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Jane Smiley
, best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize recipient, came
up with what she thought was a winning idea for a
children's picture book. She wanted to call it
"Twenty Yawns."
"There
would be so many pictures of yawning, the child would
absolutely go to sleep," Smiley said.
She
pitched the proposal to an editor, whose reaction was
somewhere between unimpressed and bored. The editor
happened to lament to Smiley, however, that there were
very few "horse books" for pre-teens and
teens, the kinds of stories many young girls enjoyed
growing up.
"I
can do that," Smiley told her. "I'd love to do
that. It's like returning to my roots."
Smiley
created 12-year-old
Abby Lovitt
and tells Abby's horse story in "The Georges and
the Jewels" (240 pages; Knopf). It's the first book
for younger readers by the much-revered author.
Horses
are a favorite topic and lifelong love for Smiley, who
became enthralled at about age 5 with her first pony
ride.
"The
pony ride was through a maze," said Smiley, who
grew up in
St. Louis
. "They strapped you in. I think you went around
twice. I just adored it."
Smiley
rode horses from about age 11 until she went to college.
Later she picked up the avocation again, becoming a
"horse person," owning and breeding horses.
When she settled in northern
California
, she was introduced to the "horse whispering"
style of horse training. She decided her book would
explore the topic.
"The
method enlists the horse's cooperation," she said,
"and the horse's sense of play and the desire to do
something."
In the
book, Abby's father buys and sells horses, and Abby is
his helper, riding and caring for the
"Georges" and the "Jewels" — what
he insists she calls the geldings and mares so she won't
get too attached to them.
Writing
for younger readers, Smiley was especially mindful she
needed to keep the story moving. But, she said, writing
in the voice of a 12-year-old wasn't a problem for her.
"It's
like a costume you put on," Smiley said.
"Pretty soon, the voice comes out. It's akin to
acting a little bit. You're in her point of view, so
something that might occur to (grown-up)
Jane Smiley
doesn't occur to Abby."
Besides
Abby's interactions with the horses, she deals with
discord at home and with school life, where subsets of
seventh-grade girls are battling things out. The story
is set in the 1960s.
Abby
evolved into a problem-solver, Smiley said, and that
makes her a good protagonist for young readers.
"I
think that what junior high kids look for the most is a
method for solving what can seem to them to be
overwhelming difficulties," she said.
Smiley
has her own memories of middle-school years, of course,
but she said she also learned from the experiences of
her children.
"My
solution was mostly to stay out of the way and hope for
the best. My kids were a little more proactive,"
she said. "Abby is the kind of person who doesn't
offer opinion, but if you ask her she tells the truth. I
love those kind of people."
Smiley
will write three Abby books in all. "A Good
Horse" is due out in September and the third, as
yet untitled, in 2011.
Her other
books include "Horse Heaven," about horse
breeding and horse racing, and "A Thousand
Acres," which won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for
fiction.
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