Jon Scieszka grew up a knucklehead in Flint, Mich., and turned his “skill” into a profitable career writing children’s books loaded with pictures and drawings.
For the trim, 60-year-old, describing the knucklehead life to a gym full of third through fifth graders at Walden Elementary School in Deerfield Thursday was as easy as falling off a couch.
Scieszka’s school principal father dubbed his six rambunctious sons “knuckleheads” and his mother, a nurse, helped patch the wounds and on occasion deliver one of the siblings to the emergency room.
Among the many slides Scieszka clicked through on the Walden School gymnasium screen was an X-ray of one brother’s broken clavicle.
By the time the X-ray appeared, students were primed and ready for yet another tale of a knucklehead-on-knucklehead roughhousing gone awry in the Scieszka home.
In 2008, the author released the book “Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka”.
In an interview, Scieszka said “those knucklehead stories are a perfect example of me growing up doing crazy things and it just shows (students) that you don’t have to be someone famous to write about yourself.”
“Kids are always coming up to me afterwards and said ‘Those are crazy stories. I can do that!'” Scieszka said. “And I say ‘perfect’ — that’s exactly what you want them to feel, that they can do that.”
But Scieszka has also taken the time to show young people copies of notes, rough drafts, second drafts and final drafts with words changed and entire passages crossed out.
Writing is hard — Scieszka didn’t make a career of writing until he had taught elementary school for 10 years. And it takes time and effort, he said.
Scieszka’s latest book, released in late August, “Frank Einstein and the Brain Turbo”, is the third in a New York Times-best selling series mixing science, wacky inventions, adventure, sports and girls, with insights calibrated to readers young and old.
Topping the list of American Library Association recommended reading for grades 3 through 5 this summer was “Battle Bunny” by Scieszka and Mac Barnett. On a listing by Goodreads, Bunny receives a 4.12 out of 2,082 ratings, on a 5.0 scale. Perhaps more impressively, 479 readers took time to write a review.
Walden Librarian Kathy Kerner, who arranged for Scieszka to visit the school, said students learned about the author and some students had read his books before this week’s visit.
“Before he came I filled in the gaps,” said Kerner. “I told them about his growing up, his background and connected it with his books. Then we followed up with where you get ideas, some writing and how to take things in your own life and write them into stories.”
“I’m so glad Jon talked about how reading is an important part of being a writer,” Kerner said.
Denys Bucksten is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
