Proof of Youth

David V. Kimel ’05 graduated summa cum laude in Classics. He was half of 2005’s American Parliamentary Debate Team of the Year. And he has also written a children’s book.

He seems vaguely aware of the unorthodoxy of his situation. While his debate friends were going off to law school, Kimel taught English in a South Korean steel factory instead. “It was like being in a Charles Dickens book,” he recalls. “It was at that time that I started looking back at happier times, especially my childhood.”

Kimel now makes a living writing instructional material for Korean children, while seeking a publisher for his first story in English, “Max and Screecher, The Underbed Creature”—a twisted, witty poem about a boy who gets revenge on some bullies with the help of a fuzzy, hungry monster.

The Israeli-born Kimel suspects that observers see a paradox in a Harvard-educated children’s author but waves the idea away, viewing his alma mater as a logical step towards such writing; it was children’s literature, after all, that awoke his love of learning.

“In the beginning there were stories,” says Germanic Languages Professor Maria Tatar, chair of the Folklore and Mythology committee and one of Kimel’s mentors. “There wasn’t a generational divide.”

Tatar’s popular course Literature and Arts A-17: “Childhood: Its History, Philosophy, and Literature” bridges this modern divide. At a university often considered overly stuffy and grown-up, she has tapped into an apparent longing for childhood.

Tatar, who has translated and published numerous collections of classic fairy tales, seems pleased with what she perceives to be genuine interest. “Maybe students were looking for a gut. It sounds easier than, say, ‘Shakespeare’s Problem Plays,’” she reflects. “But there is something very mature about their approach. I think many are looking for a way to go back home, to work through their own childhoods.”

In class, Tatar is both erudite and whimsical, eliciting quiet attention and gleeful laughter. Yet, as students left her lectures last week, no one would own up to considering a career in children’s literature. “It seems so easy to write, theoretically, but I’m scared children wouldn’t actually like my work,” says Leah D. Seifu ’11.

The difficulty for Elizabeth Ryznar ’10 lies in finding inspiration. Ryznar is the founding president of Harvard College Stories for Orphans (HCSO), a student group that writes and illustrates personalized storybooks for children in international orphanages. With this, she’s built an outlet for aspiring writers, one that mitigates the difficulty of finding a starting point.

“A lot of people enjoy the organization because the inspiration is built in, to a point,” she says. “Every child has a book that’s written personally for him based on his favorite animals and colors.”

Shiv M. Gaglani ’10, however, did not find HCSO an adequate substitute for his desire to shape a wide audience. “It’s great what they’re doing,” he explains. “They’re really trying to help orphans. But what I’m trying to do is communicate science to children.” Gaglani, an Engineering Sciences concentrator, first became interested in writing through HCSO, where he realized that in a genre swamped with fairy tales, few books are scientifically educational.

“It got me thinking about the process more, and it got me thinking about how children think,” he says. “I started reading lots of children’s books at the Cambridge Public Library.”

Seeing an opportunity to inspire children to consider issues like climate change, Gaglani began work on books about scientific processes. His first book is complete, and he is looking for an illustrator and a publishing company interested in his educational angle. Meanwhile, he is moving forward on a book about the carbon cycle in collaboration with published children’s author Claire A. Nivola.

Gaglani stops short of envisioning a career in children’s books, though. “In general, I’m interested in communications. So I can definitely imagine doing this as a hobby,” he says.

Marie K. Rutkoski, who received her Ph.D in English at Harvard, thinks differently about the children’s literature market. The author of last year’s young adult novel “The Cabinet of Wonders” and an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, Rutkoski found that getting hired in academia was harder than getting published. “In some ways, getting published in children’s literature is a little more open than publishing adult literature,” Rutkoski says. “It’s less hinged on who you might know.”

Still, Tatar understands students’ concerns about writing. “We all labor under this delusion that it will be simple. The language is simple. The books are short. But Ted Geisel—Dr. Seuss—spent 18 months wrestling with ‘The Cat and the Hat,’” she points out. “A poem isn’t easy either, but it’s short.”

“Then again, Margaret Wise Brown wrote ‘Goodnight Moon’ in a morning,” she adds.

Back in her “Childhood” class, Tatar introduces a guest lecturer: Newbery Medal recipient Lois Lowry. Author of modern children’s classics such as “The Giver” and “Number the Stars,” Lowry explains the combination of inspiration and craftsmanship required in writing. “My characters come to me fully formed, with names. So, I always start by placing them in a situation where something is a little askew.”

After her lecture, Lowry offered some words of caution in an interview. “Publishing is in dire straits because of the economy and technology,” Lowry warns. She feels the biggest pitfall, though, is more fundamental. “People who think they want to write children’s books should go out and read as many as they can. Many people think you can just write something cute and it’s a children’s book.”

Kimel admits occasional frustration with his line of work, but he remains optimistic that those who love children’s literature will follow their passion.

“Harvard attracts issues and power and money, but this can bring out even the best in people,” he says. “I think students will always want to be an exemplar in their own right, rather than taking the easy way out.”

He smiles earnestly when asked for advice. “You have to believe in the possibility of magic a little bit.”