I’ve been querying literary agents for my fantasy novel People Without Names, and while most agents ask for just a query letter OR a query letter + the first 5 pages, one literary agent asked for several more things like naming a favorite book from my childhood.
Now, you would think I could recall this instantly if it was a favorite.
You would think, “This is easy! You’re a writer. You read books. You’ve been reading since you were kid. NOW WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK FROM CHILDHOOD?”
You would think.
It took a few weeks to come up with an answer.
At first, I thought I just had a hard time remembering my childhood. But I think I had a hard time wanting to remember my childhood. Thing is: it’s not like children’s books are traumatic for me. Maybe it’s more like I’ve practiced selectively remembering parts of my childhood that I feel are safe — and so there are other parts I haven’t practiced remembering that may or may not be traumatic. This is all a theory, and whether the theory is correct doesn’t actually matter to me. I just thought you should know.
So, getting back to how I answered the literary agent.
Favorite book of my childhood?
It’s an even split between
The Little Red Caboose (by Marian Potter and illustrated by Tibor Gergely)
and
The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover (by Jon Stone and illustrated by Michael Smollin)
The first book was read to me often as a bedtime story, because I asked my father a lot. When I think of it now, it makes me appreciate how my father read to me after working a long shift at the hospital. And those days, he definitely did. I remember not seeing him much.
And so I appreciate my mother for raising me and my brother and the endless tasks that go with maintaining a house and little human beings.
The story of The Little Red Caboose escapes me. I vaguely remember that he wasn’t viewed as powerful as the locomotive but that he does save the day — to the surprise of everybody and himself. I did some Internet searching and found that the protagonist contributes to the solution by being himself, not more, not less.
The second book — The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover — I remember reading by myself. Even back then, I was amazed by the high concept of this meta, self-referential book in which I, the reader, had an active role in determining whether Grover and I would face the monster at the end of the book.
Every mischievous turn of the page was delightful and funny. This book was really ahead of its time and demonstrated that children's books could innovate and disrupt established form — as we expect fine art to do.
No idea how my these 2 children’s books will impact my query to the literary agent.
I just know I told the truth to the best of my abilities.
That’s all anyone can do.