Frankenboy--a boy with heart

Last fall I visited Johnson Elementary School in Cedar Rapids to talk with some students about their experiences of bullying and do some writing about those experiences.  We planned to send the writing to composer Rob Nassif who had been commissioned to write an opera about bullying.

Well he's done it. And a couple of weeks ago the Cedar Rapids Opera Company sponsored a night of Rob talking about his composition. Rob said he aimed for a piece that would speak to both adults and children, that would have a little edge to it--the kind of "edge" that appeals to elementary and middle-schoolers, that would hold the attention of an "audience of about 500 kids sitting on a hard gym floor in broad daylight." So he invented "Frankenboy," which he says is "fun, scary, a little creepy."  Rob sang a couple of songs from the work. One of my favorite lines comes when Frankenboy's father is putting him together: "The most important part/ is a sweetheart of a heart." The songs we heard were wonderful.

Sharron McElmeel, librarian, educator, scheduler, events-coordinator, who loves and lives books, also heard Rob Nassif's presentation. Check out her take on the evening. Whatever we might say about it, we were in total agreement that the Cedar Rapids Opera Company, with their sponsoring of my day at Johnson School, commissioning Rob to write this opera, had started something, something big that would find its way into the lives of many students.

If I could, I would give each student who attends "Frankenboy" a copy of a new book I just found at the Iowa City Public Library. It's written by Michaela Muntean and is called Stay (Scholastic, 2012). It's the true story of Luciano Anastasini, a circus acrobat who took a bad fall and could no longer do his act. But he could imagine no other life. He decided to come up with a dog act. But he did not buy pedigreed dogs. He went to the dog shelter and found five dogs--a thief, a dog who ran into furniture and walls, a food-scrounger,"a schnauzer with a bad attitude," and a dog who dug holes. He decided he would not teach them to do unnatural things but learn what they loved to do and build his act on what they already loved. "As the dogs ran and played together, Luciano paid special attention to each of them." ...  His act became a huge success.

What more could any of us want than, as we run and play, someone who will pay special attention to us?  This is a wonderful book (with a heart-warming forward by Kate DiCamillo) that reminds us of the other side of the coin of bullying, the antidote to bullying. If only we could all be paid in special attention...

The occasional lift

Last week at this time I was visiting a school in Cedar Rapids to talk with students about bullying. The Cedar Rapids Opera Company will celebrate its 15th anniversary next year and they have asked Rob Nassif, a composer who divides his time between Cedar Rapids and New York City, to compose an opera for kids about bullying. Rob thought it would be nice if kids did some writing, in advance of his work, that he might incorporate into the opera.

We started out with Goggles by Ezra Jack Keats, a satisfying Keats story in which Archie and Peter outwit a group of "big boys" who want to take the treasured goggles that the two have found in the street. We talked about the big boys and what would make us call them bullies. Then I read excerpts from The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. Should we call Peggy a bully? How might the victim of the teasing, Wanda Petronski, feel about the "hundred dresses" game? How do bullies want us to feel?

We made a lot of charts: what bullies do, what words bullies use, how to respond to bullies. And the students did some writing. Some shared, some didn't. The charts we made were good but fairly predictable. Bullies use words like, "nerd," "ugly," "hate," "dumb," words we've heard. Words we know. They push, shove, grab, punch, laugh, gossip, lie. These kids have a grasp on bullies. I knew that.

But they took my breath away in the afternoon. We were almost out of time and I started one more chart: "If a bully were an animal it would have..." Almost before I could finish the phrase, someone shouted out "antennae." Of course! That's what bullies are so good at--figuring out just where the weak spot in a person is, figuring out just who to tease, and what to tease about. I don't know if "antennae" will show up in the opera or not, but it was a wonderful moment.

And it reminded me that that's how writing goes--we write, and write, and most of it is pretty much mashed potatoes. We've heard it. But then in the middle of all that mash comes the surprise--the detail that startles, the action that captures the character. It doesn't matter how old or young we are: that's the way writing is. If we stay at it long enough, we get an idea that lifts us off the ground.