Mama Jean

Thank heavens we have Kate DiCamillo to turn to when it comes to writing a good story, a story that’s true, because in perusing the newest children’s literature stories, in my opinion nearly all of them fall short of “a story that’s true.” Instead, these writers must check off the boxes: racism? No. Feminist? Yes. A gay character? Yes (I kid you not.). It’s not about truth; it’s about box-checking. Even the Newbery Award has capitulated.

So I was thrilled to read Kate DiCamillo’s new book published last year called Ferris. It’s a realistic tale about a girl, Ferris, her household, and her neighborhood community. Kate uses a couple of devices in all of her books: one is the concept of “story.” In Despereaux, “stories are light, dear reader,” from teller to listener. In Ferris, it’s “every good story is a love story.”

Introducing you to Ferris also introduces you to children’s realistic fiction—with a touch of fantasy in it. Ferris’s grandmother Charisse sees a ghost in her room.

In past posts I’ve alluded to how our brain can be a way to build the foundation for children’s literature: from birth to about 10, we are all right-brained dominant: no judgements, strong in observation and imagistic thinking, takes in the world. Then from “10 and up” (give or take a year) the left side materializes so that the brain is balanced. However, the left side is the chatty side, the judgey side, thinks linearly, sometimes causing the right side to go behind a door for a while until it has time and space to “speak” which is when creativity comes forth: “You mean to tell me that….?”

So in 2024, here comes Ferris, a 10 year-old girl enjoying the summer before school starts again when her grandmother tells her about the ghost she sees. A female ghost who doesn’t talk; she just “appears,” mournfully. And the grandmother has no fear. Their dog Boomer sees her too. But since this is realistic fiction, he is not a talking dog as Clifford, the Big Red Dog is. He just whimpers when he sees the ghost. Ferris, being 10, asks “but why is the ghost here?” Her grandmother replies, “I have absolutely no idea. I am utterly baffled by it, darling.”

Thus when Kate writes a realistic story with a ghost as a character who converses with Ferris’s grandmother, a reader won’t even blink at it, accepting it as part of the story, the vision of the world written *of* the world. So as readers we say to ourselves, “of course a ghost is part of this story,” because it’s a story that’s true. And all “good” (true) stories are love stories.”

Remember, too, that all good stories are first of all entertaining, and then they reveal lessons to be taught. Not the other way around. This story certainly follows that protocol, thank heavens!

This light and seemingly frivolous story builds slowly, introducing character after character who come into Ferris’s life, or is already a part of her life: Mom and Dad, Pinkey-her younger sister, Aunt Shirley and Uncle Ted, Billy Jackson—a classmate from kindergarten on, Big Bill, his dad, a chandelier, the hardware store owner, and Mrs. Mielk, their teacher who taught them many new vocabulary words. If you remember from ——Despereaux, Kate loves to introduce new vocabulary words to the reader/listener.

Imagine all those characters being introduced and then building, building like a symphony, delightfully at first, almost frivolously to where, by the time we finish reading the story and put down the book, we say to ourselves: “That was quite a story. Kate was right;

All good stories are love stories.”

It’s lovely, sad, happy, and by the end, Kate has shown us something else: how a meal, a dinner, not only can make a community out of a disparate group of people centered on a ghost and a chandelier can give connection and cultural continuity, the last characteristic needed for a story that’s true.