Interview with Mary Amato
By Sharon Salluzzo
Mary Amato will be expanding her following with her new book, Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook. She deftly combines humor and mystery with a cast of believable and interesting characters. And there is a painless poetry lesson, too.
As Fifth grader Edgar Allan and his classmates arrive at school one morning, they learn that Slurpy the fish has been kidnapped from their classroom. The burglar leaves a clue in a poem. Edgar immediately begins to record the clues he finds in a notebook. Other thefts follow, and Edgar sees his fellow students, staff and faculty as suspects. What he discovers along the way is that appearances are not always as they seem.
I asked Mary what inspired her to combine humor and mystery. She said that she has a "dark personality." Her writings in graduate school reflected that and she was criticized for being too dark. She forced herself to really look at humor and write "funny." "It’s really hard," says Mary. "You aren’t born a writer. You have to work at it." She continued to do so, and now her goal is to have some element of humor in every book. "Kids really respond to humor. Humor is the light in the story. You need to have light to illuminate the dark. Childhood is scary and challenging and full of real obstacles for letting your own light shine. There are other kids out there who will put you down if you show your own personality. Humor is a way to deal with this in a story." As for the mystery element, when Mary was told by two school librarians that Please Write In This Book, which she wrote, was the most frequently stolen book from their libraries, she began to think about things being stolen and kids finding them. As she wrote, it soon became apparent that the character of Edgar Allan was driving the story. "He desperately wants a mystery and something to solve," she discovered.
When Mary begins a book she creates webs for each of her characters. As she thinks about the main character she jots down everything that comes to mind – all the images. Her secondary characters are full of personality, as well. "The secondary characters are key," says Mary. "They need to be just as alive as the main character but I can’t take up too much time with them or I will get off topic. I create a web for each character, jotting down all they tell me about themselves. I ask all my characters the same question: What do you want? – And I continue to ask this throughout the story. As a writer, you really have to listen to the character as he or she answers you. That is what lets you know you have character motivation. For example, in this story I have a character named Destiny. What does she want? A friend. Therefore, she can become Edgar’s friend." This becomes an important part of the story, and is what Mary refers to as amplification. "Just as an amplifier boosts the sounds of a guitar, it is the secondary characters that resonate with the themes of the book. They amplify the main character.
After creating the characters for this story, Mary then proceeds to find the voice of the book. Should it be first person? Third person? She starts by using different points of view. Brainstorms, outlines and free writing are all part of the process, to varying degrees in her novels.
The mystery genre brought with it a new set of writing challenges. In creating a mystery novel, Mary discovered that she needed to fix problems along the way. Rather than revisions at the end of the book, it was more the process of figuring out how the mechanics of crime work. Everything needs to come neatly together at the end. "For a long time I didn’t know who committed the crime. I imagined each scenario with a different culprit before I settled on the thief's true identity. At first, I thought this book was going to be about student meanness, but that changed as the characters came to life. What I knew at the beginning, and I firmly believe in, is that the overall focus in a children’s book needs to be positive."
Mary taught seventh and eighth grades, third grade, and autistic children in public and private schools. Her background as a teacher and her interest in poetry and word play give life to this book. It is easy for the reader to visualize the teachers, this classroom, and the student personalities.
While poetic ditties play their part in the Riot Brothers books, poetry is integral to Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook. The English teacher, Mr. Crew, instructs his class on different types of poetry. He tells his class that "A poem is a gift," and "A poem is a mystery to solve" in which the writer gives clues to help you figure out the meaning. His students really get into reading and writing poetry. When Mary was in college she submitted a poem in a contest and won. Even with this honor, she never thought about making a living as a writer. She had never met a writer, and had no clue it was an actual profession. She took a creative writing class and had a very helpful teacher. Mary continued to do lots and lots of poetry and journal writing. How did she decide to make poetry such an important part of this story? Mary loves humorous poetry. Her boys respond to the poetry of Douglas Florian. She was just thrilled that they loved his poetry. She wanted to stretch that a bit more. She knew that the students in this story would be studying poetry but at the beginning she didn’t realize it would be so central to the story.
The thief leaves a poem at the time of each theft. These poems are parodies of famous poems. Selecting the authors and poems was no easy task. "It took a long time and I looked at a lot of poems. I wanted them to be poems that kids can relate to and understand. I asked myself: if a teacher reads this aloud in class, will the students really get it?" At the end of the book, Mary lists the poems and explains the clues. "I hope this will lead readers, their parents and teachers to the original poems. " Not only are the poems important but the poets, Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams, play a part in detecting the criminal.
Her word play is delightful. There are the teachers’ names. Liz Barrett is the kindergarten teacher who leaves a love poem for Mr. Browning, the custodian. Ms. Cassatt is the art teacher. Then there is the part where Edgar states that his parents are clowns. And certainly most middle schoolers think the same of their parents. Although Edgar’s parents really are clowns in the Clown Care Unit at Children’s Hospital. I loved reading that his baby sister Rosey was "riveted" to Edgar’s story of how he solved the mystery of the thefts.
Mary loves the characters in this book, and could imagine revisiting Edgar. She and I agree that he is fun to be with. She loves that part of writing when, as a writer, she is taken to a deeper place and has an epiphany of what the book is really about. "Here is Edgar who discovers the value of empathy. When I discovered that Edgar learns everyone hurts sometime and if you allow your heart to be open you can’t really hate others, then I knew what the book was really about. I was really excited about writing this story."
"Kids crave to think about big things. It is often the grown-ups who think they can’t handle it. When I speak in schools, I talk about my mother’s death and how hard that was for me. There is always an intense silence in a room full of 250 students. They are amazed that a grown-up is sharing something so profound. Kids crave genuine sharing. They understand that deeper meaning and the quiet that goes along with that are so very important in our lives. When I do author visits, kids often respond in risk-taking ways. After I finish my program, there is usually a little crowd of kids who want to say something. Often, there is one young person who will say something profound – something that will blow my mind," says Mary. And that takes us back to how books connect us with one another, and how humor illuminates the dark.
Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook would make a great read aloud in a fifth or sixth grade classroom. To learn how to incorporate this book in your classroom, visit Mary’s website at http://www.maryamato.com/tag/teaching-ideas. For more information about Mary, go to http://www.maryamato.com
Reviews
Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook
Mary Amato
We know about kidnapping, and dognapping has been the theme of 101 Dalmatians and a slew of other stories. But fishnapping? This may be the first in all of children’s literature. But a fish is only the beginning. Soon, the thief is back. More items disappear from the classroom, Edgar Allan becomes more determined than find out who is behind such criminal mischief. If there is one thing he strives to succeed at, it is this, and his and his aim is to beat his rival, Patrick Chen, in solving the case. Edgar’s skills of observation are an important part of his investigation, and he finds himself watching several possible culprits closely, including Taz, Destiny and Kip. What he learns ultimately helps move them from Edgar Allan’s suspects list to his friends list. We should all be so wary of the people we encounter. Another clever book about friendship and language from the imaginative Amato, this is sure to be a hit with young mystery readers. 2010, Holiday House, Ages 8 to 13, $16.95. Reviewer: Heidi Hauser Green
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2271-5
Created 12/27/10
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