Show Don't Tell Me, Mentor Text

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Howdy, Campers ~ happy Poetry Friday!  (my poem and the link to P.F. and are below.)

And the winner of our latest give away--Laurie Wallmark's book, Hedy Lamarr's Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor--is....Katie G!  Katie, a loyal subscriber, also won a TeachingAuthors giveway in 2013. Moral: it pays to hang out in the TeachingAuthors' tree house!

And speaking of the TeachingAuthors' tree house, these days we're up here drinking hot cocoa and sharing how we use Mentor Texts.

Carmela starts us off by defining what mentor text is and more; Bobbi's post talks about what 54 TV years of Doctor Who can teach us; and Mary Ann shows us the ways in which she systematically studied picture books (and found love...sort of).

In all my classes I use mentor texts. Show, Don't Tell is the first thing I teach. Even if a student is a published novelist, a renown screenwriter, or a seasoned journalist, it never hurts to be reminded of what Anton Chekov means when he writes: "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."  

image from Pixabay.com by Dana Tentis

In one exercise (created by my son when he was in elementary school), volunteers act out something in silence and their classmates guess what they are trying to convey. We discuss: how did they know the dog was happy, the child was having a tantrum, or the woman was old?  They showed us, they didn't tell us, of course.

The first book I read to introduce Show, Don't Tell is Barbara Shook Hazen's masterful and moving picture book illustrated by the brilliant Trina Schart Hyman, TIGHT TIMES (Viking Press, 1979).

I wish I could put this book in your hands, but I can't, so I'll give you an example of how Hazen shows, rather than tells:

When the child narrator asks why he can't have a dog, his father explains,
"Because of tight times" and continues:

"He said tight times are when everything keep going up.

I had a balloon that did that once.

Daddy said tight times are why we all eat Mr. Bulk instead of cereals in little boxes.

I like little boxes better.

Daddy said tight times are why we went to the sprinkler last summer instead of the lake.

I like the lake better."

I just typed the text of this book. It's astonishing what Hazen does in just 694 words. This book was published at a time it was perfectly acceptable to turn in a picture book manuscript of 1200 words or more!

And having typed this text, I can feel in my fingers that one of the picture books I am working on needs more showing, less telling!

* * *

A month before my mother, a classical pianist, died, I couldn't tell you what I was already missing...I had to show it:

WHERE IS MY MOTHER?
by April Halprin Wayland

Quietly she cries,

“Mama, Mama…”

Eyes half-closed,

she lies blanketed in grief.

Where is my mother:

whirling dervish,

spark of light,

moving, always moving,

striking a match,

setting piano keys on fire?

poem (c)2019 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

Okay, Campers...do you have favorite picture book that demonstrates Show, Don't Tell?  I'd love to know what it is!

Spread the word: on April 13, 2019 from 9:30 am-4:30 pm, author/illustrator Barney Saltzberg, fiction and nonfiction picture book author Alexis O'Neill and I are reprising our one day class at UCLA, Writing a Picture Book and Getting it Published. Join us!

Thank you, Catherine, for hosting Poetry Friday today at Reading to the Core ~

posted with love by April Halprin Wayland, with help from Mateo, our latest monarch butterfly caterpillar, who is currently looking for a place on our kitchen wall to build his chrysalis. 

Mateo, named after a character in this book

Did you know that monarch butterflies are endangered...and that you can help by raising them?  Just ask beloved TeachingAuthor emeritus, JoAnn Early Macken; click here  for the monarch resources on her website.