Look!
Over at Bookslut, Colleen Mondor says, “the go-to book for every middle school reader this winter should be Laurel Snyder’s Any Which Wall…. With or without a debt owed to Mr. Eager, Ms. Snyder proudly stands on her own here, and has created a truly blissful read. It might just help a kid survive the winter – and plot their own summertime fun.”
(yeah, this guy!)
NOW! Introducing and announcing with great fanfare!!! A brand-spanking new blog feature! An invention!
EAGER READERS: A BACKWARDS BLOG TOUR!
Why a backwards blog tour? you ask…
No particular reason. Just seemed like fun!
What’s a backwards blog tour? you ask…
Well, instead of running around the blogosphere, answering other people’s random (and often repetitive) questions… I’m inviting other folks here, to answer ONE question!
What question might that be? you ask…
Why, I’m glad you’re so curious! The question is: WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER/LOVE/ HATE ABOUT READING EDWARD EAGER? Hence the name of the blog feature: Eager Readers!
Now, right about this time you might be thinking, Hey, tthat sounds totally random, Laurel!
And it does sound random, I know…but see, I have a reason for all of this madness.
Because my new book, Any Which Wall, is a tribute to Edward Eager. Best known for having penned Half Magic, Eager in fact wrote a slew of funny, imaginative books betwen 1952 and 1962. In these books, regular children, living in America, encountered magic, made mistakes, and had a lot of fun in a an everyday way. Eager really helped pave the way (along with his hero, Edith Nesbit) for all the magic books kids love today. Percy Jackson, Potter, etc…
Though of course, he wasn’t perfect, and not everyone loves him as I do. (and if you don‘t love him, please shoot me an email and tell me why!)
But in trying to learn more about him, and in attempting to track down his family, I hit brick walls everywhere. There’s just not much to be found. I went in search of his grandchildren, and came up empty handed…
So instead of skipping blithely around the blogosphere this month, talking about myself, and harassing you all with amazon links at every turn… I thought I’d celebrate my book release by asking the blogosphere to come over here, for a party, to discuss and share tidbits and memories about this mysterious man. Eagerly!
Do you loathe his treatment of women?
Do you admire his use of herb gardens?
Do you have a particular memory of something from one of his books?
PLEASE SHARE!
I hereby beg for/ request/ welcome/ invite thoughts from other people who have memories or thoughts about the books and life of Edward Eager. I’d welcome anyone’s comments, and will happily post anything I get at laurelsnyder (at) hotmail.com.
Stay tuned for more!!!
Today, in preparation for next month’s publication of Any Which Wall, I set out to look for other fans of Edward Eager, since WALL is a kind of tribute to Eager. I thought maybe I could interest Eager fans in MY BOOK!
But sadly, I have to report that there’s just nothing online about Eager. No fan page, no fan club, nothing.
I find this hard to accept. Eager has been in print for half a century. He was a bestseller in his day, and every library I’ve ever set foot in has had a copy of Half Magic on its shelves. I know countless people who love his books, and yet– I guess he just doesn’t inspite the kind of excitement required for fandom.
Which has me thinking about devotion, obsession. What is it about some books that inspires frenzy? Madness? Passion? Eager’s books are, I guess, not those kinds of books.
They’re not the kind of books you have wild nights with. They’re just the kind of books you marry.
Allow me to unveil the cover of ANY WHICH WALL! Which is now available for pre-order on Amazon, about a jillion years ahead of schedule. WOW!)
LeUyen Pham is a genius!
When I tell you just *who* is illustrating my next book.
Yeah, WOW! (And you haven’t even seen the sketches I got yesterday!!!)
When I was asked, years ago, who my dream illustrator would be for Scratchy Mountains, I said quickly, “N.M. Bodecker.”
“He doesn’t work much these days,” I was told. Â “He’s dead,”
Oh.
So I tried again. “Hilary Knight?”
“We’ll try…” they replied with a knowing snicker. “But dont get your hopes up.”
Indeed, Mr. Knight never responded to any of my fan letters.
So… given that Tenniel is also unavailable, I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED!!!!
YAY!
Pham’s work reminds me of my favorite artists, actually. There’s something funny and smartypants and artsy at the same time. Something off kilter. Everything looks a little too big or a little too small, and everything looks like it has a touch of vertigo. Everyone she draws look like they just heard a good joke.
(Yeah, you could say I aim for the stars… but how else you gonna fall to the moon?)
 It is only a draft, what I have. And I’m sure my very wonderful editor will pull it into a trillion gazillion pieces and help me make it better. I harbor no illusions that it’s really done. That I’m truly finished.
Far from it. This thing is a MESS!
But when you have a deadline, and you only have about 8 hours a week without people pulling on you (quite literally), the pressure, the fear that you will find yourself on deadline day about 60 pages shy of a book… it’s a BIG fear. And the sense of helplessness that goes with it. The idea that the only way to carve out more time is to rob your sleep.
When you are averaging 5 hours a night, broken into 1.5 hour segments!
I remember being lazy. I remember what that felt like, that sense of guilt that it was *my* fault I wasn’t finished with something. Late nights in college, writing 20 pages in 12 hours, researching in the wee small hours because I’d watched too much Rikki Lake every day for a week.
Sigh.
Sometimes I wish for that time back. I imagine what I could do now if I could jsut rescue an hour of time for every 10 hours I wasted in grad school or college. Store those hours up in a box. Pull them out when I need them.
But then… I wouldn’t be me.
And maybe I needed all that down time, that “wasted” time. To become this person. The person…
Who just FINISHED HER BOOK!
Yip!
Now I just have to hope it doesn’t suck… I have to hope pirates aren’t totally overdone… I have to worry…
Oy.
(In other news, we are looking at ideas for illustrators. And boy howdy, is that FUN!)