I’ve been asked the question more than once since I started this journey to become an Ezra Jack Keats biographer. Most recently it was by our oldest grandson’s girlfriend when he brought her home to introduce her to the family. “When did you start this?” Since she had Japanese heritage, I had let her read the “Japanese Connection” chapter on my computer. Her question is a hard one to answer.
I could say it started when I read The Snowy Day and other Keats books to my children and to my school students – the kindergarteners in San Antonio, TX who had never seen snow unless they had moved in from somewhere else or visited outside the state, second graders in Kaiserslautern, West Germany who had walked down the hill to school in the white stuff, and the second graders in Fort Polk, LA who were evenly divided between those who had and had not seen snow, depending on where their military parents had been stationed last. No matter, every kid dreams of snow. We took Keats as a model and made our bulletin board snow scene, complete with stamps of snowflakes as he had done.
I might say it started on the day I walked into the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, newly retired and ready to see what lay ahead in my aspirations expressed in my email signature, “Retired Teacher – Working Writer.” Trying not to stutter, I introduced myself to the assistant curator, “I am a writer. My name is Virginia Butler.” Their current display, taking up the entire floor was devoted to Keats memorabilia from his baby shoes to his many published books. A story was born that wound up in the February 2005 Highlights for Children.
A few years later, Viking wanted to put out a 50th anniversary edition of The Snowy Day and found themselves in need of a researcher to search the 175 or so boxes of memorabilia in the collection for their eight extra pages of materials about Keats. By this time, they knew me at de Grummond, and I got the phone call. While I was searching the archives and reading the unfinished autobiography that he wrote himself, I wished I had known about his life when I was using his books in the classroom. I felt a need for his story to be available to children who read his books and those who taught them.
I began with the draft of a manuscript meant for middle grade students. Then, my writing story took a nasty turn that became the right direction, but that’s another blog coming soon. In the meantime, I invite my readers to join me as I blog periodically about the rest of this journey with an estimated time of arrival in April 2023.