Konigsburg Collective: Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth

“All the way home I thought about my friend Jennifer the witch. I also thought that I had gone out an ordinary girl and had come back a witch's apprentice.”

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Mallory's back with all the details in this month's Konigsburg Collective — the title's a mouthful but the book's an afternoon's read: take advantage of this miserable cold front and spend a rainy hour curled up on the couch with Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, E.L. Konigsburg's very first book and a Newbery Honor winner (she lost to herself that year). xx E.

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It's Halloween and Elizabeth is dressed as a pilgrim. She meets Jennifer on her walk to school when she spots an oversized shoe on a bony foot hanging from a tree.  Elizabeth is terribly lonely, she's in the fifth grade, new in town and an only child. Her mother nudges her to befriend Cynthia, who lives in her same apartment building, which would be convenient and parent-pleasing but cannot be done because Elizabeth knows factually that Cynthia is mean and also two-faced. So it's Halloween, and Elizabeth is new in town, friendless and dressed in an itchy pilgrim costume, and there's Jennifer, also dressed up as a pilgrim but claiming wholeheartedly that she is in fact a witch. And somehow she knows Elizabeth's name and knows that Cynthia is mean and also two-faced, and she (Jennifer) may write with a quill, for she has colonial-like penmanship. So there's no question that Elizabeth must become an apprentice to Jennifer the witch. And there's no issue with the consumption of raw eggs and onions and the saving of fingernails and snowballs for flying ointment: the great goal of adolescent witchery. But working with a witch, especially when she's your only friend, can be a frustrating venture.  “Some days I really didn't like being her apprentice. But I was always a little bit worried that she would choose another apprentice.”  Still Jennifer, being a witch and all, was capable of admirable and noble things, like exposing a Cynthia lie to Mrs. Stuyvestant without being a tattle tale, and understanding Macbeth,  and casting successful tripping spells. The girls meet every Saturday at the library, perfecting their witchcraft  The crux of their friendship appears when their pet frog Hilary Ezra is named as the ultimate ingredient for their flying ointment; a dilemma, undoubtedly, and their greatest test of friendship.

 In true Konigsburg fashion, Elizabeth and Jennifer (like Claudia and Jamie and The Souls) though not always accordant, are passionately working toward a common goal. Jamie and Claudia had their mysterious statue, The Souls their academic bowl; for Elizabeth and Jennifer it is their flying ointment. And while the conjuring of their ointment leads to their biggest altercation followed by the sealing of their friendship, it is not the heart of the story. Ironically, the heart happens at Cynthia's very pink birthday party. As part of Elizabeth's promotion to journeyman witch she is restricted by a list of taboos, she cannot play musical chairs, or eat cake, or play pin the tail on the donkey,  and at first she is miserable but then she makes a choice. “... I tried hard to accidentally forget the taboos. I tried to make a slight mistake that couldn't possibly be my fault; but the harder I tried, the harder it was to forget that I was a journeyman witch ... So I decided instead to enjoy being odd. And I did.”

I count Elizabeth the luckiest of girls to have had this epiphany in the fifth grade. 

Konigsburg is a master at portraying the conflict of the pre-teen psyche. It is true that friendship can be messy when you're 11, and loneliness at its deepest darkest in those years. But if you manage to figure out the tricky pursuit of acceptance while still maintaing your own sense of uniqueness, well you just won the coming-of-age lottery. And what's exceptionally beautiful about Elizabeth's newfound confidence is that she found it in Jennifer first — Not much unlike the interdependence of Claudia and Jamie, The Souls and Mrs. Olinski. Konigsburg again and again reminding us that through others we find the greatest parts of ourselves.

“Oh Jennifer,” I thought to myself, “how strong you are. Nerves of steel and the heart of a witch!” 

Konigsburg Collective : The View From Saturday

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apologies for the long-overdue installment. There was work and honeymoons and moving house and saying goodbye and (still to this moment) dissertations to be written. None of which are very good excuses, but hopefully serve as explanation. Aside from the fact that as I wrote the small essay below, I came more and more to realize that the things I love and feel for The View from Saturday could be the workings of a doctorate degree, if not an entirely new book in and of itself. Happily for you, I've been working in editorial all summer — I'll spare you the full ms for the clean-cut version here, only asking that if you have or are or will be reading along, tell me about it! Let's say we're at Sillington House. Tea time is always 4:00 PM.

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Here is the conflict: you want to be the same as everybody else, and you want to be entirely different from everybody else. You are a dazzling phenomenon of human potential without equal. Also you are just as ordinary and just as normal and just as cool as all those other people, too, particularly your peers, obviously. Two totally contradictory things, and you would like acceptance for both. Please (and thank you). 

Here is the problem: you are twelve years old, barely past childhood but still too young to grow up. Maybe you are living in your siblings' shadows or coming to terms with your parents' divorce or spending the summer in a retirement resort. Whatever the situation, you are twelve years old in the middle of a bunch of other twelve year olds, none of whom seem to have any of the same anxieties, one of which is

"Julian Singh," he said, extending his hand. No one (a) introduces himself and then (b) extends his hand to be shaken while (c) wearing shorts and (d) knee socks and (e) holding a genuine leather book bag on (f) the first day of school.

I mean, you'd hesitate to return the shake too, right? Acceptance doesn't seem to be much of an option. Unless your curiosity gets the better of your insecurity, which is exactly Ethan's downfall. "I managed to say nothing until the bus had turned left off Gramercy and was back on Highway 32, but then . . . 'Did you buy the Sillington House?' I asked."

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Two-thirds of the way through The View from Saturday, just as Noah and Ethan and Nadia and Julian have officially become The Souls and Julian — in the flashback, flashforward storytelling style — has answered for acronyms at the Academic Bowl, the plot of pieces comes together for one sustained series of events. Epiphany High School is putting on the musical Annie for their holiday season and Ethan suggests Nadia's dog Ginger for the part of Sandy. The Souls set about an intense training routine in the lead-up to auditions and, with Ethan's directorial prowess and Julian's legerdemain, Ginger (being a genius of her genus) easily steals the stage from seven other wannabes. But the drama coach also nominates an understudy: Arnold, a large yellow lab very unfortunately owned by Michael Froelich, best friend of Hamilton Knapp, the two of whom are every reason middle school has ever been hell. Julian worries having Arnold as an understudy will make Froelich feel like an underdog, and with Ham in the mix it's almost certain mischief. On the bus to watch the debut matinee, Julian overhears Ham's plan: tranquilizer and laxative . . . sent biscuits . . . star dog . . . pass out like a mop. Instant coma. Big Trouble.

At the auditorium, Julian escapes backstage just in time to see the drugged bacon bits on the table — and Arnold all gussied up for the part. Fearing the worst, he races towards Nadia only to learn that Froelich's dog has won the matinee spot as reward for hard work and good attendance. Ginger is safe. The treats meant for her have been gifted instead to the understudy. Julian has to make a decision.

The show goes on, to great applause and occasional disruption from Knapp and his gang (which earns an audience-wide reprimand from the drama coach, words I have remembered quietly to myself in far too many similar situations: "I am sorry that you have not learned at home how to act in public. I am ashamed for you because I know you are not ashamed for yourselves."). The students filter out to various vans and buses to take them home, and Julian has to make another decision.

Ethan, Nadia, and Ginger had not yet come out of the auditorium. Noah and Mrs Olinski had gone to speak to Mrs Korshak. I stood alone. There was something I wanted to do. When Knapp had started that ruckus, I had momentarily regretted my decision to save Arnold. I was still so angry that I was about to violate one of the cardinal rules that Gopal had taught me.

. . . Gopal had taught me that magicians never reveal the secrets of their trade to laymen. Gopal always said that magicians who were interested in letting people know how clever they were were not really magicians. "Don't ever destroy the wonder," Gopal had said. "Let your magic show you off, not you show off your magic."

I knew that Hamilton Knapp would find out soon enough that Arnold, not Ginger, had been chosen for the afternoon's performance. He would find out soon enough that his trick had not worked. I knew that I should never reveal to Hamilton Knapp that I had saved Arnold from the fate he had meant for Ginger. I knew all of that. Yet I moved toward the Vet in a Van. Dr Knapp was behind the wheel, waiting for her turn to pull out. I walked around the back of the van onto the sidewalk on the passenger's side. I tapped on the window and motioned for Ham to roll it down. I reached into the open window. He pulled away from me but said nothing.

"What's the matter?" his mother asked. 

"Your son has something growing out of his head," I said as I pulled two bacon-shaped doggie treats from his ears. "I think these belong to you," I said as one by one I dropped the rest of the drugged biscuits on his lap. I turned and walked away. I was glad that I had chops. Gopal would forgive me.

So I've just spent twenty minutes typing to make sure I tell you about a magic trick with some dog treats. We could have much more easily discussed the symbolism of sea turtles or the beauty of Julian's book bag transformed, admittedly more lovely passages. Why the Sandy saga? Because this, I think, illustrates the heart of the whole thing and the reason I will recommend this book to anyone who asks and some who don't and why I want you to go home and share The Souls with every child you can find (and most adults, for that matter). Because what Julian does here is so totally twelve years old while simultaneously well beyond his wisdom, a perfect balancing act. He is showing off, yes — and who wouldn't? But he also shows a small kindness, a second chance. Julian could have exposed Knapp's wickedness to the entire school, and in returning the hurt Hamilton has caused him all year long, he might have been justified. He could have felt himself vindicated; told a teacher, told Ham's mom, mediated a public punishment. Instead Julian quietly shows that he has seen Hamilton for who he is in that moment. And in allowing him that small mercy, he also shows him that he could yet become someone better. 

It is the tiniest act of redemption, and the story never does say if Hamilton Knapp turns to repentance, nor do we get any sense that Julian feels he has done some deeply merciful thing (and we shouldn't; he's twelve and naturally unaware of his own goodness). But it twists the thread of the entire story to a stronger braid, and we see, suddenly, that the point is to see. For Ethan to look beyond Nadia's angst and see her capacity for luminous love. For Nadia to forgive Noah his unbearable know-it-all attitude and see him as the perfect partner for a good spar. For Noah to pass by Mrs Olinski's wheelchair and see her as an expert source for a whole host of new information to add to his never-ending databank. For Mrs Olinski to depreciate Hamilton Knapp's intelligence by seeing his cruelty, for passing by Julian's odd formality to see his kindness. And ultimately for Julian to have met them all and seen the potential of their individual strengths to form one unbeatable team. This, everyone, is the view from Saturday. Not only a pleasant country scene framed by a window in the dining hall at Sillington House, but looking at a person and choosing to see them for who they are — to recognize their own individual brand of dazzling phenomenon — and then be the kind of person that allows and even encourages them to change and to grow and become ever better.

I worry now that I am writing a little too "one with the cosmos," as my dad would say. I do not mean to paint this a saccharine vision of tie-dyed loving and daisy-chain emancipation. This book is about a journey, and acceptance, and self, but The View from Saturday falls far and beyond the typical happy ending the modern world would have us write. Too often we celebrate individuality as an end-all; countless bildungsroman center on some highly quirky, endlessly bullied, impossibly onliest character who, against all popular people/family divides/scholastic challenge/dens of dragons come to recognize their own gifts and accept themselves as themselves no matter what anyone else has to say, cue music and the self-made statue in the square. Which is not totally wrong, but really makes up barely a part of the answer, and only in very small doses. Because wouldn't it be better if we were reminded also to seek this same epiphany in others? To accept our potential as endless and then extend that grace to all? There is far more rooted, richer ground to tread. 

It is interesting and no coincidence that Konigsburg chose to call them The Souls. Whatever the creed or religion or no belief at all, the word suggests inner depth and an outward reach. It is the standard in describing there being something other, something more, than the immediately visible. There is a moment that I love (just before the dogs-and-drugs bit, incidentally), where Julian starts a sentence with "Since I had become a Soul."I like thinking about that, how to finish that sentence for myself. Since I had become a soul. I hope I learn how to answer the way Ethan did, when he gave in to conversation on the bus that first day of school. When he chose however begrudgingly to step outside himself to allow haven for another. It is no instant transformation, but there were beginnings in the choice that return to him ten-fold — that return to all of us when we choose the same.

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Something in Sillington House gave me permission to do things I had never done before. Never even thought of doing. Something that triggered the unfolding of those parts that had been incubating. Things that had lain inside me, curled up like the turtle hatchlings newly emerged from their eggs, taking time in the dark of their nest to unfurl themselves.

Konigsburg Collective : From the Mixed Up Files

This first official installment in The Kongisburg Collective series is from the magnificent Mallory Hanna, original muse and co-producer of the whole project. You can find more of her glowing goodness here.

Also: my apologies for whatever funky thing your monitor is doing to the above illustration. I have no explanation and have given up any attempt to find one.

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Just before reading my first Konigsburg novel, I had — for the first time — quit a book mid-read. The book was about two cousins that hated each other, when unexpectedly one of them dies and the other is left to think about it.  The subject arose abruptly, smack in the middle of the page staring at me. I remember rereading the paragraph, making sure I'd understood it right. I had. I quietly, heart pounding, put the book back in my closet.

I was an eager 10-year-old, perfectly primed, when I found From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It was at the bottom of a forgotten book pile in the basement, and I wasn't thrilled with the bland book cover and long, confusing title at first (this coming from a fifth grader).  I had never left the west, but was transported to 1960s New York, and in awe of the capable Claudia Kinkaid who convinces her younger brother Jamie to runaway with her to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This was not your typical running away story; it was running away in style, wrought by the old comforts of a museum and the newfound camaraderie of a brother and sister still and often prone to long winded arguments. They manage by sleeping in dead royals' beds and hiding in bathrooms and bathing in a fountain sparkling with pocket change (I never looked at a fountain the same way again; every mall, every garden, every wide-eyed toddler throwing their money into the water was an imagination of my own possible survival).  And aside from the charm of transistor radios, and ancient artifacts, and spontaneous fountain bathing, I was painfully invested in the brother/sister act that allowed the Kinkaids to survive; I was entranced by the final meeting with the kooky and wise Mrs. Frankweiler; I shared Claudia's long awaited, personal realization.

The last chapters of the book come dappled with truth—call it theme. It's where Konigsburg un-muddles the complex and quietly tells us this is what it's about and it's for everybody. Mrs. Frankweiler explained, 

“I think you should learn, of course, and some days you should learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything and you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them it's hollow.”

And so went my initiation to Konigsburg's first bit of magic.  She never left me feeling stunned or blindsided or displaced or confounded, but rather subtly finding myself different and more my own all at once.

Among numerous awards, this book won the Newbery Medal in 1968 and in 2012 was noted as one of the “Top 100 Chapter Books” of all time. It is a book that has simply endured, amidst remarkable odds, keeping its ranks among Lowry, L'Engle and Rowling.

When E.L. Konigsburg passed away, I felt a loss so tangibly personal.  I felt the loss of a great author, yes, and even more the loss of a muse for my own writing. But I also felt a fear that Konigsburg might get lost at the bottom of the book pile in place of supernaturals and boyfriend clubs, fallen angels, throngs of amnesiac teen girls. A fear that among the push for “edgier” literature, Konigsburg would be rendered irrelevant. Author Shannon Hale recently shared that one of her most beloved and highly awarded novels, The Goose Girl was rejected by all major publishers. Some expressed, “I did not find the story compelling enough to maintain my interest ... I felt that the narrative was a bit too labored, too slow in progressing ... the rather slow and deliberate pacing of the plot does not bode well for a middle grade audience."
"Further, many young adult books are becoming more and more 'edgy.'”

The Young Adult market may be fast-paced and often salacious in the name of relevancy and Attention Deficit Disorders. But there must always be a place for “intelligent fiction.”  There's a reason books like Hale's, despite a publisher’s opinion, rise to wild popularity after finally being allowed the freedom  of  publication. In the name of edgier literature we deeply underestimate the caliber of our youth. We  are blinded by trends, lost in sales numbers, our eyes so deliriously glued to the latest vampire spinoff that when an incredible author is lost, we almost miss it. Konigsburg didn't expect her young readers to be smart — she knew they were.  Books like The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler endure because there is still some inner workings of our youth's subconscious that yearns to be validated, even reminded of who they can be and who they once were.

Before Harry and Katniss, Percy and Bella, there was Claudia: an ordinary girl, capable and smart, who — aside from making her mark in the MET — knew, above all, how to keep a secret.

The Konigsburg Collective.

E.L. Konigsburg passed away last month. Maybe you already knew that. Maybe you've no idea what I'm talking about. I hope the name sparks something in you. I hope you'll keep reading anyway.

E.L. Konigsburg wrote children's books, two of which have won the Newbery Medal and another the Newbery Honor (she lost to herself that year), and three that are among my top ten favorites of all time, the first books I recommend when any parent or child is asking. In short, she's good. She's the author I want to be — and the one I pretend to be, when by myself on long car rides where sometimes (I don't know, it just happens, you can judge me, really I know) I talk out loud, pretending to be an expert on the writing process so that I can better understand it myself.  But I didn't even know she was gone until I came home to an email from a blog reader. She wrote,

I follow your blog and remembered that you once mentioned your admiration of the author E.L. Konigsburg, whom I also love. I am an aspiring writer of children's stories, a young mother, and I've claimed E.L. Konigsburg as more than a muse through my process, so much so that I was about to write her a letter, like today. And to my surprise, I found out she passed away about a week ago. But I'm related to no one, nor friends with anyone who would understand the great loss I feel at her death. So, you popped into my head and I didn't know if you knew or if you will think this is weird but sometimes you just need someone who gets it, you know? I feel there should be headlines and national readings of her work but, alas, an extraordinary storyteller has died, and I feel it is the saddest secret.

I read Mallory's email as the sun set against the remnants of a day-long storm. Outside the sky was still thick with bruisy black clouds and the light  only managed to cut under them horizontally in great dense discs of orange-gold, making for that lovely strength of light that throws everything into severe relief softened by the late hour. None of which is relevant except to say that I read Mallory's email and then stared out the window for a very long time afterwards. 

E.L. Konigsburg passed away last month, and I hadn't heard a thing. I started researching, wanting to know more, demanding the world provide it. I didn't find much — The New York Times ran an obituary, Publisher's Weekly paid their dues, there are a handful of blog posts marking the date and the Tumblr tag is full of loyal reblogs in her name — and what I did find wasn't the substance I wanted, or maybe just not the substance I thought necessary to reflect an author as substantial as E.L. Konigsburg. Because that's what it always was, wasn't it? Real, solid, straight stuff. Even in the most outrageous situations. What I love about her writing is its unflinching directness while maintaining an essential innocence, that so many of her plot lines involve hard things, tricky things, real things that in this world you need to understand—but she does not bludgeon you bloody with them the way so many other books do, hitting you upside the head and right in the stomach in their determination to prove to you that they are a Very Important Book Dealing with Very Important Things. No. With Konigsburg you follow them quietly, carefully, in a spirit of observation and deduction so that in the end you have begun to interpret them in your own right; not feeling victimized, but free. She is the paragon of what I in my mind have always deemed "intelligent fiction," stories that triumph passion for the world around you down to the deepest details, with a reverence for what we have been given and what more we have to give in engaging with it and making it our own. Stories that reiterate the joy of living, that, like Monica Hesse wrote in a nearly perfect paragraph for the Washington Post, "knowledge is worth possessing, even when it's not publicized, even when it's not Tweeted. It carries its own inherent worth." 

For me, Konigsburg has always been a refuge. I could recount for you any number of afternoons I have fled to the library and straightaway to the Juvenile stacks, K shelf, and I'm not just remembering my elementary school years.  My very last semester of University I returned nearly desperately to The View from Saturday because I knew it would never disappoint me even when I so often found some "higher" texts of the newer literature always did. And that idea, this idea that I could read about Mrs. Olinski and The Souls on their way to Academic Bowl stardom as a sixth grader feeling like I'd discovered the secrets to all words and here, thirteen years later, not only find its magic steady but thirteen times stronger?

Mallory was right. There should be headlines and national readings. There should be library memorials and book club revivals. But there aren't. So between the two of us we endeavored to come up with an offering of our own, which is why starting now until however long it takes us we will be remembering one new Konigsburg book per month, trading small essays in tribute to her bibliography under the banner of The Konigsburg Collective. A book club of sorts, I suppose you could say, though there's no pressure to follow along exactly or even at all. Maybe it's just an excuse for us to read them all over again. Maybe it's an excuse for you to read them for the first time. At any rate . . . one book, once a month . . . can't hurt. And I promise we'll all be the better for it.

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Want to get a head start? The Konigsburg Collective sets off where so many of us first began—Mallory will be back this month with The Mixed of Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.