon by the relish with which he enjoyed his dinner, for Merry tried to make even a boiled dish pretty by arranging the beets, carrots, turnips, and potatoes in contrasting colors, with the beef hidden under the cabbage leaves.

I still think of Merry whenever I make a boiled dinner, and I admit that the smell of simmering cabbage (loathed by many) is a comfort to me. 



We invite you to nominate your own favorite to our potluck of Memorable Meals in Children's Literature.

The End of an Era: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

 by Jenny Ramaley

After rereading the last three Harry Potter books (then watching the accompanying films) to get back up to speed, my daughter and I went to see the final Harry Potter film. Author J.K Rowling pulled off the hard task of keep the series engaging and ending Harry’s quest in a satisfying way, while the filmmaking team did a superb job in recreating the story visually.



Despite the dangers Harry faces,
the first book is A-Okay for 10-11 year olds.



Harry’s been a part of our lives since 1997. It took 10 years to publish the books covering the seven years at Hogwarts, and beginning in 2001, it took 10 years to bring the story to the screen.  My girls grew up with Harry and anxiously awaited each new book. Looking back, it was a blessing that they were the right age at the right time to grow with the boy wizard. Each book grew a little darker, the danger levels ticked upward. The main characters of Harry, Ron and Hermione not only had to grapple with the threat of Lord Voldemort, but also with puberty, hormones and snogging – which at times was more terrifying than dark magic – at the same times that my daughters grappled with growing up. Priceless, as that credit card commercial points out.



The last book is not only dark in tone,
but very complicated plot-wise.
Probably not okay for 10-11 year olds.



Plots also grew increasingly complex with each book. The last book was so convoluted that I remember walking away confused. It took a revisit to Year 6 and a reread of Year 7 to really grasp the complicated intertwining storylines of the horcruxes, wand ownership and the three hallows.

So here’s a word of advice to parents whose offspring are ready to begin the series: take your time. Having a book released every year gave readers time to be ready for the ever increasing complications and darkness. My offspring experienced the delicious anticipation of waiting for each new publication release date, one that, unfortunately, new readers can bypass. A child reader who may delight in devouring the Year 1 book, may want to tackle the whole series in one school year, but may not be ready to plow through the entire series. It won’t be easy, but try to slow down your young reader.

Perhaps begin a tradition (ok, a bribe) of buying your reader(s) a hardcover  book as a birthday present every year or half year, maybe along with the film of the last book.  Give them an incentive to wait.  If you can, encourage your young readers to take Harry’s journey slowly, so they are ready to tackle the later books when they have matured (just like Harry) and are truly ready.

         Readers, any suggestions to pass along?

Relate-ability

by Fran McDowell

I attended a Taylor Swift concert this weekend with my sister-in-law and her eight year old daughter. I offered my ticket to my husband. It was his sister, after all. And I really needed to visit my father in the hospital.

"Oh, no. Please. " he said. "Let me do the hospital visit. Please."

"What kind of music does she sing?"

"Not a clue."

It was a lovely night, and a nice long walk would be involved from the city, along the river, to the stadium. So I adjusted my attitude and went happily along. People were arriving in throngs. Luckily our plan to walk from the city garage saved us an hour waiting in traffic. The throngs were made of up of girls, primarily. Girls in cowgirl boots. Girls in cowgirl hats. Girls from four to twenty-four. There was, without a doubt, major universal appeal in the air.

Our seats were only a few rows from the moon. The concert was to begin at 7:00. It did, with various other performers. But at 8:15 we were still waiting to see Taylor. At 8:30 I realized why. There were now 10s of thousands of new Taylor Swift tee-shirts adorning the bodies of her fans. My curiosity grew about this person for whom fifty-two thousand people of all ages had bought tickets to see.

When Taylor-time finally arrived, seats filled, lights dimmed, and the audience screamed, incessantly. Two large video screens flanked the stage. We could see her, up close and personal, though she appeared two inches tall to the naked eye. For two hours she performed, skipping while she sang, running from one end of the runway to the other, a veritable bundle of energy. The camera never left her face. All she had to do was shift her eyes and smile. The crowd went wild.

What was it about this singular twenty-one year old individual that effected everyone so profoundly? Yes, she is lovely. But lots of singers are. Yes, she is energetic. "But is that what attracts female fans?" I asked a young lady sitting next to me. She shrugged her shoulders.

"Everyone relates to her," she said.

The girl sitting with her added, "She's real. We get her lyrics."

Really? I thought. It made me think about Harry Potter. I had spent some time asking kids what it was that captured them so completely. The magic put me off. I didn't get it.

"He seems real," they would say.

I heard it over and over. So maybe it isn't the beauty, it isn't the energy, or the voice, or the magic, or the plot. Maybe it's the evasive, undefinable, ever changing quality of relate-ability. It's a hard one to see. It's a hard one to create, intentionally. It just seems to happen. If you hit it perfectly square you can create a phenomenon. And even if all you do shag it, you'll maybe get an audience who will read you or listen to you. And that, after all, is what most of us want who are giving something of ourselves.

April Showers Us with Memories

by Marcy Collier

The beginning of spring always reminds me of spring cleaning. I am a pack rat. I come from a family of pack rats. My dad has started cleaning out his attic. It is raining and pouring – stuff! It's not unusual for me to come to work and find childhood toys scattered on the floor of my office or boxes left in my basement with all of my grade school papers. Does anyone else out there still have their 1970s Barbie corvette or camper, maybe your old Nancy Drew books? Maybe. Maybe not. But these items flood back childhood memories. Memories that I can use in future stories.

Recently, I was having a hard time writing a scene in my novel. I did everything from sketch the physical scene to write down sensory elements, but I couldn’t get it quite right. I paged through my old high school memory box and diary. I downloaded songs to my Ipod from when I was 17-years-old, the age of my character. I read through a top 100 list compiled at my summer job working at a water park. Then something clicked. I remembered the awkwardness of this age and reconstructed feelings from my character’s point of view, based on the memories and experiences of my 17-year-old self.

           

All writers love books. We like to touch the spine and hear the pages turn. With the demise of Borders and other small book stores in the Pittsburgh area like Joseph Beth Booksellers, local writers are worried. This has been a hot topic, especially on our blog. Will paper books disappear, replaced by only e-books? Will all the agents turn into publicists? I don’t know. But take a look at the transformation of music over the last 30 years. We listened to records, then cassette tapes, CDs, now downloads. In the 1980s people insisted kids would stop buying music and tape their favorite songs from the radio. The same happened in the 1990s with Napster and other music sharing sites. But people still buy music. The device has changed.

           

I envision future books to include integrated music, sound effects and maybe even sensory overloads, like those old scratch-n-sniff stickers, only more intense. Wouldn’t it be cool to hear the storm, smell the rain and feel the hair on the back of your neck stand on end as the villain corners your character into an old, rickety shed? Or, you could mute the sensors and sounds and simply imagine those details.

But as Carol pointed out in her post on Monday, April 11, 2011, the picture book experience is different. I have young children. I don't read to them from my Nook. I like to snuggle up in our comfy chair and read from a book. Studies have shown, reading to children from a digital device can interfere with their ability to focus on the text and process the information. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219073049.htm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2010/07/16/2003478034

           

But as writers, should we embrace the future of electronic books even if we disagree? J.K. Rowling hasn't. At least not yet. The Harry Potter series is not currently available in electronic format, but rumors are she is reconsidering. http://www.tweentribune.com/content/harry-potter-your-ipad

Writers will still be in demand even if the device has changed. No one knows if books in paperback will disappear in 10 years. They certainly won’t in my house. Remember, I’m a pack rat. Books will be displayed on bookshelves and packed in boxes in my attic. I want to be able to sit my future grandchildren on my lap and read hard-covered picture books to them. But the newest reading device will also rest on my nightstand full of electronic literature. How do you see the book industry in 10 years, and will you embrace the change or fight it?