Growing Up Weird
by Jennifer Holm

I was a weird little kid.

Well, maybe not weird, but just very much into books. Specifically, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.

Something about the high adventure of these books spoke to me as a girl with four brothers growing up in the small town of Audubon, Pennsylvania. I suppose you might say I considered myself as beleaguered as poor Taran and Eilonwy -- fighting my way through hordes of zombie-like creatures, er, I mean, boys, just to get to the bathroom.

I spent whole afternoons reading and re-reading The Book of Three. In fact, the highlight of a particular summer vacation was not, for me, going on the water slide at the theme park, but rather stopping at a bookstore with a great kid's section and discovering -- gasp! -- that Mr. Alexander had written four more books about Taran and his friends. While my parents studiously drove us kids to the historic marvels of Williamsburg, I resolutely kept my nose in those books, knowing with absolute certainty that some guy cleaning a musket didn't hold a candle to Taran trying to wrest back the Black Cauldron. This predilection on my part may explain that while I never did very well on the American Revolution, I knew how to draw the entire map of the mythical kingdom of Prydain!

So, being the avid little fan, I wrote my favorite author a letter and sent him my very first manuscript (mind you, I still think The Dragon Who Couldn't Breathe Fire -- a story about a water-breathing firefighter dragon -- will someday have its place on the bestseller lists!). One day after school, I came dragging in to the kitchen, and my mom said, without looking up from the sink, "Some guy named Mr. Alexander is on the phone for you."

It turned out that Lloyd had called because I, clever little kid, had neglected to include a return address where he might send me a letter (but I had very helpfully enclosed a phone number). Naturally, I had a million questions for him, but all I could think to say was:

"I love your books!" I blurted, in my typical 12-year-old-Jenni style. Not exactly witty repartee.

Recently, while on tour for my new book, Boston Jane, I mentioned my childhood experience to Hannah Schwartz, the owner of the wonderful Children's Book World in Haverford, PA, explaining how I wished I'd said something more interesting to such a famous author, but that I had been starstruck.

She just laughed and said, "Oh, why don't we call him now?"

Naturally, I thought she was kidding, but she just picked up the phone, dialed, and said calmly, like it was something she did every day, "Lloyd, this is Hannah, and I have someone here who wants to say hi."

And then she handed me the phone. Here it was. The moment I'd been waiting for since my first book, Our Only May Amelia, was published. I was finally going to speak to my childhood idol and tell him that I felt he should have been on that stage with me when I accepted the Newbery Honor Award, because he had been the reason I'd kept writing. I opened my mouth to tell him all this, and instead the following came out:

"I love your books!" I blurted.

Does the word dork come to mind? Sigh. I guess some things never change.

Perhaps, in the end, we're all just weird little kids who love to disappear into our heads once in a while and hang out with heroes and enchantresses, and even a few monsters. And it's authors everywhere who illuminate the path. Some books have lately swept me right back to childhood are Brian Selznick's hilariously touching The Boy of A Thousand Faces, Shana Corey's laugh-out-loud First Graders From Mars, and most delightfully, The Gawgon and The Boy, the newest book by the master himself...Lloyd Alexander!

So, go ahead, drop your favorite author a note. You never know...they just might call you back!

Read an excerpt from Boston Jane by Jennifer Holm

Jennifer L. Holm is the author of Boston Jane, and the Newbery Honor 2000 book, Our Only Amelia May. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and cat, and tries her best to respond promptly to urgent emails from kids the night before their reports on her books are due.