Sherborn Sam - Christmas Elementary School Reading
I’m not sure which character I’ve enjoyed writing about more… Sam, our little groundhog friend, or Clarissa, his chatty little squirrel bestie. Both have perplexed me with their motivations, their human mannerisms, and their—oh no, it’s happened.
I’ve gone from writing a fun picture book for children into analyzing plot, character, the hero’s journey, pulling my hair out at all hours of the night up against yet another child-imposed deadline.
“You’re coming to school to read your new Christmas story, right?”
“Er, well, I’m not sure the edits are really done.”
“I told my teacher you’re coming.”
“Okay then. I’ll be there.”
And so, I went.
First graders are a lot like kindergarteners, except they’re smarter (obviously) and much more willing to share their opinions with total strangers (less obvious to me, at the time). Thankfully, my son’ s friends are polite little creatures who didn’t seem to mind that I was rewording some pages on the fly as I read this year’s story to my son’s class. There was genuine concern for the premise we established at the beginning of the book, and by the end, each child was actually hanging on to every work to see if Sam could save the day.
“This is the BEST BOOK EVER!”
Bless this little kid in the front row who clapped and cheered louder than even my own kid. It seemed, we had somehow pulled it off. Another story created just in time for the Christmas season… except now, I was comitted.
This wasn’t just a fun little thing my son and I did on the way to school, coming up with story ideas and coloring afterschool. Oh no, this was legit. We were working on a real book that might someday make it to the school library. Naturally, this meant every word had to be perfect, and every plot twist had to happen at the exact beat.
Except, it didn’t.
Even though I workshopped this story and developed it with a proper editor and collected feedback from a group, none of it mattered when I sat down in front of the class and began reading. The only thing that mattered was that my son’s friends liked the book.
That’s it.
Get the story done somehow, and get it done in way that a first-grader you’ve never met jumps up and shouts, “this is the BEST BOOK EVER!”
I don’t know if I’ll ever have such incredible, instant feedback again. I certainly didn’t want to argue with a first-grader, but I still felt there was work to be done on the editing table. Yet, in the end, it didn’t matter.
My son’s class loved the story, and I loved that he had something special to share with his friends.
Will I still spend months trying to edit this story, and beat myself over the head trying to figure out the perfect sequence of events that leads to our hero saving the day? Most likely—which is why I’ve written this blog, to remind myself that sometimes, only the story matters. The rest is just details.