Module
12: Biography and Autobiography
Book:
Author: A True Story
Author and Illustrator:
Helen Lester
Plot
Helen Lester
talks about her childhood full of writing…the wrong kids of writing; as a
child, she was a mirror image writer. As Lester writes how she worked very hard
to learn how to write properly, she relays her dream of becoming a circus member
but, since nobody from the circus came looking for her, she decided to become a
teacher. Then, after having been a 2nd grade teacher for ten years,
she decided to write a book. Every time she got a rejection letter from a
publisher, she swore to never write again until the next day. After six
rejections, she waited for her seventh made never got it; instead she got a ‘yes
please’. Lester tells the reader that she sometimes does her own illustrations
(she did her own in this book) but tells the reader that, most of the time, an
illustrator from an art school with extensive background in art illustrates her
books because they draw pigs and refrigerators better than she could. By the
end of the book, Lester has the reader feeling as if he or she could write as
well and also lifts the spirit by believing that, since Lester overcame her own
hardships and became successful despite of it, than the readers could to.
Impression of the Book
I love the book!
I love the illustrations and the quirky way the books flows; I can really sense
Lester’s self-deprecation as a defense mechanism and it works for her in the
retelling of her past. As an aspiring writer, I felt a kindred soul with Lester
after having read this book because all the things she talked about with
regards to the difficulties of writing are definitely on point with my own
experience in writing-as hobby, for school, and professionally. For anyone
looking into a
cute picture biography book with heart and substance, Author: A True Story is the book for you.
Implementation of Book
in Library Setting
As a practice in tolerance and
empathy, I would ask kids to try to write a whole story with not only their
letters backwards, but their sentence structure as well. This way, when they do
this exercise, they will know how it feels to try to learn how to write in
another way apart from how they normally write. The point is to understand how hard
it was/is for Lester and other people who have writing issues to re-learn a
skill thus, hopefully, understanding Lester’s predicament as a child a little
bit better.
Reviews
“Lester’s
lighthearted look at how she came to write children’s books will give aspiring
authors of any age a lift-and encouragement to persevere, even in the face of
learning disabilities (as a child) and multiple rejection slips (as a novice
writer). Candid and a little self-effacing, Lester tells of her struggles with
the creative process, noting that both as an elementary school student and as a
published author, ‘Often I can’t come up with a single idea, and my stories get
stuck in the middle, and I can’t think of a title.’ She accompanies her breezy
narrative with her own cheerful, somewhat rudimentary cartoons pictures, save
on one spread where she drolly juxtaposes her childlike drawing of a pig next
to a highly polished rendering by her frequent collaborator, Lynn Munsinger.
Some of the best moments here are transitional: a picture shows the young
Lester dreaming of joining the circus when she grows up; the next page
continues, ‘Since no one from the circus came looking for me, I became a
teacher.’ Her ending playfully concludes, ‘I’m glad I didn’t join the circus…I
never dreamed I’d become an author. So this is better than a dream come true.’
Her admirers will agree. All ages.”- Devereaux, E., & Roback, D.
APA Citation
Devereaux, E.,
& Roback, D. (1997). Forecasts: Children's books. Publishers Weekly,
244(5), 105.
Lester, H.
(1997). Author: A true story. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
