Peg Kehret Blog

Larry Karp sent me an email in which he used the word oleaginous. I was not familiar with oleaginous, so I looked it up. In case you are as uninformed as I was, Google’s source defines oleaginous as, “Buttery: unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech.” What a great word! Larry had used it to describe a telemarketer, and I now have an instant mental image of this person. I also like the connection between ole and buttery. Who but a writer would casually drop oleaginous into a sentence? And who but another writer would get excited by that?

Two good friends have new books out this week. Congratulations to the above-mentioned Larry Karp, who is not an oleaginous person, on the April 1 release of The Ragtime Fool, the third in his fine ragtime trilogy. And congratulations to David Patenaude on the publication of his YA novel, Epitaph Road. 

Kids sometimes ask me what inspires me to write. Usually I say it’s them. I’m inspired by readers who enjoy my books, and they make me want to keep writing. But there is another motivation, too. There are my Snoopy moments.

It’s a favorite Charlie Brown cartoon. In the first scene, Snoopy is sitting on the roof of his dog house, typing away. Then he’s flat on his back, kicking his feet in the air, clearly ecstatic. In the final scene, Snoopy says, “I love it when I write something that I know is good.”

I’ve had that feeling. For each book, I write and revise and write some more. Trying to draw out the ideas and the best words from my head onto the page is a slow and often difficult process. Every so often, I write a scene or some dialogue or a brief description that I know is exactly right. When this happens, I feel the same way Snoopy does. I don’t flop on the floor and kick my feet in the air, but I do nod my head and smile at the computer screen and sometimes even feel goosebumps on my arms.

Snoopy moments are the best part of writing, but they only happen when I’m seated at the keyboard working on a manuscript. Like most good things in life, Snoopy moments must be earned.

At the end of my last speech at the Children’s Literature Festival, I took questions from the audience, most of whom were students in the ten-to-thirteen age range. One girl asked, “When is your birthday?” I laughed and said, “That’s a sneaky way to find out how old I am.” I went on to say, “I’m seventy-three years old.”

To my surprise, the audience clapped and cheered! I told them, “My age isn’t my accomplishment; I had no choice about growing old. The hard part was writing all these books.”

The Children’s Literature Festival at the University of Central Missouri was a whirlwind of speaking to students and teachers, signing books, reconnecting with old friends, and making new ones. Forty authors attended this year. I would love to go incognito some time and do nothing but listen to all the other authors speak. This year I was able to hear only one talk. Roland Smith presented ahead of me in the same auditorium, so yesterday I went early to hear Roland’s speech. I enjoyed hearing him talk about his writing process, and the photos of the animal rescues he’s helped with were fabulous.

It is always fun to talk at such an event. For a few short hours, the authors are the stars of the show and it is exciting to be in the spotlight. This morning I’m happy to be back in my office and ready to do what I love even more than talking to large audiences and signing autographs - write the next book.

My friend and fellow writer, Joni Sensel, posted a Facebook comment one day that said, “Airport. Too early. Missing the dogs.” Oh, boy, did I ever relate to that! The hardest part of travel for me (even worse than going through security) is leaving my animals. I have a wonderful pet-sitter who moves into my house and keeps the animals on their usual routine. She brings them toys, gives them treats, and tells them how beautiful they are. I am certain that when I’m away I miss the animals lots more than they miss me.

Tomorrow I’ll be at the airport, heading for a Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, Missouri. I am excited about going. I’ll see old friends, including Roland and Marie Smith, Vicki Grove, Mary Downing Hahn, and many others. I’ll talk to over 2,000 students and teachers, and sign hundreds of books. It will be a busy, happy, productive time and I am grateful to Central Missouri University for inviting me. Even so, I still look forward to coming home again - to being welcomed by a dog who is so overjoyed to see me that she races in circles around the dining room table, and to hearing the happy purrs as Molly hops on the bed beside me. Mr. Stray knows my car and hurries to sit by his bowl on my front porch when I return. Whether they missed me much or not, the animals are always glad to see me, and I am glad to see them.

I am celebrating the sale of Japanese rights to Night of Fear. This is the first of my books to be published in Japanese. After reading the contract terms, I figured out that my royalty on each copy sold will be 78 yen. Of course, all royalties on the foreign editions of my books come to me in U.S. dollars, but I’m having a good time imagining those 78 yen.

Foreign sales are one of the best perks of being an author, because a book gets published but I don’t have to write it first. I have never been to Japan, and it is exciting for me to know that Japanese students, teachers, and librarians will be able to read my book in their own language.

It also pleases me to see a new life for this particular title, which was originally published in 1994. I have a special fondness for Night of Fear because the character of Grandma Ruth has Alzheimer’s disease. My father had Alzheimer’s, so I used personal experience and feelings as I wrote.

I had an inquiry from someone who was searching for the poem, “Lilacs in Summer,” which one of the characters in Runaway Twin plagiarizes. She couldn’t find the poem on the internet, and asked where she could get a copy. She can’t find “Lilacs in Summer” because it doesn’t exist. I made it up. I even Googled the title before I used it, to be sure there wasn’t a real poem with that title.

Another reader requested the street address of Aunt Ethel, from The Ghost’s Grave. She was planning a field trip to view all of the places mentioned in the story. I explained that Aunt Ethel and her house are fictional, as is the rest of the book.

While many readers feel as if a fictional story is true, those who read my nonfiction often question the facts. I have many letters from kids who read Small Steps asking if I really had polio. Those who read Five Pages a Day want to know if I really won a car.

Apparently my fiction is so realistic that it seems true, while my real life is too unusual to be believed. As a writer, I obviously can’t be trusted.

Stolen Children is being challenged at a school in Pennsylvania because a parent objects to the gun in the story. Ironically, I thought this book showed the danger a gun can present and made a strong case against a child using one. More than once, Amy, the heroine, thinks about the harm a gun can inflict and affirms that she would never shoot anyone, not even two low-lifes like her kidnappers.

When Amy sneaks into the cabin and retrieves the villain’s gun, she chooses not to use it. Instead she carries it to the stinky outhouse behind the cabin, and drops it down the hole. The gun is never fired. As in all of my books that have a bad guy, there is a threat of danger but no violence ever happens.

This school had a process in place for dealing with censorship, and those steps are being followed. The objecting parent first tried to have the book removed from the entire school district. That effort failed, so now she wants it removed from the library used by grades four-six. The librarian, a reading teacher, a school psychologist, a principal, and the assistant superintendent will be meeting soon with the district superintendent to discuss a recommendation. I regret that these people must spend their valuable time this way. I’ve always believed that parents have the right to restrict their own child’s reading material but I don’t think they have the right to decide what other children can read.

I’ve had many letters from young readers telling me that their favorite part of Stolen Children was when Amy got rid of the gun by dropping it down the outhouse hole.  The kids apparently understand the book’s warning about the dangers of weapons, even if one parent does not.