Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sam Swope is the author of several very well-received children's books, including The Araboolies of Liberty Street, The Krazees, and Gotta Go! Gotta Go!, and of the soon-to-be published Jack and the Seven Deadly Giants. He lives in New York City.

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I Am a Pencil

Owl Books (NY)

Chapter One

The Box Project * * *

Becoming Mr. Swope

I was a writer, children's books mostly, funny stories in which anything could happen. Every morning I got up at six, fed Mike, my cat, and got to work. I spent a lot of time inside my head with giants and ogres, fairies and talking animals, and when I went out into the city, I was a danger, sometimes so lost in thought I'd cross the street against the light, only snapping to at the blare of a horn. To free my life for writing, I'd pared it down to the essentials: a small Manhattan rental, no kids, no car, not even a TV. I'm not a famous writer now and wasn't then, nor had I published much-nothing in some time. Still, I kept going through the motions, throwing words at the computer, screen after screen of promising beginnings, bits of characters, half thoughts, every day more words; but they never added up to anything, no book had taken shape in much too long, and I had grown discouraged. When Teachers & Writers Collaborative asked me to run a ten-day writing workshop with a third-grade class, I was grateful for the change. And so it was one bright October morning I set out for Queens. The rush-hour subway was crowded, nine-to-fivers cheek by jowl, waiting to be delivered to their particular station of hell. I closed my eyes, blacked out the world, unable to relax until we reached Grand Central, the last stop before Queens, at which point every passenger but me got off. Delighted to be alone, I took a seat, crossed my legs, and opened my copy of the New York Times. The train lurched and slowly rumbled into the tunnel under the East River, where it gradually picked up speed, climbed upward, and flashed into the light of day (a blinding change but welcome), then rattled down the elevated tracks that run through Queens.

Though visible behind me, just across the river, the towers of Manhattan seemed a world away. Queens is different, its buildings only a few stories high, and from the train I had a view both intimate and vast, with fleeting glimpses into windows just across the way, and beyond, a panorama of tarred and shingled rooftops, chimneys, antennae, trees, satellite dishes, phone poles, car washes, small factories, and billboards. Planes flew low not far off, on their way into La Guardia. I reached my stop, got off the train, and clanked down the metal staircase to the street. As soon as I was in the noisy chaos underneath the El, I felt like a tourist. I'd never seen a place like this, so foreign yet without a single ethnic identity, not a Chinatown or a Little Italy but an Immigrant World, a place where everything was all tossed in together: Colombian hairdressers, Indian spice shops, Korean wedding stores, Italian bakeries, storefront mosques, Dominican lawyers, Pakistani candy shops, Chinese green markets, Irish pubs, Mexican groceries, Hindu temples, English-language schools, and restaurants of every description. It was exotic, with a Third World flavor, but nothing felt permanent, as if this were a way station, like the intergalactic bar in Star Wars, a place where travelers stop en route to somewhere else. The blocks surrounding the school were residential, frame houses from the 1920s and brick apartment buildings from the 1950s-no hint from their exteriors what nationalities might live inside. It was a quiet, peaceful neighborhood, here and there a little front-yard garden, several good-sized trees. I didn't see a lot of litter. The school itself was the old-fashioned kind, a looming pile of brick and stone from 1910, back when schools were built to look impressive. I was early, in time to see the grown-ups bring their little ones to school. What a sight! Hand in hand they came from every direction: boys and girls with Cuban dads in baseball caps, bearded Sikhs in turbans, high-heeled Latinas with painted nails, Indonesian women covered in veils, Chinese grandmas in Mao jackets and sneakers, Hindus with red dots on their foreheads. It felt epic, all these immigrants, these hopeful parents who had somehow made their way to Queens and then sought out the school, the purpose of their journey, so that their kids could have a better life.

In children's stories, wanderers find safe haven-for Snow White, a cottage in the woods; for Dorothy, the Emerald City-and when I poked my head in Mrs. Duncan's classroom, I found mine. It seemed a world unto itself, bright with sun, a maple tree outside the window, a place both orderly and purposeful, with eight-year-olds of every color and each one so attentive to their teacher, a woman of nearly fifty and with eyes the color of the sea. She noticed me and smiled, gestured warmly, welcomed me inside. "You must be Mr. Swope," she said. That wasn't true. I wasn't Mr. Swope and never had been. I'd always been just Sam. Yet I made no objection, and so it was I was renamed. At a stroke, rechristened. In a way, reborn-although I didn't know that yet. "Class," said Mrs. Duncan, "this is the special guest I was telling you about. Mr. Swope is a real writer, but not just any kind of writer: he writes stories for children. And he's here to help you write stories, too." The class let out a cheer so loud I was a bit embarrassed, a bit ashamed, and a bit delighted.

"Hi, guys," I said. We gathered at the back of the room, the reading corner. The children sat at my feet while I sat on a chair, like Mother Goose. I read a picture book I'd written, The Araboolies of Liberty Street, about a fantastical family with skin of every color-orange, pink, green, and blue. This fun-loving clan travels from a faraway island to a place where difference and laughter are forbidden. I'd written the book never thinking one day I'd be reading it to real-life Araboolies, but here I was and there they were. When I finished, the children clapped, I blushed, and a boy at my knee said, "I have a question."

"Shoot." "Do you think I'm a boy or a girl?" I was taken aback, didn't know what to say. Wondering what trick he was up to, I stalled, took my time, studied him carefully. "Hmmmmm," I said. He was tall and wore jeans and a T-shirt. His glasses, tied around his neck with a shoelace, were so big they covered half his face. He had a wisp of a mustache, and his black hair was cut short, fuzzy as a baby bird's. I almost called his bluff and said he was a girl, but instead I played it safe and said, "I think you're a ... boy."

"No, I'm a girl." I looked in disbelief, but other kids assured me it was true, Fatma was a girl. "Everyone thinks I'm a boy," said Fatma with a shrug. I felt awful. Trying to repair the damage, I said, "That's just because your hair's so short and because you're so wonderfully tall ..." But my blather didn't fool Fatma. She had my number and turned away, her shoulder like a door shut in my face. When Mrs. Duncan told me later that Fatma was the most advanced writer in the class, it didn't surprise me. Lots of writers begin life as confused, manipulative, or self-destructive children, don't they? I hoped Fatma would forgive me and that we'd be friends. I wanted to welcome her, a fellow writer, to the club. I wanted to let her know that one day everything would be okay.

*...