Saturday, I took the boys to the Ohioana Book Festival to see two of their favorite authors, R. L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps books, and Jeff Smith, author of "Bone." To be in their presence at all was too good to pass up, let alone in such a small venue. Each kid asked many questions, and were able to chat with their literary heroes one on one.
During R.L.'s session he joked about how he has only 6 plots, and as he continued it occurred to me there is a pattern to the books and comics that I push the boys to read. They seem to be one of two types: the first class of tales are the stories about the kids who are different and don't fit in. They start off wanting to be ordinary, but in their hero's journey they learn to embrace being extraordinary, like the X-Men or Harry Potter. This is something that we have worked with extensively with the boys on, that their quirks are strengths to be used. The other is are the tales about an ordinary kid that does amazing things when tested by unusual circumstances, like in the Goosebumps tales.
In my mind, both are true of both authors; they are two ordinary kids from Columbus who went on and did extraordinary things, and at they same time, they were people who were different, and were able to use those differences to accomplish those great things. My hope is that be seeing and listening to them, that Michael and Alex understand that two more kids from Columbus can do anything they want, if they embrace who they are, and are ready to take advantage of the opportunities throw at them.
RAPatton (5.11.2009)
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