WHO'S NEWS
March 15, 2004
Meet E.L. Konigsburg
Kids take charge of their lives in this author's creative books
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For nearly 40 years, young readers have run away with Claudia and Jamie Kincaid to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Author E.L. Konigsburg wrote about Claudia and Jamie's adventures in her award-winning book From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. In Konigsburg's new book, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, readers meet Margaret Rose Kane, another young character trying to change the world around her. TFK spoke with Konigsburg about her writing and the new book, published last month.
Kid Reporter Ashley and Kid Reporter Brandon both reviewed Outcasts!
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Konigsburg: I’m doing research for what I hope will be my next book, but like many authors I’m so superstitious about talking about a work in progress. If I talk it out, I won’t write it out so I just stay silent. The need to be quiet about what you’re working on is common among a lot of us. I want to retain the right to change my mind.
TFK: Like Margaret Rose Kane in The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, did you go to summer camp as a kid?
Konigsburg: Never and neither did my kids but a few of my grandchildren have to mixed results.
TFK: In The Outcasts, the 12-year-old campers try to ruin Margaret’s self image. What advice would you give to kids who are bullied or teased? Did you go to summer camp as a kid?
Konigsburg: I think you have to let it strengthen you. If I get a bad book review, I can mope and mope and mope but you have to let that strengthen you—take it in, not ignore it—but you have to go back to that core that you know is strong. I love the part (in The Outcasts) where Margaret Rose says that her uncles tell her that “Rose” will stop bullets. It’s that inner part of her that she knows is so loved.
TFK: Your young characters make a difference in the world around them. Often, they seem even smarter than the adults. What qualities do you admire most in children?
Konigsburg: I guess their concept of possibility and a freshness of point of view.
TFK: Which one of your characters is most like you?
Konigsburg: I don’t know. I’ve been told that I’m Claudia (the main character in From The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) but I’ve also been told that I am like Mrs. Carr in George. There’s a part of me that leaves things just shoved into drawers and into closets and there’s a part of me that wants everything folded and neat.
TFK: You introduce challenging vocabulary in your books. Is this deliberate to help students broaden their vocabulary?
Konigsburg: How nice of you to ask! For all of my books I had the same editor until this one (The Outcasts). My editors have never once asked me to lighten up on the vocabulary or dummy it down. They just take such pleasure—the same kind of pleasure I take in words. They know it would be insulting to do it. If it is a challenge, I think it is a fitting challenge because the words work into the text in a natural way.
I have always loved to read. I still look up words…sometimes as I’m reading I’ll just stop and go over a phrase when someone has said something so beautifully. It just sticks with me.
TFK: Did you develop any of your books from real-life experiences?
Konigsburg: They come from that but they grow, they grow in a different direction, but very often something from real life prompts what I’ve done. For example, I had two uncles named Alex and Morris, they were eccentric but in a very, very different way.
TFK: You are one of the few authors to receive the Newbery Medal twice. How do you feel about your accomplishments as a children’s book author?
Konigsburg: Every book is a new challenge. It is so wonderful to have received that award twice. It’s a kind of affirmation that is a blessing. I think that’s the way I look on it, as a blessing.
TFK: Did you read a lot when you were a kid?
Konigsburg: I did. The one that sticks in my mind and is probably still my favorite is The Secret Garden. I read classics, comic books and I loved and still love biographies.
TFK: I read that you never dreamed you’d become a children’s book author. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Konigsburg: I don’t know. Our options were so limited in this little town. I guessed I was going to be in one of the service professions—nursing or a secretary or something. In high school, I was editor of our school paper, but I never ever met anyone who made his living in the arts.
TFK: Why do you love writing books for children?
Konigsburg: It is just the most fortunate of careers. It has opened up worlds to me. It’s doing something from within myself for something that is outside myself.
TFK: What are your favorite things to do?
Konigsburg: I like to paint. I like to read. I live on the beach—I love to walk along the beach. I love looking at the Atlantic (Ocean). That’s about my favorite scenery.
TFK: Any advice for aspiring young authors?
Konigsburg: Finish. The difference between a person of talent and a writer is the ability to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish.
Kid Reporter Ashley and Kid Reporter Brandon both reviewed Outcasts!
