Richard Peck, A Long Way From Retiring

Here's me as a seventh grader with Richard Peck at a young writers' workshop at Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. I remember being SO excited to meet a real author.

I slipped the old photo into my book, Ghosts I Have Been, as a surprise for him when he opened it to sign it again, 20 years later. He knew what young writers' workshop I was talking about and said, "Yeah, I can still remember the lodge I stayed in." Pretty good for all the places he's been and for being 76 years old. I was just as excited to talk with a real author the second time around, and introduce him to my daughter.

I found his speech just as entertaining as his books, funny and full of wisdom.

"Your library card is your ticket out of town, and it was mine." I'm from a small town in IL like him, and moved to the "big city" in 8th grade. "Anyone who thinks a small town is friendly lives in a big city."

He addressed the change he's observed in public education. "When I was a student, parents feared the call from the school. Now, the school fears the call from the parents. You can teach children or fear their parents, but you can't do both."

As an English teacher of high school school seniors, he learned that "You have to be dead to be read." As a junior high teacher, he got lots of ideas from his students, and is led by his readers as to what he writes.

"3/4 Dead," inspired by a true story and coming out this fall, will be quite different from the 39 books he's written so far. He said he didn't want to deal with this story, but couldn't get the girl's voice out of his head who was on the other line with her friend when she died behind the wheel on her cell phone, along with their 2 other girlfriends in the car.

I once heard an educator say that reading books for older children provides what dramatic play does for younger ones in learning empathy, defining roles, and figuring out the world. I found it very interesting that he said the elders in his books are the young readers' introductions to the bewildering world of adults.

Although he's past a typical retirement age, Richard Peck doesn't plan on trimming his travel itinerary or unplugging his electric typewriter anytime soon. "I can't afford to stay home very long. I'm getting older every minute." Next week, he's off to London, where he visits about four times a year from his NY hometown.

Some of his advice for writers: "The story is always about the reader, never about the writer...Beatrix Potter never was a rabbit. J.K. Rawlings never attended Hogwarts."

"Always write your dialogue standing up. It improves the pace."

When I asked Robyn what she'd say as a report about his speech to her 3rd grade class, she quoted him as saying, "Only readers have futures."