When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? When I was six and my sister was five, my mother gave each of us one of those marble composition notebooks. She told me that my notebook was supposed to be my poetry book, and she told my sister that her notebook was supposed to be her journal. So I started writing poetry, and my sister started keeping a journal, and we both found out that we loved doing it.
What’s your most embarrassing childhood memory?
Oh, there are so many! One day in third grade, I decided to run away from school, and I made a very public announcement to that effect. But when I got to the edge of the playground, I realized I had no place to go, so I had to come slinking back again. That memory still makes me cringe.
What’s your favorite childhood memory?
We vacationed every summer at a little lake in New Hampshire, and I remember sitting out on the lake in a rowboat, writing poems and drawing pictures and making up stories about imaginary princesses with my sister. Those were very happy days.
As a young person, who did you look up to most?
I mostly looked up to characters in books who were braver and stronger than I was, like Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, who loses her beloved father and has to live in poverty in Miss Minchin’s cold, miserable garret, but never stops acting like the princess that she feels she is in inside. I also looked up to Anne of Green Gables for her spunk in breaking that slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head.
What was your favorite thing about school?
It’s sort of weird and nerdy to say this, but I loved almost everything about school, and during summer vacations, I’d even cross off the days until school started again. Best of all, I loved any writing assignments and being in plays. In fifth grade, I played the role of stuck-up cousin Annabelle in our classroom play of Caddie Woodlawn, and that was wonderful.
What was your least favorite thing about school? Definitely PE! I was always terrible at PE. I just couldn’t do any of the sports, and one time the fourth-grade teacher made the whole class stop and look over at how terribly I was doing this one exercise. I still hate her for that.
What were your hobbies as a kid? What are your hobbies now?
Well, writing, definitely, and reading and taking long walks. Hey, those are my same hobbies now. The only new hobby I’ve added is obsessively checking e-mail.
What was your first job, and what was your “worst” job?
My first job was working in the junior clothes department at Sears. Back then, three girls worked in one department: one to work the cash register, one to oversee the dressing room, and one to tidy up the clothes racks. I loved tidying up the clothes racks, buttoning up the dresses that needed buttoning. I loved buttoning one dress so much that I bought it, and then found that once I had it at home I had no desire to button it at all anymore. My worst job was being a waitress. I would have done all right if I could have handled just one table at a time, from drinks to salad to main course and then dessert, but my brain could not handle juggling all those different tables at once.
How did you celebrate publishing your first book?
I don’t remember celebrating it. Now that I look back, I wish I had. It’s a very special moment.
Where do you write your books?
I write all my books in longhand, lying on the couch, using the same clipboard-without-a-clip that I’ve had for thirty years, always using a white narrow-ruled pad with no margins, and always using a Pilot Razor Point fine-tipped black marker pen.
What sparked your imagination for How Oliver Olson Changed the World?
Whenever I visit schools as an author, I love to walk up and down the hallways and look at whatever student work is posted there. In one school, I saw that the kids had completed an assignment where they had to write their ideas for how they would change the world. Bingo! I was all set and ready to go! Then I had to decide who my main character would be, and I decided that I should pick a kid who would be initially exceedingly unlikely to change the world. Many of the kids I know today are very overprotected by their parents, so I decided to make Oliver a kid with hovering “helicopter parents” who do everything for him so that he can never do anything for himself. A dear friend who is that kind of parent knew I was working on the book, and she told me, “If you need any more information about overprotective parents, just come over to our house!”
Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite?
I don’t have a favorite. My books feel like my children; each one has such a huge piece of my heart in it. So I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings by loving one of them more than its brothers and sisters.
What challenges do you face in the writing process, and how do you overcome them?
By far the biggest challenge is learning how to accept, and even to welcome, criticism. I hate criticism and always want everybody to love my books from the very first draft. But the only way to grow as a writer, and to produce the best possible book, is to listen to what critical readers tell you, and then rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.
Which of your characters is most like you?
Each one is like me in some way, or maybe I become more like that character as I write about him or her. I think overall the two who are most like me are Dinah in the Dinah books and Lizzie in Lizzie at Last. Lizzie is so much like me that I even dedicated the book to myself: “For the girl I used to be.”
What makes you laugh out loud?
I always laugh out loud if somebody is trying to do something in an oh-so-serious way and then something goes hideously and publicly awry. That kind of thing makes me howl.
What do you do on a rainy day?
Write and read, of course!
What’s your idea of fun?
Writing and reading!
What’s your favorite song?
Gosh, I have so many. I guess I’ll go with “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles.
Who is your favorite fictional character?
Betsy Ray in the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hard Lovelace
What was your favorite book when you were a kid? Do you have a favorite book now?
It was and still is Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace, which I consider to be the finest novel in the English language.
What’s your favorite TV show or movie?
I don’t watch much TV. My favorite movie, in recent years, is Julie & Julia; I loved watching both women develop as writers.
If you were stranded on a desert island, who would you want for company?
I’d be happy with pretty much anybody. In elementary school, the teachers would keep moving my desk so I’d stop talking to the person next to me, but then they found out that I would be happy talking to anyone.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and what would you do?
I’d like to live in Paris, in a garret, and write, and be very poor, and make money by selling flowers on the street corner.
If you could travel in time, where would you go and what would you do?
I’d go back to Amherst, Massachusetts, in the 1850s, and walk by Emily Dickinson’s house, and see if she would lower a little basket out the window to me with a fresh-baked muffin and a freshly written poem in it.
What’s the best advice you have ever received about writing?
Brenda Ueland says, in If You Want to Write, that writing is supposed to be fun, and that if we allow ourselves to let it be fun, stories and poems will just keep pouring out of us. I think she’s right.
Do you ever get writer’s block? What do you do to get back on track?
I don’t, really. My secret is to write for a short, fixed time—usually an hour—every single day. That way I never get burned out from writing, and I never get far enough away from my story that I lose my momentum.
What do you want readers to remember about your books?
I always try to have my main character learn a small but important truth about how to make his or her life better. Oliver learns that even if he c
an’t change the whole world, he can change some little part of it. But I know when I think back to favorite books I read a long time ago, it tends to be some little, trivial-but-fun detail that sticks in my head.
What would you do if you ever stopped writing?
Oh, I hope I never do! But I do love reading almost as much, so I guess I’d just read, read, read. Or teach writing, which I do already and love doing.
What do you like best about yourself?
I am very good at being cheerful. I have all kinds of strategies and techniques and lists and mantras that I use to cheer myself up when I have hard things to deal with in my life. I think I have a gift for making myself reasonably happy.
Do you have any strange or funny habits? Did you when you were a kid?
I chew my pen or pencil as I write—I always have. Once, a few years ago, I chewed my pen so hard while I was writing that I broke my tooth and had to spend five hundred dollars at the dentist to get it fixed.
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
I’m proud that I’ve written over forty books while always working full-time at another demanding profession (being a university professor of philosophy).
What do you wish you could do better?
I wish I could cook. The meals at my house are horrible. I pretty much live on English muffins with butter and orange marmalade.
What would your readers be most surprised to learn about you?
My favorite food is candy, particularly seasonal candy: candy corn at Halloween, those little Conversation Hearts for Valentine’s Day, Cadbury Creme Eggs at Easter.
Riley O’Rourke falls in love with the sax, but his mom says they can’t afford to rent the instrument. But as he prepares for the dreaded fourth-grade biography tea, Riley realizes that there may be a solution to his problem after all. Teddy Roosevelt never gave up and neither will he!
Keep reading for an excerpt from
BEING TEDDY ROOSEVELT
by Claudia Mills
1
Riley gave up.
He couldn’t find his language arts notebook in his desk or in his backpack. He must have forgotten it somewhere.
“Does everybody have his or her notebook ready?” Mrs. Harrow asked. “Riley?”
“I think I left it at home.”
Mrs. Harrow sighed. “This is the third time this week that you’re missing a notebook, Riley.”
Riley was impressed that she knew the exact number of times. She remembered more about him than he remembered about himself.
Sophie sat on Riley’s right. Her notebook lay open in the exact middle of her desk. The cursive on each page was as neat and beautiful as Mrs. Harrow’s on the chalkboard.
Erika sat on Riley’s left. She had her notebook out, but she hadn’t opened it. Erika did only what she felt like doing. Apparently, she didn’t feel like opening her notebook right now.
Riley’s best friend, Grant, sat directly in front of Riley. His notebook was almost as perfect as Sophie’s. Grant’s parents bought him a video game for every A he got on his report card. Riley didn’t think he could get A’s even if his mother bought him ten video games for each one. He had a hard enough time getting B’s and C’s.
Mrs. Harrow handed Riley a piece of paper. “You can write your assignment on this.”
Of course, now Riley would have to make sure he didn’t lose the piece of paper.
“Don’t lose it, dear,” Mrs. Harrow said.
“All right, class,” she went on. “We are going to be starting our fall unit on biographies. Does anyone know what a biography is?”
Sophie did. “It’s a book about someone’s life. A true book. About a famous person’s life.”
Sophie would probably have a biography written about her someday—if a person could be famous for having a neat notebook and 100 percent on every spelling test. Sophie Sartin: The Girl Who Never Made a Mistake. That would be the title.
Riley meant to listen to what Mrs. Harrow was saying next, but he couldn’t stop thinking up titles for other biographies.
Erika Lee: The Girl Who Did What She Wanted. He noticed that Erika still hadn’t opened her notebook. Mrs. Harrow hadn’t said anything to her about it, either.
Grant Littleton: The Boy Who Owned Every Single Video Game System Ever Invented. Plus Every Single Game. Not a very short or snappy title, but a lot of kids would want to read that one.
What would the title of his biography be? Riley O’Rourke: The Boy Who Couldn’t Find His Notebook. That didn’t sound like a book kids would be lining up to read. Riley O’Rourke: The Boy Who Would Forget His Head If It Weren’t Fastened On.
That’s what grownups were always saying to him: “Riley, you’d forget your head if it weren’t fastened on.” The book would have cool illustrations, at least. There could be a picture of a seal balancing Riley’s head on its nose like a beach ball. Or someone dunking his head into the hoop at a basketball game.
Riley grinned.
“Remember, class,” Mrs. Harrow said, “the biography you read has to be at least one hundred pages long. Your five-page report on the biography is due three weeks from today, on Wednesday, October fourth. And then on that Friday we’ll have our fourth-grade biography tea.”
“What’s a biography tea?” Sophie asked.
Mrs. Harrow gave the class a big smile. It was clear that she thought a biography tea was something extremely wonderful. Right away, Riley got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“On the day of our biography tea,” Mrs. Harrow said, “you will arrive at school dressed up as the subject of your biography. All day long you will act like that person. Then in the afternoon we will have a fancy tea party, and you famous people from world history will sit at special decorated tables and have tea together!”
To say that Riley would rather die than go to a biography tea would be an exaggeration. But not a big exaggeration.
Sophie gave a little squeal of delight. “I love tea parties!”
Erika gave a little snort of disgust. Riley gathered that Erika did not love tea parties.
Grant raised his hand. “We can be whoever we want, right?”
Mrs. Harrow shook her head. “Oh, no, dear. I let the children pick one year, and I got only football players and rock stars. I’ve prepared two hats filled with names, one for boys and one for girls. You will draw from the hats to find out the subject of your biography.”
For the first time, Riley noticed two hats perched on Mrs. Harrow’s desk. The black stovepipe Abe Lincoln hat must be for the boys. The flowered straw hat must be for the girls.
The first girl to choose got Pocahontas, an Indian princess.
The first boy to choose got Napoleon, the French emperor.
Sophie got Helen Keller, the blind and deaf woman. She didn’t squeal with delight this time.
Erika got Florence Nightingale. “Who’s Florence Nightingale?”
“She was a famous nurse,” Mrs. Harrow said.
“I don’t want to be a nurse.”
“Well …” Riley knew Mrs. Harrow would give in. That was the only way of dealing with Erika. “I suppose you could be Queen Elizabeth the First.”
Riley hoped he’d get some famous musician, like Beethoven or Duke Ellington, or even better, a sax player like Charlie Parker.
He got President Teddy Roosevelt. That wasn’t too bad. Riley had seen a picture of Teddy Roosevelt once, wearing a uniform and sitting on a horse. But reading a hundred-page book about Teddy Roosevelt and writing a five-page paper about Teddy Roosevelt and trying to drink tea while wearing a mustache would be terrible.
Grant got Mahatma Gandhi.
“Gandhi!” Grant shouted. “The bald guy who sits cross-legged on the ground in his underwear?”
“Gandhi, the great man who liberated India from the British,” Mrs. Harrow corrected.
“Who liberated India from the British while sitting cross-legged on the ground in his underwear,” Grant moaned.
Riley knew Grant wanted to refuse to be Gandhi. But only Erika ever refused to do things in school. Maybe Grant’s parents would buy him an extra game for having to be Gandhi.
When everyone had drawn a name, Mrs. Harrow gave the class another big smile. “I can’t wait for this year’s biography tea!”
Riley could wait. A tea party with Pocahontas, Napoleon, Helen Keller, Queen Elizabeth I, Mahatma Gandhi, and Teddy Roosevelt?
No way!
HOW OLIVER OLSON CHANGED THE WORLD. Text copyright © 2009 by Claudia Mills. Pictures copyright © 2009 by Heather Maione. All rights reserved. by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia. For information, address Square Fish, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Originally published in the United States by Farrar Straus Giroux
First Square Fish Edition: October 2011
Square Fish logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
Book designed by Jonathan Bartlett
mackids.com
eISBN 9781429935920
First eBook Edition : October 2011
How Oliver Olson Changed the World Page 5
