SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A new collection of illustrated story poems is told from the perspective of a boy who lived in a shell. His name is Ivo, and he lived in an empty moon snail shell on a beach of sand until a wave carried him away. He now lives in an empty moon snail shell on the sea. He was scared at first, but he grew to love it so, as the stories he wrote will show. Ivo's adventures are the work of John Himmelman. The author and illustrator now joins us from the studios of WNPR in Hartford, Connecticut. His book, "The Boy Who Lived In A Shell: Snippets For Wandering Minds." Thank you so much for being with us.
JOHN HIMMELMAN: Oh, thank you for having me.
SIMON: I guess children are the intended audience, but I sure liked it. How did Ivo come to you?
HIMMELMAN: I wanted to tell some stories in as few words as possible for people with wandering minds. And I needed a way to connect them, and Ivo was the way to do that. He's the one is was telling the stories. And throughout the book, you're also learning a little bit about Ivo as he's getting older and older out in the sea in this shell.
SIMON: Could I ask you to read one? The Rumple Twins.
HIMMELMAN: Oh, sure. That's the first one in the story.
(Reading) The Rumple Twins lived in a tree. They ate there. They read there. They wept there. They slept there. They never ever left that tree until one day - nope, they're still up there.
SIMON: (Laughter) You don't need a lot of words for a surprise ending.
HIMMELMAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: The illustration's of a giant tree. A couple of tiny twins seem to be happily situated on a branch high above the ground. Do stories come first to you or the scene?
HIMMELMAN: Both. It was mostly the mood, the feel of it. I mean, some of them are wry, as I've been told, and some are a little sad 'cause I think there's nothing wrong with a sad story here and there. And some of them are just silly. A lot of these because they're so short, they're ideas I've had for longer books that just wouldn't work, and I got to plug in these characters that I might have come up with 20,30 years ago. And I got to actually bring them to life in this book.
SIMON: Let's continue with Ivo's stories. Would you let me have the pleasure of reading Penguin?
HIMMELMAN: Oh, please do.
SIMON: (Reading) Penguin sat on a chunk of ice. He bobbed up and down in the southern sea. Room for me? Asked Walrus. OK, said Penguin. Walrus climbed on, but he was too big. The ice sunk beneath them. Penguin stood on Walrus. They bobbed up and down in the southern sea.
And then the illustration is just one of the happiest you can ever imagine of a Walrus and his hands tucked over his stomach as he floats, and the penguin seemingly quite happy on top of him.
HIMMELMAN: I should have you read all my stories for me.
SIMON: Well, it would be an honor. I love them so.
HIMMELMAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: I've read that you worked in the library stacks, and that had an important contribution to literature. We'll put it that way.
HIMMELMAN: Oh, yeah. I was in my last year at School of Visual Arts, trying to figure out, all right, what am I going to do with four years of art school? And at the time I was working in the Commack Library in Long Island, New York, and I was working in the children's book section, putting away all these classics like Mercer Mayer's books and Maurice Sendak, of course. And my favorite was Arnold Lobel and his "Frog And Toad" series that just inspired me. Here's a way to combine words and pictures, both of which I was interested in. And I took a course in writing and illustrating children's books in my last year in college, and I've been doing it since.
SIMON: Could I get you to read Dolphin's story?
HIMMELMAN: So Dolphin is a recurring character.
(Reading) Dolphin was the nicest creature in all the sea. He shared everything he had. Once he found a crayon. He balanced it on his nose. He gave the crayon to a boy. That boy wrote a story about Dolphin. He liked his first sentence so much, he made it his last two. He wanted everyone to know one thing about Dolphin. What did the boy want them to know? Dolphin was the nicest creature in all the sea.
SIMON: I love that story. And on the one hand, you think, well, you know, that's all that needs to be said. But when somebody is the nicest creature in the sea, we should say it a lot, shouldn't we?
HIMMELMAN: We should. And, of course, it's a dolphin.
SIMON: Yeah. Subtitle of your book, "Snippets For Wandering Minds." Why wandering?
HIMMELMAN: I think there's attention span challenges these days with longer pieces. And I was speaking to that. You could pick it up and put it down at any time. If your mind's wandering, there's no pressure, and especially for kids that feel somewhat challenged by reading longer things. This gives it to them in smaller bites or snippets.
SIMON: In all of your work, have you uncovered or developed something that's just really essential to reaching into a child's mind and heart?
HIMMELMAN: What I do is I write to make myself laugh. I write to make myself sad, and I just hope that translates to other people, other children. And I think what I have is I have strong memories of how things affected me when I was a child, different emotions. I remember happiness. I remember sadness. I remember excitement. And I don't think those change over the years. If I could touch that in my own stories, in my own work, that - hopefully, that will relate to others. And I don't mind adults enjoying it as well. That's how I start. You know, I'm an adult, so I start writing for me.
SIMON: Can I ask you to read or sing even from Everything Stinks?
HIMMELMAN: Oh, boy, I'm not going to sing it (laughter). That's Crabby's story. So what happened was when Ivo sleeps, the stories don't come out, and it's the stories that keep his shell afloat. So Crab decided to come in and write some stories. And being a crab, his stories are somewhat crabby. So one of the stories he wrote is Everything Stinks.
(Reading) Sing along time, sang the crab who sang. Nothing goes right. Everything's wrong. Nothing is nice, blah, blah, blah. Everything stinks. Nothing's worth doing. You're all too smelly. Blah, blah, blah. And you're all too loud. Everything's boring. Sun's in my eyes. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
SIMON: (Laughter).
HIMMELMAN: I don't know how I would sing that (laughter).
SIMON: Where's Ivo now?
HIMMELMAN: I don't want to give away the ending. He's still telling stories, cranking away in a little moon snail shell on the sea.
SIMON: John Himmelman, who has written "The Boy Who Lived In A Shell: Snippets For Wandering Minds." Thank you so much for having your mind wander a little bit with ours. Thank you.
HIMMELMAN: (Laughter) It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
SIMON: (SOUNDBITE OF EZRA COLLECTIVE'S "SPACE IS THE PLACE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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