Humor is the oxygen of children's literature. There's a lot of competition for children's time, but even kids who hate to read want to read a funny book.

Sid Fleischman

Categorized in : Children Book Hate

The books we enjoy as children stay with us forever -- they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work.

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Give weather reports. It helps the reality of a scene if foghorns are blowing or kites are in the sky on a windy afternoon or the day's so hot wallpaper is peeling off the walls.

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I remember as a child of eight being told by a young friend that I had killed Christ. That was news to me. It's a common experience for the Jewish young. Should later generations of Germans be burdened with the guilt arising from the profound inhumanity of their ancestors? Revenge may be sweet, but guilt is non-transferable. Still, hatreds survive with the persistence of cockroaches.

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Adult novels are as ephemeral as newspapers. Children's books sta... by Sid Fleischman

Adult novels are as ephemeral as newspapers. Children's books stay in print for decades.

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I am astonished, when I pause to think about it, to discover myself to be an author of humorous novels for children. Or an author at all. I had a childhood much like everyone else's. What went wrong?

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In my first story, 'Mr. Mysterious & Company'... I was asked to take out some of the humor because editors were afraid reviewers would dismiss the book as a joke. Today, humor is enjoyed and no longer regarded as literary brummagem.

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As an adult, I'll give a writer 50 pages. If the book doesn't interest me in 50 pages, I'll say the heck with it - there are just too many other things to read. A child won't give you 50 pages.

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