Authors: Lois Lenski
Judy's Journey
Lois Lenski
For
Emma Celeste
CONTENTSExcerpt from
Journey Into Childhood
, an Autobiography by Lois Lenski
CHAPTER IV. The Middle-Sized Lake
Journey Into Childhood
, an Autobiography by Lois Lenski
T
HE BIG EVENT OF THE
1940s was the award of the Newbery Medal to
Strawberry Girl
in 1946. No one was more astonished than I to receive it. Had it been given to my book
Indian Captive, the Story of Mary Jemison
, which I considered my major and most scholarly work, I would not have been surprised. I had envisioned a series of Regional books, for I knew there were many regions little known and neglected in children's books. The series was barely started, and I had already daringly broken down a few unwritten taboos, I had written more plainly and realistically than other children's authors, I had taken my material and my characters direct from real life instead of from the imagination, and my Regionals were not yet entirely accepted or approved. I was an innovator and a pioneer in a new direction, and I knew I had a long and difficult task ahead to earn the acceptance which I was not expecting so soon. But the award focused national attention on
Strawberry Girl
and the books to follow, so I was very grateful.
The convention of the American Library Association was held at Buffalo that year, and at various meetings and receptions, I received invitations from librarians to go to many parts of the countryâSeattle, Utah, California, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesotaâto write about their region. Afterwards, the award brought much publicity, including requests for personal interviews and radio appearances, for personal appearances at libraries and schools, most of which I was unable to accept. Those that I did accept were strenuous and wearing, and I was glad when the flurry subsided, and I could retire to private life again.
An entire book could be written about my experiences in other regions during the 1950sâin San Angelo, Texas, for
Texas Tomboy
, in Perry, Oklahoma, for
Boom Town Boy
, in McLaughlin, South Dakota, for
Prairie School
, in Remsen, Iowa, for
Corn Farm Boy
, and other places. The list goes on and on, always a new environment and way of life to be studied, and always good people who shared the intimacy of their lives with me, each region more exciting and stimulating than the last, each region calling for one's deepest powers of observation, understanding, and compassion.
As soon as I return from a region, I have a big job to do. I have to copy all the notes I have taken, classifying them under various headings, making them readily and quickly accessible. Then I make an outline for my story, listing the various incidents I wish to include under the different chapter headings. I write my text in longhand first, and often revise it in longhand, then revise again as I type it. (The subject has, of course, been approved by the editor in advance.) I send the typed manuscript in, to be read and approved, copyedited (improving or disapproving of my punctuation!) and sent to the printer to be set into type. If any changes are suggested by the editor, the manuscript or portions of it may be returned to me for this purpose. If any changes in format are contemplated, I am always consulted. For many years, with Lippincott, I worked directly with the head of the manufacturing department in planning all details of type and format. It was in this way that a beautiful format was devised for the Regionals.
While the manuscript is at the printers, while I am waiting for the galley proofs, having kept a carbon of the manuscript, I am working on the illustrations. For the Regionals, these are graphite pencil drawings on 3-ply Bristol board, and are reproduced by high-light halftone offset. The drawings for the Roundabouts are ink drawings, reproduced by letterpress.
When the galley proofs reach me, two sets are sent, one for me to read and correct, and to answer editorial or printers' queries; the other set for me to cut up and paste into a blank dummy, allowing space on the proper page for each illustration, of which I usually make about fifty.
After I wrap up a large package containing original manuscript, the original illustrations, corrected galley proofs, and the printer's dummy and ship it to the publishers, my work on a book is finished. The rest is up to the publisher. I see and hear nothing more until months later, when a book package arrives out of the blue, containing the first copy, hot off the press, for me to hold in my hands and marvel at. There is no other thrill so great for an author-illustrator as seeing the first copy of a book he has labored over and believed in and deeply loved.
From
Journey Into Childhood
by Lois Lenski © 1972 by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic for the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation, Inc.
A
MERICANS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN
on the go since they first left the Old World and came to the New. They came to get land. They migrated westward, and still farther westward, looking always for land. They went west, found the land they wanted, and putting down their roots, founded our Nation. It has been an American tradition that a man has a right to own a piece of land for himself.
In recent years, the automobile has given rise to a modern migration. But this one is of a different kind. Families are being forced off the land, either because of the impossibility of making a living there, or because machinery has taken the place of man power. The number of homeless migrants, living under conditions which make impossible normal participation in the benefits of American life, is so large that it is a matter for grave concern.
When I read the manuscript of this book to a group of Seventh Grade boys and girls in a small Connecticut manufacturing city, they were surprised to learn that there are any poor children in the United Statesâchildren so poor they haven't money enough to go to a movie. They did not know that there are children in our country without shoes, proper clothing and food, and even without homes. Many adults do not know it either.
And yet there are thousands of migrant families, traveling in shabby automobiles for long distances in the Far West, the Middle West, and in the East, to get poorly paying and quickly ending jobs. They follow the cropsâbeans, cotton, potatoes, prunes, sugar beets, berries and fruits
â
at their harvest season, and help with the picking. Whenever you eat beans or peas from a can, remember that a child may have spent long hours in the sun, picking them for you.
The individual owner or the company who raises these crops on a large scale, is dependent upon outside workers coming in, because when the crop is ready, it must be picked immediately or it will be ruined. Some growers have provided adequate housing for this extra help, others none at all, so the pickers live the best way they can. When the crop is over, they “move on” to another crop. The United States Government has provided camps for migrants in certain areas, but these have not been adequate to meet the needs.
The Children's Bureau of the U. S. Dept. of Labor says: “Hundreds of thousands of children
â
some as young as six
â
follow the crops with their families and work in the fields to help produce the food we eat.” These migrant children exist with only the bare necessities of life. Many of them do not go to school at all, others go for a few months a year, if the family stays in one place long enough. In the communities where they stop, they are often looked upon as aliens and therefore undesirable, and are given little or no chance to share in community life. A large number are white children, others are Negro or Mexican-American or other nationalities.
I have seen and talked to migrant children and heard them tell of their experiences. One girl of eleven picked twenty-two hampers (half-bushel baskets) of beans in a day; a seven-year-old picked five hampers. They go to the field at six in the morning and return at dark. They have never had books or playthings. Some of them are no longer childlike, but are already old before they are ten. They do not know how to play
â
they are good fighters.
Everything in their life is against them. As one migrant-teacher told me: “They have never had a break. And yet they are brave, courageous, full of spirit, and anxious to learn. They respond so quickly to all you do for them. They have had so little
â
every thing you do for them means so much.” In this teacher's class, the migrant children are making democracy work. Here mountain white and Northern white, Southern Negro, Japanese-American and American children of foreign descent are living and learning together, peacefully and happily.