What is happiness, and how do we go about finding it? The movie The Wizard of Oz offers one possible answer: It’s right under our noses. Toward the end of the film, as Dorothy prepares to go home to Kansas, the Tin Man asks her what she has learned. She replies: “I think that … if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!”
Ben Loory’s short story “The Octopus,” in this issue, sounds a similar note. On the other hand, our Center Stage play, Pollyanna—that classic depiction of positive thinking—suggests happiness is not to be found at all, but rather generated from within.
If happiness resides anywhere, however, surely it is in the golden days and twinkling nights of a child’s summer. In this issue, Robert McCammon’s ecstatic vision of a childhood summer embodies the essence of pure, perfect happiness.
Wherever your heart’s desire leads you, we hope you will find it as easily as clicking your heels.
Read long and prosper.
Past Teaching Centers
August - What's Old Is New Again
September - Ordinary People, Extraordinary Situations
October - Strange
November - American Tales
December - Peace
January - Dystopia
February - Love and Longing
March - Dino Mania
April - Fools & Poets
Pollyanna
RL6.2, 3,5, 7.2
(page 4)
Pollyanna is the classic tale of a young orphan girl who is an extreme optimist. The exuberant child looks at a problem and sees only an opportunity to make the situation better. Pollyanna positively transforms everyone she meets—whether it be immediately or over time. And really, how could you not be affected by her charm? When we were deciding what to include in our final issue, we chose this young girl to be at the forefront of our own pursuit of happiness. There really isn’t a negative fiber in her being, and, as readers, if we can take even an ounce of that to heart, we will be all the better for it.
Class Activity: Ask students whether they have ever seen something good come out of a negative situation. How did that affect them?
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Last Day of School
RL6.1–6, 7.1–4, 8.1–4, 6, 9–10.1–5
(page 14)
Remember what it was like to wait for final bell to release you from the clutches of the classroom and into the summer air? Well, perhaps, as teachers, you still know that feeling! If so, then you will understand the sentiment behind this fantastical piece. In the story, a group of boys meet in the woods and ceremoniously kick off their summer by soaring far above the trees. The narrator challenges the down-to-Earth realities that rule our mundane lives. In childhood, summertime really is different.
Writing Activity: Have each student write a story about the time he or she has felt most free in life. Point to author Robert McCammon’s attention to detail in the story and how it helps the reader picture the action. Ask students to pay similar attention to detail in the stories
they write.
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The Octopus
RL6.1–6, 7.1–3, 6, 8.1–3, 6, 9–10.1–4
(page 20)
I’d like to be … under the sea. This octopus, however, is more interested in his spoons than any underwater garden! Living aboveground seems to suit him just fine—until his nephews come to visit him in the big city.
Class Discussion: This story offers a perfect opportunity to teach anthropomorphism—the literary device in which nonhuman creatures or things are portrayed as people, having human abilities and characteristics. It is related to personification, in which animals or inanimate objects are given human qualities, such as emotion. After explaining the concepts, ask students: Why are the characters in children’s books often anthropomorphic animals? Is “The Octopus” a children’s story? (Ben Loory’s book of short stories, from which this story is taken, is not a children’s book.) What if the author had written this story using humans, not octopuses? How would it be different?
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Ben Loory's short story "The Octopus" currently graces the pages of READ magazine. It is the tale of an anthropomorphic octopus who resides in New York City and collects spoons! READ recently caught up with the author and asked him a few questions about his writing.
For more information on Ben Loory and his stories, go to www.benloory.com.
READ: Where did you get the idea for "The Octopus"?
Ben Loory: I don't know where any of my ideas come from. I'm not even sure I'd call them ideas. When I sit down to write a story, I do it with a blank mind-- I just sit there and wait for the first image that presents itself. Then, whatever it is-- and in this case it was an octopus-- I just keep asking myself "And then what happens to it? And what does it do? And then what?" And the story progresses bit by bit until eventually I get to the end. Writing to me is liking dreaming on the page; I never know what's going to happen.
READ: How long have you been writing? What inspires you
Ben Loory: I've been writing short stories for about six years, but I was a screenwriter for years before that. I'm mostly inspired by other books and movies, I guess-- Roald Dahl, Aesop's fables, Alfred Hitchcock, Star Wars. And I really like The Twilight Zone and old Warner Brothers cartoons and Gary Larson's The Far Side comic strip.
READ: You take a very simple approach to writing. It's incredibly refreshing. You write a lot of flash fiction. Can you talk about your style?
Ben Loory: My style is conversational; I write stories the way I'd tell them to someone if we were sitting together in the same room. I try to be clear and just say what happens and make it amusing and mysterious. Nothing too fancy.
READ: Have you ever written a novel or any other type of writing?
Ben Loory: I've written screenplays, but never a novel. Novels require too many words. I don't have the patience for something like that. I get bored too easily.
READ: Do you think you need a huge imagination to be a successful fiction writer?
Ben Loory: I don't think it's the size of your imagination that's important, so much as the ability to take your imagination seriously. You have to be able to treat made-up stuff like it's real or else you won't be able to make other people care about it.
READ: Do you have any kind of ritual when you write? Do you write during certain hours of the day? Listen to music? etc.
Ben Loory: I tend to write in the middle of the night, when there are fewer distractions around. I write in silence and drink a lot of tea and I go for a lot of long walks. (It's not a very interesting lifestyle; all the fun stuff happens on the page.)
READ: Did you write these kind of stories when you were in school? What advice would you offer to a middle school or high school student who is an aspiring writer?
Ben Loory: I didn't write stories when I was little, I was more into music. My only real advice would be to have fun when you write-- write what you want, not what you think people will like. If you're not enjoying yourself as a writer, readers will never enjoy what you've written.
READ: What is the strangest thing you've ever written? / What is your favorite thing you've ever written?
Ben Loory: The strangest story I've ever written is probably the one in my book called "The Walk That Replaced Understanding." It's about a guy who goes for a walk and encounters a mountain who's out going for a walk of its own. To this day it remains a total mystery to me; I couldn't explain it for a million dollars.
My favorite though is probably the one about the moose who goes skydiving. I just like it because it's about moose.
READ: Do you think the octopus lives happily ever after once he returns to the ocean? Have you ever considered writing a sequel?
Ben Loory: I don't know that anyone ever really lives happily ever after-- life being a constant battle and all-- but I imagine that the octopus will feel a lot better in his natural habitat than he did all alone in his apartment. He probably won't be quite as bored. But hey, maybe not-- it's hard to say.
As for a sequel, I've never thought of writing one. But if anyone has any ideas for what might happen, let me know!
READ: What else do you do with your time?
Ben Loory: Mostly I sit around and worry about how I'm going to pay the bills when I'm old. And, on a less depressing note, I listen to and play a lot of music.
READ: Is there a reason why you don't use standard quotation marks for your dialogue? ... I assume that's just your style... but if there is more to it than that, please illuminate our readers. :)
Ben Loory: The thing I've noticed about quotation marks is that they seem to push the dialogue forward; they make it sort of pop off the page so your eye can't help but be drawn to it. I notice as a reader that I have a tendency to jump from one line of dialogue to the next and just skip over all the intervening stuff (which is to say, most of the story). I didn't want that to happen to people reading my stories, so I take the quotation marks out. (Also I think that if you're writing clearly, the he saids and she saids make the quotation marks redundant.)
