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Susie Morgenstern and "The Book of Coupons"
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 09:38:04 -0600
Susie Morgenstern wrote the message (pasted below) for the CCBC-Net community two years ago. This message is in the CCBC-Net archives http://www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/netdex.htm along with other messages about "The Book of Coupons."
FROM SUSIE MORGENSTERN (3/23/02) - I got the idea of "The Book of Coupons" one rare rainy morning in Nice. I always dream of a wet, miserable day to stay in bed and READ. But it almost never happens. So this day I heard the rain and I was in heaven, except it was Monday and I had to go to work in the university. "Oh," I said to myself, "if only I had a coupon to stay in bed." So, disciplined, obedient, I got up and got dressed and drove the 25 kilometers to school, but instead of talking my guts out in front of my students I asked them to write something and I sat down and wrote the whole list of coupons. I carried that list around for years and years before getting the breakthrough that would permit me to write the book. (It was the idea of the old teacher.)
The manuscript was completed about a year after I started the actual writing (I'm not very swift about the process) When I mailed it to my publisher (after it was corrected by my children) he immediately accepted it and it has been very well received here. It won the Prix Chronos and the Prix Sorci?res and I think a few other ones too and sales have been good I think. At some signings here, I've seen one person buy ten or twelve books for different people.
I was lucky to meet Jill Davis without whom my books might still be a secret in America. The big difference here and there is the meticulous editing process in the U.S. Here in France it practically goes from manuscript to book with almost no intervention from the editor. Jill Davis and her staff go through everything with a fine comb and weed out contradictions and all kinds of mistakes. I feel safer with that, protected from my own self. French authors are horrified by the idea of anyone touching a single hair in their manuscripts. I wish all my books would be published in America to give me a second chance of writing them better.
As you know I am American born (Newark, New Jersey), came to France to follow my French husband. I didn't speak a word of French but somehow started writing in French (now over fifty books !) and I'm probably world champion of French mistakes. My husband used to write the very rude word "merde" in the margins whenever I made spelling or grammar mistakes. I wrote in French because I was writing about my children's experiences in the French school system which was my own terrible culture shock. Whenever I try to write in English, I am confronted with the problem of not knowing how children live anymore in the U.S. A writer just has to soak up and use what he is living. I have written books about my own childhood in English (a book yet unpublished in the U.S. although I wrote it in English and it has been translated into French - Barbamour) called "Samantha Claus") but it's hard for me to write anything contemporary. I don't even know how children speak. I'm too far removed. So the difference of writing for French children is just that I know about their lives and I can keep my indignation and consternation alive (and wonder !).
I have just finished writing a story about how Halloween has come to France in the last few years and how miserable and angry this makes me because in France kids could never have the warm and cheery fun of going from door to door with "Trick or treat" (I have such fond memories of this from my childhood. All the candy !) They have simply robbed the name and the pumpkins but none of the spirit. So I wrote about a little American boy living in France for a year and trying to celebrate Halloween as he knows it. I don't know if it would work for American children.
My publisher says "Why don't they publish "La Sixi?me" in the U.S. ?" This is my biggest bestseller about a an eleven year old girl entering junior high school. I think the school systems are so different that American readers might not identify. But my publisher says the feelings are the same. Maybe with a preface ? It's a problem being uprooted. I write in French buried in dictionaries and grammar books. But when I write in English I sail away. So my language is in one place and my experience of life is in another. For thirty years, I have been visiting French schools and speaking to readers here. I have never been in an American school
(except as a child) or in a library. Maybe if I could have some insight into the way of life, I would be able to write more in English. It would be a whole new life !
Susie Morgenstern (3/23/02)
HERE'S AN EARLIER MESSAGE SENT TO CCBC-NET FROM JILL DAVIS (VIKING) WHO IS SUSIE MORGENSTERN'S U.S. EDITOR (3/26/02) You can see just from the tone of Susie's letter to CCBC that she's very much an American in France--not really a foreigner. What's so fantastic about reading her in French is that you can feel the American coming out in all of her attitudes and especially her unique and surprising sense of humor. She combines sensitivity and depth with lighthearted humor in a way few American writers do. It's the French and the American--a terrific combo. (The one I compare her to here is Tomie dePaola in his Fairmount Avenue books.) Anyway, the point I am trying to make about Susie and about Book of Coupons is that we Americans get a treat when we read the American translation because it's as if the book is "coming home"--as if America raised this girl, Susie, sent her to France, where she became a writer--combining the best of both cultures--and then we brought the work back and had it translated to Susie's first language. But she helps in the whole process! We do it together--and she's always willing to take my suggestions! That's the BEST! Anyway, it's such a treat to help her bring this cross-cultural hybrid to her home country. Am I rambling? Sorry.
About the story itself, what can one say? Susie takes a funny, thoughtful idea from her own life (as she described) and turns it into a story that makes an important point, but with HUMOR and LOVE! That's why her books are not only poignant but always funny. (Jill Davis 3/26/02)
AND ONE MORE MESSAGE ABOUT "THE BOOK OF COUPONS" FROM JILL DAVIS (4/1/02) If memory serves, another French illustrator originally did the pictures for Coupons and they just didn't strike our fancy. Serge Bloch, who had illustrated a few of Susie's other books popped into my mind since I had some of the one's he'd done in my office
(as a matter of fact, Susie's newest book for Viking is called PRINCESSES ARE PEOPLE TOO and it is a compilation of two of her shorter works both illustrated by Serge Bloch) and so we asked him to re-illustrate COUPONS and Susie was thrilled. I sent him a list of scenes I thought would work and the rest is history. As for the usual white jacket at Ecole des loisirs, funny you should ask--this one was bright blue, not the usual white, with an adorable illustration of a court jester, meant to be a "joker" as in the French title JOKER. Funny, though, as Susie and I began going over some of the translated expressions I had questions about, it became clear that JOKER wasn't really the word she meant. She was thinking in terms of
"jokers are wild" in some card games. But generally in the U.S. the word joker does not have the same meaning as "wild card" or "coupon." Anyway, we finally agreed that coupon was the closest word, but then the title suffered so much! JOKER was so much cuter than "A BOOK OF COUPONS." Plus--Susie hated it. But alas, what could we do?. .
. we stuck with it and eventually got used to it. Denise Cronin helped me and Serge get the jacket right, and we stuck in a blue background to make it look soft and sweet in a New Yorker?rtoon kind of way. (Jill Davis 4/1/02)
NEW BOOK COMING FROM FRANCE - Susie mentioned this weekend that a new book "Sixth Grade," the "biggest of her bestsellers in France," is being edited by Jill Davis and will be published soon in the U.S. Maybe it'll have a new title by the time we see it, but we can watch for it, regardless... Best, Ginny
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Mon 29 Mar 2004 09:38:04 AM CST
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 09:38:04 -0600
Susie Morgenstern wrote the message (pasted below) for the CCBC-Net community two years ago. This message is in the CCBC-Net archives http://www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/netdex.htm along with other messages about "The Book of Coupons."
FROM SUSIE MORGENSTERN (3/23/02) - I got the idea of "The Book of Coupons" one rare rainy morning in Nice. I always dream of a wet, miserable day to stay in bed and READ. But it almost never happens. So this day I heard the rain and I was in heaven, except it was Monday and I had to go to work in the university. "Oh," I said to myself, "if only I had a coupon to stay in bed." So, disciplined, obedient, I got up and got dressed and drove the 25 kilometers to school, but instead of talking my guts out in front of my students I asked them to write something and I sat down and wrote the whole list of coupons. I carried that list around for years and years before getting the breakthrough that would permit me to write the book. (It was the idea of the old teacher.)
The manuscript was completed about a year after I started the actual writing (I'm not very swift about the process) When I mailed it to my publisher (after it was corrected by my children) he immediately accepted it and it has been very well received here. It won the Prix Chronos and the Prix Sorci?res and I think a few other ones too and sales have been good I think. At some signings here, I've seen one person buy ten or twelve books for different people.
I was lucky to meet Jill Davis without whom my books might still be a secret in America. The big difference here and there is the meticulous editing process in the U.S. Here in France it practically goes from manuscript to book with almost no intervention from the editor. Jill Davis and her staff go through everything with a fine comb and weed out contradictions and all kinds of mistakes. I feel safer with that, protected from my own self. French authors are horrified by the idea of anyone touching a single hair in their manuscripts. I wish all my books would be published in America to give me a second chance of writing them better.
As you know I am American born (Newark, New Jersey), came to France to follow my French husband. I didn't speak a word of French but somehow started writing in French (now over fifty books !) and I'm probably world champion of French mistakes. My husband used to write the very rude word "merde" in the margins whenever I made spelling or grammar mistakes. I wrote in French because I was writing about my children's experiences in the French school system which was my own terrible culture shock. Whenever I try to write in English, I am confronted with the problem of not knowing how children live anymore in the U.S. A writer just has to soak up and use what he is living. I have written books about my own childhood in English (a book yet unpublished in the U.S. although I wrote it in English and it has been translated into French - Barbamour) called "Samantha Claus") but it's hard for me to write anything contemporary. I don't even know how children speak. I'm too far removed. So the difference of writing for French children is just that I know about their lives and I can keep my indignation and consternation alive (and wonder !).
I have just finished writing a story about how Halloween has come to France in the last few years and how miserable and angry this makes me because in France kids could never have the warm and cheery fun of going from door to door with "Trick or treat" (I have such fond memories of this from my childhood. All the candy !) They have simply robbed the name and the pumpkins but none of the spirit. So I wrote about a little American boy living in France for a year and trying to celebrate Halloween as he knows it. I don't know if it would work for American children.
My publisher says "Why don't they publish "La Sixi?me" in the U.S. ?" This is my biggest bestseller about a an eleven year old girl entering junior high school. I think the school systems are so different that American readers might not identify. But my publisher says the feelings are the same. Maybe with a preface ? It's a problem being uprooted. I write in French buried in dictionaries and grammar books. But when I write in English I sail away. So my language is in one place and my experience of life is in another. For thirty years, I have been visiting French schools and speaking to readers here. I have never been in an American school
(except as a child) or in a library. Maybe if I could have some insight into the way of life, I would be able to write more in English. It would be a whole new life !
Susie Morgenstern (3/23/02)
HERE'S AN EARLIER MESSAGE SENT TO CCBC-NET FROM JILL DAVIS (VIKING) WHO IS SUSIE MORGENSTERN'S U.S. EDITOR (3/26/02) You can see just from the tone of Susie's letter to CCBC that she's very much an American in France--not really a foreigner. What's so fantastic about reading her in French is that you can feel the American coming out in all of her attitudes and especially her unique and surprising sense of humor. She combines sensitivity and depth with lighthearted humor in a way few American writers do. It's the French and the American--a terrific combo. (The one I compare her to here is Tomie dePaola in his Fairmount Avenue books.) Anyway, the point I am trying to make about Susie and about Book of Coupons is that we Americans get a treat when we read the American translation because it's as if the book is "coming home"--as if America raised this girl, Susie, sent her to France, where she became a writer--combining the best of both cultures--and then we brought the work back and had it translated to Susie's first language. But she helps in the whole process! We do it together--and she's always willing to take my suggestions! That's the BEST! Anyway, it's such a treat to help her bring this cross-cultural hybrid to her home country. Am I rambling? Sorry.
About the story itself, what can one say? Susie takes a funny, thoughtful idea from her own life (as she described) and turns it into a story that makes an important point, but with HUMOR and LOVE! That's why her books are not only poignant but always funny. (Jill Davis 3/26/02)
AND ONE MORE MESSAGE ABOUT "THE BOOK OF COUPONS" FROM JILL DAVIS (4/1/02) If memory serves, another French illustrator originally did the pictures for Coupons and they just didn't strike our fancy. Serge Bloch, who had illustrated a few of Susie's other books popped into my mind since I had some of the one's he'd done in my office
(as a matter of fact, Susie's newest book for Viking is called PRINCESSES ARE PEOPLE TOO and it is a compilation of two of her shorter works both illustrated by Serge Bloch) and so we asked him to re-illustrate COUPONS and Susie was thrilled. I sent him a list of scenes I thought would work and the rest is history. As for the usual white jacket at Ecole des loisirs, funny you should ask--this one was bright blue, not the usual white, with an adorable illustration of a court jester, meant to be a "joker" as in the French title JOKER. Funny, though, as Susie and I began going over some of the translated expressions I had questions about, it became clear that JOKER wasn't really the word she meant. She was thinking in terms of
"jokers are wild" in some card games. But generally in the U.S. the word joker does not have the same meaning as "wild card" or "coupon." Anyway, we finally agreed that coupon was the closest word, but then the title suffered so much! JOKER was so much cuter than "A BOOK OF COUPONS." Plus--Susie hated it. But alas, what could we do?. .
. we stuck with it and eventually got used to it. Denise Cronin helped me and Serge get the jacket right, and we stuck in a blue background to make it look soft and sweet in a New Yorker?rtoon kind of way. (Jill Davis 4/1/02)
NEW BOOK COMING FROM FRANCE - Susie mentioned this weekend that a new book "Sixth Grade," the "biggest of her bestsellers in France," is being edited by Jill Davis and will be published soon in the U.S. Maybe it'll have a new title by the time we see it, but we can watch for it, regardless... Best, Ginny
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Mon 29 Mar 2004 09:38:04 AM CST
