Acceptance Remarks by Jan Wahl
2005 Winner of the Ohioana Alice Louise Wood Award for Children’s Literature
 People ask: when did I start writing?
I remember the precise moment.
I was in the 4th grade at DeVeaux School in Toledo. My teacher’s name was, she boasted,
VIRGINIA GEORGIA ALABAMA RAEBURN; she said she was from the Deep South. I had a puppet theater and decided to write a play . . . .
I thought I would take it upon myself to do an improved “Jack in the Beanstalk.” Guess what? The original story was better!
A whole bunch. My challenge then was to write a story all my own. I never guessed a zillion years later I’d publish more than 100 books!
Standing before you to accept this wonderful award, I am proud and guilty. Proud as a peacock! But guilty because, oh,
25 years ago, I was the recipient of an Ohioana Book Award for my Norman Rockwell Storybook, published by Simon & Schuster;
I put a lot of my Ohio upbringing into that book. Guilty since I was pitifully shy—I’m a writer, not a talker, I decided—and I
hid out in the farthest northwest corner of the U.S . . . way up in Seattle.
So it was left to my late beloved mother to march bravely down from Toledo to Columbus to accept, to give an impromptu “thank you.”
Years after, folks who attended told me how terrific she’d been. I have NO IDEA what she might have said.
She’s not around to pinch-hit this time.
So, at last, here I am. A grownup who feels it may be possible for rabbits to travel on rollerskates (not rollerblades: somehow
that doesn’t sound friendly); or maybe to grow carrots for noses; or that the moon might indeed be a cabbage.
What happened? Did my brain stop growing in the 3rd grade?
Just why, if my art/craft is writing, do I wish to limit my vocabulary, when a true writer LOVES USING WORDS . . . the music of
words . . . in all their infinite variety. Why limit myself to writing for children—and picture books mostly?
I’ll tell you one reason.
I had a letter (it’s my favorite) from a small boy in Circleville, Ohio. He told me: “You are a good otter. You are America’s best otter.”
Hey, this is encouraging. Somebody likes my work!
And notice that leap of faith: from “good” to “America’s best.” The spelling is charming; you can’t get that out of spell-check.
Once, a reviewer in the New York Times compared my picture book style to that of Hemingway. I took it as a compliment.
What I wrote was simple and clear. Alas! We live in a time when pictures are given an authority no longer given the word. If one
kid out there supposes I am a “good otter,” I am thrilled.
Writing for children means: choose words carefully! For a picture book is a book that craves a lot of pictures.
That is, a book fitted for eye and ear.
It would not appear, then, to be a medium to make a writer happy. So much depends upon pictures.
But, about this shortness of text: the excellent British novelist Elizabeth Bowen once said: “It is not the
number of words in a book that counts.”
A child (or adult) picks up a book initially because of its pictures. However, in the beginning, and, in the end, is
the word. And a good picture book must have a solid base of well chosen words.
If the bulk of a writer’s writing (such as mine) is for ages 3 to, say, 6 or 7, does it cut off the bulk of human experience?
Does it promote infantilism in the writer, who might better be writing about adult experience?
To answer that, recently a famous psychologist stated that 60% of the human personality is acquired by age 4. The next
20% is acquired by age 6. And the last 20% requires the remainder of a lifetime.
So, because one is dealing with from 60 to 80% of the total human personality, this is not primarily a limited canvas to explore.
The picture book is a form which by nature of its brevity demands a poet’s insights. A poet’s arranging and choice of words.
One must say much in little. Say it, so that a child may understand and a grownup might admire.
What I do—more and more—is akin to making haiku or sonnets. No wasted space! Every word the right one! Mine is word magic.
To a large degree, I have given up on adults. Who go about doing their own thing. Making wars. Or speeding us into outer space.
Or ruining the Earth and all that. What can we do then? Writers like me?
We can deal with important matters in one way or another by directing them to the kids. And have fun doing it.
And to keep doing it! That’s my plan, anyway. Cross my heart, here’s what I think:
That a writer for the very very young is in a glorious position. For he, or she, has access to the roots of things
WHERE THEY BEGIN TO GROW. Such a writer can instill in a child the love of living.
This is not a bad sort of work.
I come from an area of small towns and farmlands. Where, once upon a time, doors were left unlocked.
Kids could play outdoors in vacant lots. Ohio means a lot to me. That’s where I was raised.
Okay, the Ohio of my childhood has changed; yet, still, I can celebrate so much in my little books. I leave
unlocked the doors of my youth. So, envy me, don’t pity me.
On this Ohioana Day, tickled isn’t the word. Nor is grateful. I’m plumb delirious happy especially to have an award called
an “Ohioana.” I thank you, everyone, and I thank you, Alice Louise Wood. I’m forever proud to say I’m from Ohio.
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