   |
          |
|
Age and This Book
Humor requires surprise. The surprise that leads to humor is only there if the reader knows enough to be surprised. I have found that there is a point in a child's development, for example, when they finally know enough about language to be able to appreciate puns. This starts happening about first or second grade. By third and fourth grade children are well into an appreciation of puns. That's why riddle books are marketed mostly to the upper middle grade students. (I did once see a board book of riddles. I thought it showed a remarkable lack of understanding of childhood development.) When I have read Why the Banana Split to children I've had a similar experience. The younger children don't get the puns. Starting about second grade and up, though, the kids get the humor. Fortunately, like Bullfrog Pops! , Why the Banana Split has a story that young kids like, even if they don't understand the language arts concept.
The Idea for This Manuscript
I wanted to write a picture book about synonyms. The first step was to choose a synonym. After considering many, I chose "go" or "leave", because they suggested action, and characters who were going or leaving, and motivations for going and leaving. I might also have been influenced by the teenage punning that leads to "make like a tree and leaf," or "make like a banana and split".
I then scoured various thesauruses for words and phrases that were synonymous with "go", and "leave", and every other word that was related in any way.
Next, I thought of what, in a punning way, might have been "leafing" or "splitting".
Then I wrote the leaving part of the text.
And then, the beginning, why they left, and the ending, why they returned.
The First Draft
My editor did not believe that there was enough drama in the following first draft of Why the Banana Split . She was right.
Where Did They Go?
The town is empty. Everyone's gone. Everything's gone. Where did they all go?
It's like this.
Things were kind of slow. Nothing much was happening. No one wanted to stay in such a boring town.
So the jumpropes skipped town and the kangaroos hopped a train.
The bananas split, peeled out, slipped away.
The bulls pulled up stakes and the cows moo-ved on.
The kids--Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretal--went for a walk in the forest.
The knives cut and run,
the drums beat it,
the jackhammers hit the road,
and the astronauts took off.
"Good-bye", said the shoppers. "Bye-bye" said the shopkeepers as they set sail.
The basketball players went traveling, the football players passed on through, and the baseball players struck out on their own.
The snakes said "so long",
the lettuce headed out,
the boots took a hike,
and the trains made tracks.
The chickens egg-sitted and the eggs scrambled.
The ice cream retreated and the birthday cake deserted the town while the candles lit out.
The trees took their leaves and the water ran off.
But if you've come to visit, that changes everything!
They're Back!
Remaining Escapees
After I wrote the first draft, I had the following "escapes" left over:
the cats scat-tered
the window washers cleared out
the dogs embarked
the dodo birds disappeared
the pencils withdrew
the cars retired
the superheros all S-caped
the clothes have pressed on
the oranges peeled out
And after the final draft, I had clearly several more leftovers.
Making Sure the Text is Easy to Read Aloud
After my editor was satisfied with the manuscript, I insisted on doing one more edit to make sure the rhythm of the story as a whole worked. I rearranged several pages to get a flow that I felt comfortable reading out loud. I have to read my books out loud many times. If the text doesn't read well out loud, I'm not happy, and neither are teachers and librarians who also have to read the texts aloud.
Hidden Homages
"Run away! Run away!" is my homage to Monty Python. Things I've heard or read and liked sometimes end up in my stories, and they did here and in Bullfrog Pops! ("Ah! Bread!") Another example appears in Pig Pigger Piggest , in the maudlin scene where the witches discover that the pigs love them. The witches are deeply emotionally touched, "for no one had ever loved them before." When I wrote that section, and when I read it, the ghost of Artemus Ward appears. Ward is a 19th century humorist who frequently uses exaggerated description of emotion.
"Sso long"
Originally "Sso" was just "So." The joke here in my mind was that the snakes are long ("So long!") But my editor noticed that the cows "moo-ved", so it would make sense to emphasize the snake's sibilance.
The End
The original ending had the lettuce running from a salad eating dinosaur. My wife, however, pointed out that it would make sense to have the bananas run from a fruit-eating dinosaur, which would be more constitent with my title. This was one of those logical suggestions that was so obvious that I immediately took it.
|
|
|
|
|
|