Hearing from Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
was, to state the absolute bare minimum, a delight. She engaged the group of
grade 7 to 9 children with such ease it was obvious that she truly cares about what
she does and how she does it. Skrypuch answered a number of questions,
instructing us to write for a minimum of 10 minutes every day if we want to
become better writers – not just on holidays or spare time. Her Q&A session
was complete with brief but intense readings of her books Making Bombs for Hitler and Underground
Soldier.
Skrypuch shared her experience with
reading as a child, explaining how she was diagnosed with ‘dyslexia’ (back in
the day they stated she just ‘wasn’t very smart’). She found reading to be a
challenge and, much similar to kids these days, became bored with the book if
it did not grab her attention within the first page. Skrypuch’s beliefs -
contrary to the common children’s novelist - are that children are incredibly
mature; perhaps even more mature than
adults.
“Ask an adult what’s troubling them in
the moment and they’ll respond with ‘I don’t know if I paid the VISA bill’ or
‘I’m not sure if I took hamburger out to thaw last night’. But if you ask a
child whats troubling them, they’ll respond with ‘Endangered animals’ or
‘Climate change’ because they have the time to consider those things and are
not constantly pre-occupied with meaningless day-to-day things. I find children
are a considerably more serious audience than adults, and that is what I had in
mind when writing Making Bombs for Hitler.”
Despite some microphone difficulties,
the show was engaging, enlightening, and very energizing. I, for one, have a
deeper appreciation for children’s novelists than before, and feel as though my
ten minutes are long over-due.
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