You can live a long time in New York City and never know about rather large, rather important, rather influential literary organizations until they pop up in front of your nose. So it was that had you said the words, "PEN American Center" or "PEN Children's Book Committee" to me roughly one week ago I would have smiled blankly at you and blinked in discomfort. PEN? Oh dear. This is something obvious, isn't it? Yep. Quite simply it is, "An association of writers working to advance literature, defend free expression, and foster international literary fellowship." The kind of organization that can boast members like Susan Sontag, W.H. Auden, and Langston Hughes. Oh me oh my.

I received via e-mail an invitation to attend a panel of prize-winning children's authors under the title Dreadful Lies/Peculiar Truths. Present would be Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Newbery Honor winner for Hitler Youth), Robert Lipsyte (YA author of The Contender and, more recently, Heroes of Baseball), Vera B. Williams (A Chair for My Mother, as if you didn't know), and moderator Susan Kuklin (who, amongst other things, did that very nice picture book Dance with Bill T. Jones).

You live in New York, you get spoiled. Yet even jaded little me didn't want to pass up the chance to hear these people talk about "how we navigate the narrow strait between providing brute facts and protecting young readers." Yowza! Sounded hot. So at 7:00 p.m. I walked into a quintessentially New York building. Now, the map will call it The New York Center for Independent Publishing but when you mosey in off the street what you think you've stumbled into is The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen. That's what all the interior signs call it anyway. The space is an odd, though not unpleasant, mixture of gilt, gold, marble, wrought iron, glass, must, and framed flags. Lotsa framed flags. You've soaring heights and magnificently narrow bathrooms all at once. Had the evening been a bust I would have been content to peaceably stare around myself in abject awe. As it was, I didn't have to worry too much about becoming bored.

I should mention right now that the entire affair was recorded for podcasting. If you would like to hear firsthand some of the things said, merely go here and find the panel discussion in full.

A couple things became very clear, very fast. First off, Robert Lipsyte is not afraid to voice his opinion on any and all subjects. The result is that he's custom-made for good sound bites. When discussing his book on Muhammad Ali he'll mention that older sportswriters hated him and younger sportswriters loved him, "and we were both wrong." Or he'd say (and this is pretty true) that in YA novels the "gay kid has replaced the magical Negro" in terms of creating a diverse foil for the protagonist. Bartoletti is just as honest but subdued. She was very good at picking up where her fellow panelists would leave off and weave their discussions into her own work. Williams for her part started off slowly, but when she got rolling she was fun to listen to. I enjoyed hearing her discuss how, as a child, she took on the cause of children, of which she was one. Williams the younger felt oppressed by authorities figures (perhaps her sister in particular). Whether or not that comes out in her works is up for discussion.

Being that the evening was based on the concept of providing honest books for young readers, it seemed logical for the discussion to take into account the idea of what it is to "lie." Lipsyte was adamant on this point. He made it very clear that lying is NEVER acceptable in children's books. Williams then clarified that when it comes to writing books for children you have to deal with "another kind of honesty" particularly if you are working within the limitations of a picture book format. Authors in these cases must condense the truth without perverting it. No easy task. Bartoletti followed this up with the observation that we should tell our stories as honestly as we can. If a story doesn't grab her and is just meant to "teach," then she won't write it. It is important to remember too though that, as Lipsyte said, there's a difference between a mere suspension of disbelief and "bullshit." Interestingly, Williams mentioned that some people feel that her own books have "lied." In A Chair for My Mother the neighbors all pitch in when someone loses their home. Yet a woman once told her that this kind of communal reaction would never happen in her own neighborhood and was, therefore, dishonest. So if a piece of writing doesn't speak to the experiences of the reader, they may decide it doesn't reflect their own reality and, therefore, lies. Bartoletti would later point out that silence itself in the context of a book can be considered a lie, so there's that to consider as well.

It all got me to thinking too. I mean, what do we consider "lying" in fiction? Remember the anger that was lobbied against The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? Were people mad because they felt that the whole fable aspect wasn't a delightful trope but, instead, a very painful lie? How can an author tell the difference?

 The conversation segued nicely into Bartoletti's comments on how this all applies to non-fiction. She pointed out that in the ’90s, protagonists in works of nonfiction books about labor were passive (think kids in mills) while in fictional books like Lyddie they were active. Her desire behind her book Kids On Strike was to show real kids in real life "actually with an agency" that belied the old stereotype. Now here's where Kuklin, who has been moderating the entire evening with aplomb, really gets clever. She ties these statements of Bartoletti into Lipsyte's earlier statement that his books show "all the warts." He noted that not ALL the warts appear in his books. That wouldn't make it children's literature, after all. But sure enough a book like Heroes of Baseball displays the ugly side of baseball "heroes." Says Lipsyte about the book, you need to show enough of what is good and enough of what is bad about these characters. Let the kids draw their own conclusions. He went on to say that he enjoyed Hitler Youth because it dared to make you think to yourself, "Would I have been a Hitler Youth?"

 The evening could have been considered interesting from a YA perspective alone. First of all, consider Robert Lipsyte. Since YA fiction finds its roots in a variety of different titles, you can't necessarily call Lipsyte's The Contender the first of its kind. Still, there's no denying that the man must be credited as one of the founders of young adult fiction intended for young adults. At the same time, the audience around me appeared to be filled with David Levithan's New School students on a field trip. So when Lipsyte started to tear into the more chick lit-ish aspects of some YA books (emphasis, and the word itself, my own) I was amazed to see the Levithanians did not rise as one or, at the very least, offer some kind of response to some of his choicer statements.

 Other people offered questions at the end. Smart questions too. One man asked about how authors deal with the elimination of additional dimensions in children's works. This led to a discussion of editing vs. censorship. Another person brought up children's films and I was delighted to see Ms. Williams say that movies for kids definitely have less honesty than books. And when Bartoletti mentioned how books have a much wider subject range, it got me to thinking. Maybe this accounts for the popularity of book trailers. When you live in a time period where realistic children's books get filmed only when you drop in CGI elements (Bridge to Terabithia) or when you film them for television (Pictures of Hollis Woods) then you see instantly how limited they are, compared to books.

 A good time was had by all, I think. I was satisfied and I'll certainly be watching PEN for even more upcoming events in the future. Hopefully I'll get to see how all of this applies to the books I read and review close at hand.

 
  * For the podcast of Dreadful Lies/Peculiar Truths

  * For the podcast on the PEN site of a recent interview done with Susan Patron and Robie Harris (so so cool)

Posted by: Elizabeth Bird, New York Public Library