Children’s author asks Kushner students to take a crack at writing sports stories

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Tell me, what happens that is so captivating, everyone will want to read on? Go!” shouted children’s author Dan Gutman. Hands shot up in the air. “The ball lands in the souvenir shop,” said one student in the group of fifth-graders sitting on the floor. “Good!” and Gutman added that to the framework of the story developing on the board.

This was one of three writing workshops that Gutman, author of over 40 children’s books, mostly about sports, gave on Sept. 28 at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston. It followed a morning of large-group presentations to first- and second-graders, and then to third- through fifth-graders. He also took part in a private luncheon with winners of a school essay contest.

A Haddonfield resident who grew up in the Vailsburg section of Newark and attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, Gutman is perhaps best known among young readers for his baseball card adventure series, which mixes baseball lore with time travel.

The author, who visits about 75 schools per year, is all about the message, saying he really wants to teach the kids to be able to write a story. He said he also loves to hear that they laugh at the humor in one or another of his books. “It just shows I’m really a kid,” he said.

During his morning session at Kushner, he had another message, about perseverance and success, offered by sharing all of the rejection letters he received from publishers for Honus & Me, the first book in the baseball card series. The book was ultimately so successful that it spawned seven sequels, a TV movie, and a play. “I never gave up because I was convinced it was good,” he said.

Gutman is currently working on a children’s survival story he compares with the classic Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. “It’s like a Hatchet story but with extreme athletes — skateboarders.”

He obviously relishes his work, including the school visits and workshops. The wackier the students’ ideas get, the more he laughs. “It’s really fun and really rewarding — I can have a big impact on someone’s life,” Gutman told NJ Jewish News in between sessions at the school.

The best part of his job? “Every so often a kid says, ‘I used to hate to read. But then I read one of your books and now I like it.’

Students at Kushner got so excited by the story they were creating that they exploded with ideas, often in breakaway conversations with each other. “I can never understand why kids can’t keep their mouths shut. But I’m glad they’re interested,” fretted Gutman in between workshops. Still, he moved them along, and in 30 minutes, they had finished the framework for a story, complete with goals achieved by the main character, problem resolved, and plenty of intrigue thrown in for interest.

Jon, the souvenir dealer at Yankee Stadium, who always wanted to play baseball, sells the ball that came into his shop on e-Bay. It was the ball from Alex Rodriguez’s 500th homerun, however, and Yankees manager Joe Torre wants it back. The buyer turns out to be the rival souvenir dealer, and he has to be convinced to sell it back…. Finally, at the end of the session, students were invited to come up with a title. “Go!” shouted Gutman and then selected from their suggestions The Secret Souvenir.

As the second group of fifth-graders walked into the room for their writing workshops, one boy, carrying Gutman’s Mickey and Me, caught the author’s attention. His eyes brightened. “You reading that?” he asked the boy with a grin.

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.

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