The name of this author is sort of a secret
My 8-year-old has been devouring the series by Pseudonymous Bosch. I didn't know much about this it until recently. I just started reading The Name of This Book is Secret (book #1) and it's hilarious. It's a little bit Lemony Snicket, a little bit Italo Calvino (another way of saying second POV), and a little bit...good old-fashioned storytelling.
I recently got an opportunity to put up a short story on PB's web site. He has a new section called Guest Ghost, where he features the short stories of other children's writers. So after I got in touch with him, I had to google him, of course. Because the first question was, who IS Pseudonymous Bosch?
My husband, the source of all trivia, useless or not, immediately said, "His name -- it's a play on Hieronymous Bosch."
Really?
(Okay, so I didn't know who Hieronymous was).
Now I do. Thanks, google. Painter, schmainter.
It turns out, after just a little bit of googling, I discover that lots of people are intensely curious about who the real PB is. There are conversations - whole facebook pages dedicated to finding out the answer. And trying to figure out the real PB is almost like trying to figure out what the secret is in his series. And I guess that's the point.
What I will say after emailing with him a few times is that he is gracious and funny and an observant reader. He might be an imposter, but he's a real writer. And maybe, just maybe, I might have inside information on the real PB. Or not. Just saying.
Ah, inside information. I like the sound of that. Most of the time I don't have any information at all.
At any rate, PB's web site is darling. Why? The visitors he gets are darling -- full of excitement and comments and joy. They are also the nicest people I could run into - full of support and interest, without the slightest hint of snideness or malice. I even had one commenter write a poem on behalf of my story, which I'd share here, except that it has a spoiler!
So you'll have to see the story for yourself if you want to see the poem. Many thanks to the person who wrote it. It made my day.
And just what is my story about?
It's a ghost story. That is, a ghost story without a ghost, but something else more insidious. As PB says, nature is mean!
If you'd like to take a look, here's the first two paragraphs, with a link to the rest. Thanks for reading!
The Slippers -- by Sheela Chari
Not everyone thinks this story is true, but if you go up north, people there will tell you differently. They’ll tell you about a girl who disappeared for good, who learned the hard way that nature has its own rules for who it saves, and who it doesn’t.
Once there was a girl named Ruby, who lived near a creek that ran all the way to the great Snake River of Washington. Ruby had never seen the river, but she loved the creek. She knew every rock, every pebble, every tree that lined the banks. Don’t go in the creek, her mother warned. But no matter what anyone said, nothing stopped Ruby from going in, from scooping up tadpoles, and searching for crawdads... READ MORE