Jennifer Murdley's Toad (Magic Shop Books) (15 page)

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that involved Mr. Elives being kidnapped, a planet full of toads, and a lizard who made too many puns. I sent the finished chapters and the outline to several editors, who almost unanimously said something along the lines of,
"Love
the toad,
hate
the outline."

So I put the story away for a while (often the smartest thing to do with an idea that is not quite working). What happened next is kind of complicated, but the short version is that my friend Jane Yolen, a famous children's book writer and editor, asked me to do some books for a new line she was starting. I showed her what I had written on Jennifer's story, and her reaction was the same as the other editors who had seen it, with this difference: She figured I could fix the end, and she gave me a contract to write the book.

Now I
had
to come up with a new ending. The only problem was, I had no idea what it was going to be.

I went right back to the beginning of the book. From the start, I had known that Jennifer wanted to be special. But it wasn't until this time around--about eight years after I had first had the idea for the book--that I realized she wanted to be
beautiful.
Suddenly the book began to make sense to me.

I was interested in writing about this topic of beauty because it is so confusing to me. We all know that beauty is only skin deep, you should never judge a book by its cover, etc., etc. Now I will make an embarrassing confession: Even though I know those things, I spend a ridiculous amount of time in front of my mirror, studying my looks, trying to figure out if they are good enough.

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I know this is foolish, but that doesn't stop me. And I am not alone; the culture we live in is obsessed with beauty over brains, skin over soul, heartthrobs over great hearts.

I don't have any answers for how we can get past that nonsense, but I thought the issue was at least worth looking at.

The hardest part of writing Jennifer's story was finding an ending. In an old-fashioned fairy tale, she would have gotten her wish and become beautiful at the end. Yetch! An ending like that would have betrayed the whole spirit of the book. It would have betrayed Jennifer. So in the end, she doesn't get her wish. But she does get something else that is, perhaps, just as good.

Maybe even better.

That's the way it goes in this world, at least some of the time.

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About the Author and Illustrator

Bruce Coville lives in Syracuse, New York, where he shares a big old house with a fat, cranky cat named Spike. He (Bruce, not Spike) grew up around the corner from his grandparents' dairy farm, three miles outside a small town named Phoenix. Bruce loved to read when he was a kid, and says he would be smarter today if he had done more of that and watched less TV. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a teacher, a toy-maker, a magazine editor, and a gravedigger.

According to Bruce, it has taken many years for him to accept the fact that he is not, and never will be, the world's most handsome children's book author. However, he takes comfort in the fact that he has written many books of which he is very proud--including
My Teacher Is an Alien; Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher;
and
Goblins in the Castle.

Gary A. Lippincott graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He illustrates primarily fantasy and historical books. In addition to his interest in art, he enjoys scuba diving and magic, and he composes piano music. Mr. Lippincott lives in Spencer, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children, on a horse farm his wife operates.

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