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The Tomie dePaola Newsletter By Bob Hechtel, with Tomie dePaola Welcome to the FIRST Tomie dePaola Newsletter! I’ll be composing the newsletters with Tomie’s help. Tomie’s life is so full of commitments that I thought it would be easier for him if he advised me on content and I wrote the notes. Here goes. This winter in New Hampshire has been very odd. We’ve had extremes in temperatures: sometimes very cold and sometimes very warm. We’ve had extremes in precipitation: sometimes very snowy and sometimes very rainy. We don’t have any snow on the ground now. But, we can’t be confident that no more snow will fall. I certainly remember snow-throwing two feet of new snow in mid-April many years ago. This past week, we saw the conclusion of “Project Runway” on the Bravo channel. I stay at the office most nights until 10:00 p.m., and Tomie doesn’t like to go into the house with his dog until 10:00 p.m., so we’ll occasionally watch TV together. “Project Runway” is one of the shows we both watched. Tonight, Tomie is thrilled that “The Sopranos” are back on HBO. During the last weekend in February, I took down Tomie’s two indoor Christmas trees. FINALLY! Both trees were fake, so they still looked as green in late February when they were taken down as when they were put up in mid-December. The tree in the former living room, now called anteroom, was a new tree. It was 12 feet tall. It took me six hours to dismantle. There were 879 ornaments on the tree, plus or minus one or two ornaments. The sixth “26 Fairmount Avenue” autobiographical chapter book was published last month. It’s called I’M STILL SCARED. The story begins hours after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. KIRKUS REVIEWS wrote in a starred review, “Readers see the attack on Pearl Harbor from the point of view of a second grader, what his parents and teachers told him – and what they didn’t.” On Wednesday of this past week (March 8), I finished typing Tomie’s first draft of the seventh chapter book. The tentative title for the next book is WHY? Tomie sketched an idea for the book’s front cover illustration on the next day. The first draft of the manuscript is now in the hands of his editor, Margaret Frith. The big question: WHAT WILL MARGARET THINK? Children and classes write to Tomie with lots of questions. Many of them are answered by the reply newsletter we send by snail mail and many of the questions are answered throughout the website. Yet, each time I write a Tomie dePaola Newsletter for Tomie.com, I’m going to try to answer some questions. Mrs. Allen’s second grade class at DeAnza Elementary wondered why Tomie’s first name was spelled “Tommy” in the story in THE ART LESSON, but “Tomie” on the cover of the book. The class knew that this was a story about Tomie’s life. Tomie was christened Thomas Anthony dePaola. In the second “26 Fairmount Avenue” chapter book, HERE WE ALL ARE, Tomie explained that it was Morton Downey, his mother’s famous cousin, who gave Tomie the spelling of his first name… T-o-m-i-e. (It’s pronounced “Tommy.”) When Tomie went to kindergarten, he was told by his teacher that he couldn’t use his unusual spelling for his first name. He had to use the common spelling… T-o-m-m-y. So, in the chapter books, his name was spelled “Tomie” when the story DIDN’T take place in school and it was spelled “Tommy” when the story DID take place in school. THE ART LESSON, THE BABY SISTER, NANA UPSTAIRS & NANA DOWNSTAIRS, TOM and STAGESTRUCK are stories that are completely true or are mostly true. His name is spelled “Tommy” throughout those stories. When those books were written, Tomie and his editors thought it might be confusing in picture book stories (which are shorter than chapter book stories) to sometimes spell his first name “Tomie” and sometimes spell it “Tommy.” So, they settled on “Tommy.” WATCH OUT FOR THE CHICKEN FEET IN YOUR SOUP, OLIVER BUTTON IS A SISSY and NOW ONE FOOT, NOW THE OTHER are stories that are very loosely based on Tomie’s life. Because those stories aren’t entirely true, Tomie used names different than his own for the boy characters that had experiences similar to his own. Those boys were named Joey in CHICKEN FEET, Oliver in OLIVER BUTTON and Bobby in NOW ONE FOOT. I hope this helps Mrs. Allen’s class… and doesn’t confuse them even more. Until next time, best wishes, |
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