I thought I knew a bit about Holling Clancy Holling, but
recently I tripped over commentary he wrote.
His letters to biographer Elizabeth Rider Montgomery,
working perhaps on behalf of Houghton
Mifflin, in 1948, amazed me. Take a
look:
Dear Miss Montgomery:
Your last letter of January 2 has just arrived
via Boston, and has jolted me into startled realization of my negligence. Upon receipt of your first letter the filling
out of your questionnaire was started (quite expansively as you will note - if
you cannot decipher cuneiform please write and we will send "Holling's
Handy Helper in Handling His Hen Scratches," complete with guide maps and
instructions).
Then my publisher hinted that, if my new book
hopes to be born in '48 its author ought to hump himself with the
illustrations. Everything else was dropped (it was already dropped before this,
but the hint only dropped everything deeper), including another questionnaire
for an anthology to be published in England, business letters in stacks, and
the pleading missives of friends and relatives. Christmas and New Years saw me
nailed to the drawing board. People have sometimes expatiated on the
"effortless ease of creation" suggested by PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA and TREE
IN THE TRAIL. At the time of creation of the idea, yes. But from then on -
rolled sleeves, shovel and pick!
This new book, SEABIRD, has the same format as
PADDLE. But the story takes in much more
territory in space and time.
The story thread hangs on a seagull carved in
walrus ivory which sails with four seafaring generations, starting in an 1830
whaling ship off Greenland and ending in a plane. My illustrative struggle was
a struggle only in the necessity for deletion. (I really love my work). For
each page of pictures, data and sketches had been amassed, enough for a book.
The finished material had to be axed
unmercifully to emerge basic, concise, yet comprehensive.
Thus your
questionnaire was laid aside for a day and was literally buried under
hundreds of sketches. The completed illustrations have now been mailed. And
now, coming out of a daze, your letter of January 2 is the first of many groups
to be answered.
Your outline of the subjects to be included in
your book is appealing. It is flattering to find my simple PADDLE in such good
company. Please put me on your sales list for an autographed, first edition
copy! Sincerely, Holling Clancy Holling
Holling continues three months later:
Dear Mrs. Montgomery,
You've done a swell job with the PADDLE story. It could go as is. However, because it is so darn good, I've nudged it here and there to sharpen facts in some places and broaden meanings in others; so that from here on out i can refer questioners to your anthology for the real dope on how PADDLE got under way.
Your title, I am afraid, may get me in wrong with some of my Indian friends. I can hear them now - "Huh! So this guy knows more about us than we do? Ho! Wait till we [word missing?] this him again! Boy, will we pour it on!"... In other words, because I can change a car's tire doesn't
mean i know the secrets of its motor. And really knowing Indians is akin to understanding atomic fission....
Perhaps you could snare a title which would, instead of being boastful, point a moral for the young reader. nothing so trite as "helping others we help ourselves" but with that general idea. Lucille and i helped the old woman with no thought of reward (our reward was in proving to ourselves that we were smart enough to remember certain designs), yet she gave us an extension on our original ideas which formed the book's character.... Or you might pick up a title from something like HOW BITS OF BIRCHBARK HELPED TO BUILD A BOOK....(When I started on this title thing I really meant to help. Hope I haven't driven you into a bog).
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