Member of the Family (by Zach Franzen)

Member of the Family (by Zach Franzen)

by Story Warren on March 6, 2013

[Salutations, rabbitpersons. This is S.D. Smith, presenting another post from your allies at Story Warren. Some of you met Justin Gerard at Hutchmoot, or heard about him here. I didn't actually experience my first contact with Justin through the Rabbit Room, but did meet him in person first at Hutchmoot 2011. Anyway, when Story Warren started, I invited Justin to join the squad. He declined, citing a supposed lack of qualification. Almost at once, he said, "But man, Zach Franzen would be perfect for what you're doing. Zach is always talking about exactly what you're saying. And he's a thousand times smarter than me. He's definitely your guy." Almost a year later I can affirm, with gratitude, Justin's claims. Zach Franzen is a wonderful illustrator and an even better thinker. I often tell people that talking to Zach is like going to college. A college where the professor draws awesome stuff. --Sam]

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Some months ago, my wife and I were reading Eleanor Estes’ charming book Rufus M. We were amazed at one story where Rufus (the youngest of the Moffats and the title character) found some money frozen in the ice. While the rest of his family were busy trying to manage a frozen pipe under the house, Rufus managed to chisel two quarters, three dimes, and a couple nickels out of the ice. He used this money (quite a bit it seems for the time) to pay for a plumber to fix the troublesome pipe, then he went to the store and “. . . laid all his money on the counter. He bought two packages of kindling wood . . . He bought a small sackful of good, hard nut coal . . . He bought some apples, some oranges, some eggs, and some potatoes, and he went home feeling like Santa Claus.”

Rufus sensed his place in the family unit and desired to contribute. After reading this, my wife and I felt so proud for Rufus and had such pleasure at our feelings of admiration that we wondered, “Why aren’t there a million stories like this?”

I don’t know the answer. Perhaps it has something to do with the rockstar status of the misfit/outcast archetype in children’s literature. There is a strong trend in fiction for young people that consists of jettisoning of one’s God-given family and cobbling together a new one on a road trip. Also, there’s no better way for an author to make friends with their reader than to say, “Parents are dumb because they don’t understand you.”

Anyway, there ought to be a million stories like Rufus’s but I can’t seem to find them. However, I did find a poem where a kid takes delight in providing the food for a meal. I found it pleasing. Perhaps you will too.

I-caught-a-fish-ZACH FRANZEN