All Books Are Not Created Equal, or, Why I Wanted To Be A Pig Wearing A Bonnet

This is a guest post from brilliant friend Josh Hanagarne, author of the fabulous World’s Strongest Librarian. I’m psyched to include yet another one of Josh’s brilliant and, well, hilarious posts here on TJCC. Many thanks to Josh for helping me stay on my reading and writing toes.

My parents started reading to me before I was born. Not loving books was really not ever an option. Eight years of book-filled days and nights passed.

One fine day, my mom finally reached her limit and came as close as she ever had to yelling at me: “Okay! If you’ll go play outside for 30 minutes I’ll take you to the library!”

I was good at three things:

- Reading

- Accidentally sitting on my glasses

- Making the librarians happy

90 minutes later on my bed with a huge stack of new books. Back then, any book would do. Reading was reading. Joy was joy. I was so happy with my books that it never occurred to me to wonder why.

The change

A tumultuous shift occurred when I brought home Charlotte’s Web that afternoon. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the story—wonderful as it was/is—that hooked me. It was a couple of illustrations.

If you don’t know the story, Wilbur the piglet is the runt of the litter. He gets saved from the bacon-hungry farmer when his daughter, Fern, intervenes and pleads for his life. He relents and Wilbur becomes her pet.

But Fern’s good will isn’t enough to spare Wilbur from the fate of most farm pigs: a delicious debut on someone’s holiday china.

However, Charlotte the spider and the other barnyard animals come up with a plan to save Wilbur’s life. I won’t spoil the finer plot points if you haven’t read it yet.

None of that mattered

What mattered was when I turned the page and saw a particular picture of Fern. She sits on a three-legged stool, resting her forearms on the rails of the pigsty, with her chin on her forearms. She’s smiling at Wilbur, who’s doing pig stuff nearby.

My heart stopped. The look on her face…oh man oh man oh man. I started flipping pages, looking for more pictures of Fern and Wilbur. Here he was in a bonnet, being pushed in a stroller while she stares down adoringly. Here’s another one. And here.

I wanted to be that pig. I would have worn the bonnet. I would have eaten the slop. I would have done anything to get Fern to look at me the way she was looking at Wilbur.

I couldn’t wait to show my friends. But horror of horrors, they didn’t care. I couldn’t even get them to look twice. Then and there, a defensive critic was born. I would defend the book and I would defend Fern.

There were two realizations:

1. Not all books were created equal. Whereas before I had read anything and everything, now I had a baseline jolt that I would demand (and fail to find in most cases) from the other books I’d read

2. Not every book affects everyone, at least not in the same way. This was a bitter pill to swallow. “She’s beautiful! Admit it!”

That was almost 25 years ago. Every time I open a book, I’m still waiting for the moment when I see a sentence or turn a page and then WHAM.

It doesn’t happen often enough, but when it does, it’s always worth the time I spend hunting for it.

**

Josh Hanagarne is the author of The Knot and is the World’s Strongest Librarian. You can also visit him at Strength Rules. He is also a giant and is currently working on a cure for Tourette’s Syndrome. Please subscribe to his RSS updates to stay in touch.

Tagged as: Book Reviews, Charlotte's Web, Children's Books, Josh Hanagarne, The Knot, World's Strongest Librarian, Writing