As a mother of a daughter (and a son), I’ve long been aware of this country’s ‘princess problem’ – the cultural stranglehold of a certain franchise of princesses on our culture’s collective psyche. I’ve also been aware of resistance to this type of pink, tiara-ed narrative of girlhood — through organizations like princess-free zone or even this viral video of 5year old Riley sounding off about big business, the color pink, and gender marketing.

But much to my chagrin, nay, shame, I’ve really never given a second thought to this issue through the eyes of the concerned princes. I mean, what must it be like, as a fairy tale character, to be so completely overshadowed all the time by princesses like Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty? To be made essentially anonymous, stripped of your individual and autonomous identity, and lumped together with every other Prince Charming of legend and lore?

Luckily, the wildly talented Christopher Healy is coming to the rescue of neglected princes everywhere with his hilarious and imaginative forthcoming The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins, May 2012).  I was lucky enough to read an ARC of the novel and interview Christopher; and one of you will be lucky enough – just by leaving a comment below – to win a signed hardcover copy of his hot-off-the-presses forthcoming book! (unless you have some kind of aversion or allergy or something to laughing – in that case, please DON’T leave a comment. Because this book will make you laugh – and laugh a lot!)

But first, the most awesome interview of this most awesome author, in which he reveals which Prince Charming he is most like, why he has a soft spot for witches, and what really “ooks” him out as a writer of fractured fairy tales:

Question: Christopher, your book has four main protagonists – Frederic, Gustav, Liam and Duncan — all former Prince Charmings (er, I mean, Princes Charming. As your character Duncan would remind me, the noun is made plural, not the adjective).  Where did you come up with their off-kilter personalities? And tell us the truth – which one is closest to your own?

Christopher: Well, the original fairy tales don’t give us much to go on, but it was still important to me that my princes’ personalities made sense with what little we do know of these guys already. I asked myself, for instance: What do we know about Cinderella’s prince? He can dance. He’s sophisticated. And he’s got noble ladies swooning over him. But beyond that, we don’t know much. So I took what Charles Perrault gave me, and got creative with the rest. From that starting point, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that Prince Frederic is probably not very outdoorsy, perhaps a little too focused on his fashion choices, and (to put it mildly) not the most daring guy in the world.

I did the same for all the princes. Rapunzel’s prince wants to rescue her, but never thinks to get a ladder — so Gustav is the kind of guy who rushes into things without thinking. Sleeping Beauty’s prince actually rescues an entire kingdom in his story, and gets major kudos for it — so Liam bases his entire identity on heroics and has a bit of an ego about it. Snow White’s prince gets lucky by wandering through the forest and stumbling upon a bewitched princess to kiss — so Duncan is a carefree oddball who spends a lot of time walking the woods by himself, just waiting to see where life takes him next.

And while there’s definitely a little bit of Duncan in me, the prince who most represents me is Frederic. As a child, I shunned cotton candy because it I was afraid it would make my hands sticky. That says it all, really.

Question: Your book plays with the princess stereotype as well. How did you decide on your princess’ personalities?

Christopher: While I did work to make sure that my princesses were different from previous depictions of those same characters (especially their film incarnations), I crafted their personalities the same way I did the princes. I built them out of the original stories.

Cinderella worked hard labor for years, so she’s tough and strong. Rapunzel has the power to heal people with her tears (in the original tale), so here she’s got a bit of a savior complex. Sleeping Beauty was hidden away and catered to for her whole childhood, and has thus ended up somewhat spoiled. And Snow White, just like her prince, spends a lot of time wandering the forest and chatting with wildlife, so as it turns out, she’s actually a good match for Duncan.

But those were just starting points for the princesses. The ladies come into the spotlight a whole lot more in Book II, and the further changes you’ll see there should come across as a natural evolution for the characters.

Question: Usually, middle grade novels need middle grade-aged protagonists.  But except for Liam’s younger sister, and a juvenile delinquent of a robber baron, none of your characters is kid-aged (and in fact, two are married). Was this a deliberate decision? Did you ever consider making them younger?

Christopher: The fairy tales I’ve based my book on all end with their protagonists being set up for a happily-ever-after wedding. And even if Perrault and the Grimms wouldn’t have had a problem marrying off tween characters, I was ooked out by the idea. So I went young adult-ish. I intentionally kept their ages vague, but yes, they’re definitely older than the average middle-grade reader. I think my characters will still be relatable to kids, though —they’re not exactly the most mature adults you’ll ever read about.

Question: The poor bards and minstrels of your story have it hard – they get captured and almost killed by a notoriety-crazed witch and then given a hard time for getting their stories ‘wrong.’ Tell us about your journey to publish this novel. Any similarities to those bards and minstrels?

Christopher: The bards deserve every bit of misery they get. They have no journalistic integrity. They pump out whatever kind of story they think their fans will want to hear and never bother checking the facts. I, on the other hand, went back over my manuscript and revised it about a zillion times before it was finished. Unlike the bards, it was very important to me to make sure I’d truly captured the personalities of these princes and princesses. Plus, before I could even turn the thing into my editor, I had to get it past my wife and daughter — and they are not an easy audience.

Question: Did you have a favorite fairy tale as a kid? Now?

Christopher: As a kid, it was probably Hansel and Gretel. It was one of the few where I was able to relate to the male protagonist. In so many of the others, the male heroes were personality-free, generic princes — which is exactly why I wrote Hero’s Guide.

Currently, though, I have to say my favorite fairy tale is one I discovered only recently: “Great Claus and Little Claus.” It’s a more obscure Hans Christian Andersen story and it is completely insane. It’s basically this little guy getting revenge on a bully in the freakiest ways, but all sorts of really absurd stuff happens along the way. My favorite part is when Little Claus meets a farmer with an irrational hatred of sextons. A sexton is a church employee who handles daily chores — why in the world would the mere existence of sextons inspire fits of rage in someone? I have no idea if it was meant to be hilarious, but it is. In a very, very dark way.

Question: How about a favorite fractured fairy tale? Now?

Christopher: Well, I loved the original “Fractured Fairy Tales,” the cartoon shorts on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show that inspired the phrase. That was the first time I remember seeing classic stories being treated irreverently — and I thought it was awesome.

In terms of current entertainment, I’ve really enjoyed Michael Buckley’s Sisters Grimm series. It’s not technically a fractured fairy tale, but Buckley put some really fun, creative twists on characters we’ve seen a hundred times before.

Question: The humor in this novel is so over the top hilarious. Let me repeat, HI-LA-RI-OUS. How did you hit upon that hysterically funny voice? (And did you laugh while you were writing?)

Christopher: I’ve always had a rather eclectic sense of humor. I can laugh just as hard at slapstick pratfalls as I can at highbrow literary references and esoteric wordplay. To be honest, I was a little worried about how my humor would hit with readers. Could I expect the same person to chuckle at the hero face-planting in the mud and then also laugh at grammar jokes about pluralizing nouns? A person other than me, I mean. Because yes, I laugh. Not so much while I’m writing, but afterwards. I mean, as a writer, you’ve got to like your own stuff, right? If you don’t, why are you writing it? But I’m incredibly happy to hear you enjoyed it too.

Question: Ok, the hard part of the interview. A test! But luckily, it's multiple choice:

1. Glass slippers or combat boots?

Christopher: Glass slippers are utterly useless. I don’t think Cinderella actually lost hers; I think she kicked it off because she’d finally gotten tired of tiptoeing all night.

2. Swords or wands?

Christopher: Wands! Or anything that allows you to defend yourself while standing far, far away from your enemy.

3. Towers or Dungeons?

Christopher: I’ll say towers, because I am slightly less afraid of heights than I am claustrophobic.

4. Wolves or Witches?

Christopher: Regular wolves or werewolves? Never mind, I’ll go with witches. Thought both of them get a pretty bad rap in the fairy tale world. It’s not always very fair.

5. Poisoned Apples or Thorns in the Eyes?

Christopher: That might be the worst choice I’ve ever been asked to make. I guess I’ll say apple. I’d rather be peacefully asleep than painfully blinded. And maybe there’d be a chance that someone would come along and kiss me.

 6. Life lessons or Frothy romps?

Christopher: Must the two be separate? I’ll choose frothy romp. Because if you give me a frothy romp, I’ll find some life lessons in it. But if you give me a straight up lesson, there may be no froth to be found.

Question: As a male author, writing about (mostly) male protagonists – what’s your take on the “boy’s don’t read” controversies? Did you write this book for a particular gendered audience? 

Christopher: When I was a kid, I got more than a few scrapes and bruises due to foolhardy attempts at reading while walking. And my son, who is only five, just smashed into a doorframe yesterday doing the same thing. So, I refuse to accept the idea that boys won’t read. However, I know that a lot of boys aren’t reading. So, yes, I did want to contribute a piece of literature that I hope boys will pick up. I don’t consider Hero’s Guide a “boy book,” though; my goal was to create a story that had appeal across gender lines. So, while Hero’s Guide is a fairy tale, it’s also an action-adventure comedy. While it’s about Prince Charming, it’s also about the League of Princes. While there is talk of weddings and romance, there is also talk of troll battles and barroom brawls. I’m hoping that whichever elements bring a reader into the book, the rest of the story will appeal to them while they’re there.

Question: What do you like about writing for middle grade audiences? What are your biggest challenges?

Christopher: My daughter is in that middle-grade demographic right now, and she exemplifies a lot of what I love about that audience.  She appreciates imagination in any setting. She’s open to just about anything from a storyteller — thoroughly accepting unreal, magical worlds just as much as she does slice-of-life middle-school tales. And by this age, she also has enough of a cultural vocabulary to catch literary references and analogies. When I write for a middle-grade audience, I don’t want to write down to them — I want to challenge them, because I know they’re up to the challenge.

Also, my daughter and her friends are all very outspoken with their opinions on the books they read. When they love a book, they LOVE a book. They talk about

it constantly, they re-read it seven times, they turn it into games that they play with one another. If they’re not into a book, though — well, they let that be known too. And that’s the potential downside in being a middle-grade author.

THANK YOU so much for your time Christopher, and for your delicious novel. It’s been a pleasure!

Please leave a comment below to qualify to win a signed hardback copy of The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom!  Winner will be announced on April 12th!

(all images courtesy of indiebound publishers and microsoft office free clipart)

Sayantani DasGupta loves re-imagining fairy- and folk-tales, and has a middle grade novel on submission based on Indian stories of demons, princesses and, or course, awesome princes. Look for her story reimagining "Little Boy Blue" in Month 9 books' forthcoming Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes!

The expectations for the use profanity in children’s fiction are pretty clear. It’s commonplace in YA novels and completely absent in picture books and easy readers. But middle grade fiction takes the middle ground. Is swearing okay in a middle grade book? Well, it’s complicated. The issue is balancing authenticity with respect for your audience. Everybody encounters profanity; it is a language intensifier and can be useful in conveying the weight and reality of your characters situation. And yet it is the nature of profanity to offend, so any use will have consequences in how the book as a whole is received. As a practical matter MG books with profanity tend to be shelved with YA no matter how young the character is. This is not necessarily a problem, To Kill a Mockingbird and it’s 9 year old protagonist Scout have been doing just fine in the YA section of the library for the last five decades. Even so any use of profanity should be carefully considered. When I’m confronted with an opportunity to use a swear word in my novels, here are five choices I consider.
1. Omit
Every time I use profanity I rewrite the scene with out it, let it sit for a day or two and read the result out loud. I have been surprised by how often the scene was stronger without the swear word. Sometimes profanity is just a habit of the author and not integral to the character’s worldview or the movement of the plot.
2. Reduce
My editor once told me that swearing is loud on the page in a way that it is not in real life. I think of it as the equivalent of yelling or texting in all caps. As the mom of many I can tell you yelling is most effective when used sparingly—usually when lives are at stake. I think the last time I actually yelled at home was when someone’s sleeve caught on fire while roasting a marshmallow. Because swearing functions as an intensifier, it’s power is diluted by overuse. If I am working with a character who would naturally swear a lot, I’ll run a word search and see if I can limit the swearing to places where it will have the most impact.
3. Evade
Sometimes  you can duck the issue when the swearing is done by a non-viewpoint character. When I was working on Second Fiddle I knew that the moment that the girls discovered that they were all alone in Paris with no money, no passports and no return train tickets, any normal eighth grader would swear. But my main character wasn’t really the swearing type. Instead, I had her report that her friend said every swear she knew in English and then moved on to exhaust her supply of swear words in French and German. This preserved the authenticity of the scene without getting into a specific swear word.

4. Substitute
Here is one of the more entertaining devices of MG fiction. Most kids get in trouble for swearing, and yet they have the same need for the occasional language intensifier as everyone else. So kids are great at making up substitutes. It’s the drat, darn, and golly solution, and it has great comic potential. I was recently on a grade school play ground where a shouting match arose over a basketball game and the third graders involved avoided detention by calling each other the names of various icky vegetables—Asparagus Head and Eggplant Face were bandied about with alacrity. The advantage to a curse word substitution is that it can also serve to convey information about the character and setting and lighten the mood of an otherwise tense situation.
5. Commit
There are circumstances in which the first four choices are wrong for the voice of the character or the gravity of the situation. And in those cases swearing maybe appropriate. Freedom of Speech means nothing if we never use it, and if you have used profane speech appropriately in your book you will find both people who passionately attack any use of profanity and those who just as passionately defend your right to tell the story as you must, free of censure. I opted to use swearing to a very limited extent in Heart of a Shepherd, having considered and discarded the above considerations, and it has done no harm whatsoever to the book. A few libraries don’t shelve it in k-4 schools. I really have no argument with that. Most teachers who read it aloud chose to skip or modify the swear word in the classroom. No argument there either. On the other hand, many teachers and parents have told me that because they weren’t expecting profanity in a middle grade book, it gave them a good opportunity to discuss where profanity is socially acceptable and not, and what it was about that particular scene that made a character swear when he ordinarily wouldn’t. That’s a conversation worth having.

In the end I find it helpful to imagine myself sitting down to eat a meal with my reader. If my reader is 7 and the tone of my story is traditional and in the mood of a holiday dinner eaten with extended family, then I’d not use coarse language of any kind. If I was eating a picnic lunch with 10 year olds and parents were not hovering in earshot, I would probably use a substitute word or an evasion. With 14 year olds at the food court in the mall, I might use a profane word if it were appropriate to the conversation at hand, but I’d still use it sparingly because eighth graders are not adults, and the mall is not a high school locker room or a college dorm. There will be plenty of time for them to make the acquaintance of a broad range of swear words in young adult and adult fiction.

I’d love to hear what other people consider when making decisions about profanity, both in terms of writing and in terms of sharing books with middle grade kids as a parent or teacher or librarian. Drop us a line!

We’re being subjected to all kinds of backward thinking from the campaign trail, but as there’s no middle-grade equivalent to Margaret Atwood’s THE HANDMAID’S TALE to use as a tie-in, I’ll focus on this from Newt Gingrich (emphasis added):

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.”

Are you sure that’s what you meant, Newt?  Would you like to clarify things?

“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works,” Gingrich replied. 

Um, Newt. That doesn’t really help.  And you call yourself a historian?

Even though there’s zero chance Newt will show up here at From the Mixed-Up Files, I’m going to provide a booklist that would refresh his memory on the devastating poverty that forced entire families to work twelve-hour days for just pennies.  Parents so desperate they sent their malnourished, young children into unsafe factories, mills, and mines so they’d have enough food to survive.  People weren’t destitute because they chose not to work but because the Haves squeezed the Have-nots for every last bit of profit via wages, company stores, and rent.

Today, millions of families are struggling financially. And despite Newt’s moralizing, they’re working hard to make ends meet. The answer isn’t firing the “union janitor” and replacing him with nine-year-olds but creating more living-wage jobs for young adults and adults, and providing affordable, quality education for everyone.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the kind of power over time and space to make that happen right now but I can offer a historical perspective that should prevent us from turning back the clock on child labor (all italicized descriptions from indiebound):

KIDS AT WORK: LEWIS HINE AND THE CRUSADE AGAINST CHILD LABOR by Russell Freedman with Photography by Lewis Hine

Photobiography of early twentieth-century photographer and schoolteacher Lewis Hine, using his own work as illustrations. Hines’s photographs of children at work were so devastating that they convinced the American people that Congress must pass child labor laws.

Tracy’s Note: An incredible testament to Lewis Hine who for ten years worked as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (formed in 1904), documenting the exploitation of children in mills, mines, factories, city streets, and agricultural fields.

COUNTING ON GRACE by Elizabeth Winthrop

1910. Pownal, Vermont. At 12, Grace and her best friend Arthur must leave school and go to work as a “doffers” on their mothers’ looms in the mill. Grace’s mother is the best worker, fast and powerful, and Grace desperately wants to help her. But she’s left handed and doffing is a right-handed job. Grace’s every mistake costs her mother, and the family. She only feels capable on Sundays, when she and Arthur receive special lessons from their teacher. Together they write a secret letter to the Child Labor Board about underage children working in Pownal. A few weeks later a man with a camera shows up. It is the famous reformer Lewis Hine, undercover, collecting evidence for the Child Labor Board. Grace’s brief acquaintance with Hine and the photos he takes of her are a gift that changes her sense of herself, her future, and her family’s future.

Tracy’s Note: I grabbed this from the pile right after finishing KIDS AT WORK, and was thrilled to make the connection between the cover photograph and Lewis Hine’s work. The author says once she saw that face in a museum exhibit, she never forgot it. Her character, Grace Forcier, was inspired by the expression captured by Mr. Hine. (Author includes For Further Reading list in back).

KIDS ON STRIKE by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

By the early 1900s, nearly two million children were working in the United States. From the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the cotton mills of New England, children worked long hours every day under stunningly inhumane conditions. After years and years of oppression, children began to organize and make demands for better wages, fairer housing costs, and safer working environments.
Some strikes led by young people were successful; some were not. Some strike stories are shocking, some are heartbreaking, and many are inspiring — but all are a testimony to the strength of mind and spirit of the children who helped build American industry.

Tracy’s Note: It was inspirational and gratifying to read about courageous young people who understood that workers united had much more power than workers divided, including Kid Blink who led the newsies on strike against Hearst and Pulitzer, and sixteen-year-old Pauline Newman who led the garment factory workers’ New York City rent strike.

BREAD AND ROSES, TOO by Katherine Paterson

Newbery-author Katherine Paterson’s tale of the 1912 mill workers’ strike.

Rosa’s mother is singing again—union songs. She’s joined the strike against
the corrupt mill owners. Rosa is terrified. What if Mamma is jailed or, worse, killed?

Jake’s dad threatened to kill him if he joined the strike. For Jake, that is reason enough to do so.

Then Rosa, Jake, and the other children living in the middle of the strike are offered a very special opportunity: To live in Vermont until the strike is over. For Rosa, being away from her family is worse than seeing them in harm’s way. For Jake, it’s a chance to start over. For both of them, it’s a time of growing up.

Tracy’s Note: Again, serendipity guided the order of my reading. I started this after finishing KIDS ON STRIKE where I’d learned about the 1912 mill workers’ strike in Lawrence, MA, and so knew the details about organizers from Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or Wobblies) framed for murder, and how children were sent out of state for their safety.

GROWING UP IN COAL COUNTRY by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Inspired by her in-laws’ recollections of working in coal country, Susan Campbell Bartoletti has gathered the voices of men, women, and children who immigrated to and worked in northeastern Pennsylvania at the turn of the century. The story that emerges is not just a story of long hours, little pay, and hazardous working conditions; it is also the uniquely American story of immigrant families working together to make a new life for themselves. It is a story of hardship and sacrifice, yet also of triumph and the fulfillment of hopes and dreams.

Tracy’s Note: After all my reading, I now have a particular loathing for mine owners who made their profits on the backs of children who spent their days hunched over coal chutes or alone in the dark (except for rats) or running alongside mine cars as they rolled downhill, jabbing sticks in the wheels to slow them down.

BILLY CREEKMORE by Tracey Porter

He is a motherless child,
a coal miner, 
a circus star, 
a con artist, 
a seer, 
a hero,
and a survivor.

This is the tale of Billy Creekmore, a young boy with mystifying powers and the gift of storytelling. But his life in the Guardian Angels Orphanage is cruel and bleak, and when a stranger comes to claim Billy, he sets off on an extraordinary journey. From the coal mines of West Virginia to the world of a traveling circus, he searches for the secrets of his past, his future, and his own true self.

Tracy’s Note: At the end of the story the author explains that with the exception of the title character, every boy character in BILLY CREEKMORE is named after a boy who died in a mining accident before reaching his seventeenth birthday.

At the dingy, overcrowded Acme Garment Factory, Emily Watson stands for eleven hours a day clipping threads from blouses. Every time the boss passes, he shouts at her to snip faster. But if Emily snips too fast, she could ruin the garment and be docked pay. If she works too slowly, she will be fired. She desperately needs this job. Without the four dollars a week it brings, her family will starve. When a reporter arrives, determined to expose the terrible conditions in the factory, Emily finds herself caught between the desperate immigrant girls with whom she works and the hope of change. Then tragedy strikes, and Emily must decide where her loyalties lie. Emily’s fictional experiences are interwoven with non-fiction sections describing family life in a slum, the fight to improve social conditions, the plight of working children then and now, and much more. Rarely seen archival photos accompany this story of the past as only Barbara Greenwood can tell it.                                                                                                                                                                    

Other resources:

SHUTTING OUT THE SKY: LIFE IN THE TENEMENTS OF NEW YORK 1880-1924 by Deborah Hopkinson (includes chapter on child labor: Everyone Worked On)

CHILDREN OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION by Russell Freedman (includes chapter on child labor: Kids at Work; also exquisite photographs including work by Dorothea Lange)

Tracy Abell‘s first job was on the night shift in a canning factory where she used a suction hose to remove “undesirables” from peas moving past on a conveyor belt. She’s happy to report she received work breaks and was paid overtime.