Among friends: young readers give author Marie Bradby feedback on her book and their lives.

How hard can it be, really, to write a book for kids? Not too many big words, cute illustrations, and maybe a few colorful pop-ups slapped between two covers, and voila! It's a book! But that's hardly the case. "It's a myth that children's books are easy to write" says Marie Bradby, a Louisville, Kentucky-based, award-winning author. She has published four books for younger children, and in 2004, Some Friend (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Richard Jackson Books, January 2004), her first novel for middle-grade readers.

Susan Moore, the Louisville Free Public Library's director of adult and children's services, guided a discussion about Some Friend with five African American girls: Jaylin, 9; Khalia, 10; Lloren, 14; Ryan, 13; and Tyneshia, 10.

Some Friend follows the rites of passage of fifth-grader Pearl Jordan. Pearl's world, which Bradby skillfully recreates, mirrors the one that she grew up during the 1960s. It was a time when racial discrimination wasn't as subtle, when Motown music filled the air, when young girls jumped double Dutch, are Squirrel Nuts and Brown Cow candies and washed down the sticky sweets with NEHI sodas. The Civil Rights Movement was at its height, but there still were black people who didn't get it that "black" is beautiful. With all this going on, Pearl is still just a girl who daydreams about the moon, the stars and the planets, but down on earth, she learns one of the hardest life lessons of all, which is that the only way to have a real friend is to be one.

The age range targeted by Some Friend is a tough one for boys and girls. Pre- and early-teens, adults sometimes forget, have lots of things, conflicting thoughts, going on inside their heads. So it was a beautiful testimony to Bradby's storytelling skills, as well as the parents of the five girls who took part in the Q&A and to the teachers: Allana Thompkins, of the J. Graham Brown School, and Erica Collier, of Wheatley Elementary, who brought the students to the library, that the girls--and after school at that--would sit still for a book talk. "Boring," no doubt, some of their classmates might say. However, I couldn't help but be impressed at how at the end of the hour, the girls asked Bradby pointed questions of their own like, "Why did you write this book?" "Is it based on a true story?"

In addition to those, the question to Bradby that I really loved, "As an African American, what do you learn from this story?" My faith in youth was restored.

Invented by Mom

As for Marie Bradby (http://www.mariebradby.com), she's a tall, lean, intellectually fierce sister, a doctor's wife, who worked for years as a full-time journalist. But she was called to write for younger readers, she says, when her now college-aged son, Dennis, was a toddler. "We had read almost every book in the children's section of the library where we lived, and I was appalled that there was so little African American children's literature," the Hampton University, alumna says. "I was going to make books just for him, and I was annoyed that I would have to do that."

Aren't most good ideas (think of George Washington Carver and the peanut or Mary McLeod Bethune who birthed a college) born when some tenacious spirit rises and shouts to the world? "OK. Since you don't have what I need or what I want for myself, my child, my people, I'll just have to invent it."

First, Bradby says, "I knew that I needed to learn, and I took it on as a very serious project. I started going to writers' workshops. I studied for ten years, and I'm still studying children's literature."

Thanks to Bradby and some other fine writers like Sharon Draper, Nikki Grimes, Angela Johnson, Walter Dean Myers and Jacqueline Woodson, African American parents, teachers and mentors of African American youths, and youths themselves, blacks needn't any longer be frustrated that good books aren't being written just about them. Books like Some Friend, which educate and entertain, are very important: They remind some and reassure others that reading and being smart is, always has been, in fact, a black thing.

I listened as Susan Moore, the librarian, and Marie Bradby engaged in the dialogue with the girls.

To Be a Friend

Susan Moore: When you read a story like Some Friend in present tense, does it make you feel like the story is happening to you or happening back in time?

Lloren: Because of what they wore back then, the dances that they did, and her sister had a record player and not a CD player, it kind of reminded me that it wasn't in the present.

Jaylin: It was kind of like (happening to) me. And then she (Pearl) didn't fit in with the popular people.

Moore: What themes are developed in this story?

Tyneshia: The theme that is mostly in this book is friendship because it's important to have friends. But if they don't treat you right, then they're not your friends. And if they do, they must be really special because it's hard to find friends like that.

Marie Bradby: What about bullying?

Jaylin: In the story, I think, Lenore was like the bully.

Bradby: Do you know people like that?

Tyneshia: There're a lot of bullies in our school. Well, I wouldn't exactly call them bullies, but they like to talk about people, they like to pick on people.

Bradby: What did you notice about Artemesia in the story?

Jaylin: She didn't have many friends like Pearl. She draws well and she always carried a sketchbook.

Bradby: Did you notice that Artemesia was picked on because she was dark-skinned?

Khalia: I think that was wrong, because you shouldn't judge people by their skin color.

Lloren: In my school, some girls are light-skinned, and I am like lighter than some girls and people think that they're (the lighter girls) prettier or they have more. I might look like somebody else in my classroom. I might be just as tall and my hair might be just the same length, but they might say they're prettier. Or people like me--that look more white--but I'm still black, but my mother might look white or my father might look white and they think that I am a mixed girl, and I can do this and do that, and I can be on both sides of the fence. And that's how they show discrimination and I think that's wrong. I'm still black, I'm just lighter than other people.

Bradby: This book is set in 1963. There was still segregation. When Pearl went to the grocery store, how did she get treated by the white people who worked there?

Tyneshia: They didn't give her any respect. But they treated the white people with respect.

Moore: How do your lives compare with the characters?

Tyneshia: I play basketball with boys.

Moore: Remember when Pearl wanted to play basketball?

Tyneshia: (Her brother) Curtis didn't want her to play basketball because she was a girl. It's the same exact thing that happened to me. At school when we have PE and we play basketball, these boys didn't want me to play because I was a girl. We made a three-point and then they lost.

Ryan: When I first went to basketball at my church, the boys were kind of judging me, they were like, "She ain't nothing." But once they saw me, they were like, "Oh, she can play, she can play!"

Bradby: Why does Pearl go looking for a friend?

Jaylin: Because she didn't have any friends. Not real friends.

Tyneshia: Because she wants to share an experience with them. She wants to go to the store with them, read hooks with them, and do things with them. Like when her Mama tells her to do things, she has a friend who can help her and they can study together and play together. She wants somebody to tell her deepest, darkest secrets. Maybe what she's looking for is just love.

Moore: Do you know anybody like Mrs. Mumby? Do your neighbors watch you?

Tyneshia: Across from me, there is this woman, and she watches everything you do, because my Mama and her are like close friends. Around my neighborhood, there're people--I wouldn't call them bad people--who hang (out). She watches them. Sometimes me and my sister, we get mad at her because she tells if we're hanging out with them. And my Mama started making a big fit about it, and we got in trouble.

Bradby: Pearl doesn't like Mrs. Mumby at first. What happens?

Lloren: She finds out that her grandmother and Mrs. Mumby were close friends. It was like Pearl and Artemesia, the way her grandmother and Mrs.

Mumby became friends. It made her want to be closer to Mrs. Mumby, to know her better. It turns out that Mrs. Mumby knew a lot about Pearl and it just made Pearl feel better.

Tyneshia: Mrs. Mumby inspired Pearl; how Mrs. Mumby just talked to her and knew so much about her: And then she started figuring out new things and learning new things. She learns the story about Mrs. Mumby.

Moore: Why isn't Pearl openly friendly with Artemesia outside of her house?

Jaylin: Lenore and CeCe and Nadine don't like Artemesia. When they first saw her, they were talking about she "stinks" just by the way she looked. And when they see her, they talk about her, because she doesn't have much money.

Moore: Pearl thinks her other friends are going to leave her?

Tyneshia: Then they aren't your friends.

Moore: Would you describe the confrontation after the block party?

Lloren: Well, they pretty much nearly beat up Artemesia. They decided to beat her up for no reason. They chased her all the way home, and Pearl didn't know what to do, so she just stood there. They started tearing up her dress and all of this stuff happened. And after that, they kind of stood clear of Pearl (because she didn't join in).

Moore: Why do kids do mean stuff like that?

Jaylin: They want popular people, not people like Artemesia; she didn't have that much money; she didn't have a lot of stuff. They just judge people by the way they look.

Khalia: Because the popular people have high incomes. Because (Artemesia) doesn't dress like they do, they make fun of her.

Tyneshia: My granny said that when somebody does something to you, it's because they're afraid, and they're going to take their anger out on you. And they were probably jealous.

Lloren: They were probably nervous or jealous that Artemesia was talented. She could dance and she could draw, and people liked her. They were afraid (because) they didn't know how the outcome was going to be. They didn't know if their friends would leave to be friends with Artemesia.

Tyneshia: I talked to my mother about this book; we talked about this part and we think that you should not see people get hurt. You should put a stop to it.

Moore: How many of you talked about this book with your morn? [All raise their hands.]

Lloren: After reading the book, I called nay Morn, because I was at my father's house. It made me think about nay relationship with nay own friends. They are cool to talk to on the phone sometimes. And I was talking about them to nay Mona and she was saying, "That's good, that's a good book." (We) talked about ... how Pearl just stood there because she didn't know what to do when they were tearing her (Artemesia's) clothes, and how she (Pearl) was just doing the wrong thing because of Lenore. There was the part about the skating rink and how they took the money from the other people; and how she snuck away and was trying to be cool at the block party. And how she ended up having a real friend, but she didn't really know it.

Tyneshia: We mostly talked about the block party. We talked about how this stuff still goes on, and how we can stop it. Most people think that because they're just one person, they can't stop it. Discrimination is one of the meanest things that anybody can do. Without heroes, the world would be tough. And Marie Bradby probably wouldn't try to even make this book. I'm glad that she did, because this is one of the best books that I ever read.

Moore: How many of you had a friend that your mama didn't like? [All raise their hands.]

Tyneshia: Daddy talks about the boyfriends that I have. I am mostly close friends with boys because most girls that I know are talking about things like "I have more stuff than her, and I'm cuter than her, and my daddy's a rap artist, and I can get anything I want." But boys are like "Oooh, I played this video game and it was cool," and "that basketball game was so good." The girls are talking about different stuff that I don't like to talk about.

Moore: In the end of the book, Artemesia was gone. How would you have written the ending? Do you wish Artemesia and Pearl would have been friends forever?

Lloren: I would have done it like this because it's more real for me. Things like that happen. I didn't want it to be like they were friends forever and ever and that's the end of the book. I like stories with hope. It was good for me to read that she (Pearl) was regretful. She wished that she could have done something; that made the book better for me. But I think it was kind of weird for me when the other girl ("G") and Pearl ended up being friends, it was different for me, but I liked it.

Moore: What do you think the title of the book means?"

Jaylin: Lenore is really popular, but she blames stuff on Pearl and she's not really a good friend. And Pearl, one day, was like, "Umph, some friend." (She says this sarcastically.)

Moore: How do you think Pearl and Artemesia felt about each other, even after this story was over?

Jaylin: I think Artemesia feels like, "She's the best friend I ever had." And I think Pearl is probably thinking that, too.

Tyneshia: I have a question for you. Why did you write this book?

Bradby: I saw some girls bullying a girl when I was a girl and I just stood there. In writing this book, I tried to figure out why they did that, and why I didn't do anything. I was about seven or eight, but I remember being hurt and embarrassed.

Lloren: When I'm writing a short story for language arts class, I tend to think of the character's name after I start writing about the character. For Artemesia and Pearl, did you think of the name after or before you started writing?

Bradby: Pearl came to me with her name. So did Artemesia. I had been thinking about those names tot a long time.

Tyneshia: As an African American, what do you learn from this story?

Bradby: I wanted to write about a girl who had many interests and was starting to learn about friendship. I set it in 1963 to show that she had this full life, but she also suffered the little indignities of segregation. Her life was more complicated than a white girl's would be because she also had to deal with discrimination.

Jaylin: Is this based on a true story?

Bradby: No, it's not. I made up everything. Except, there was just tile one little incident, me seeing some girls bullying another girl.

Khalia: How long did it take you to write the book?

Bradby: It took me ten years. I wasn't writing it the whole time. First, I wrote a picture book that my editor thought should be a novel. I worked on it for a while, then stopped. Then I picked it up again a couple of years ago and finished it.

Books by Marie Bradby

The Longest Wait Illustrated by Peter Catalanotto Orchard Books, March 1995 $15.95, ISBN 0-531-06871-4

Momma, Where Are You From? Illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet Orchard Books, March 2000 $16.95, ISBN 0-531-30105-2

Some Friend Cover illustration by Brooks Frederick Atheneum Books for Young Readers January 2004 $15.95, ISBN 0-689-85615-6

More Than Anything Else Illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet Orchard Books, September 1995 $15.95, ISBN 0-531-09464-2

Once Upon a Farm Illustrated by Ted Rand Orchard/Scholastic, March 2002 $16.95, ISBN 0-439-31766-5

Anthologized Works That Include Bradby's Writing

"My Sister, the Rabbit, and the Roll" in Savory Memories, edited by L. Elisabeth Beattie, University Press of Kentucky, March 1998, $19.95, ISBN 0-813-1246-2

"Shooting Star" & "Why I Believe in Santa Claus" in A Kentucky Christmas Edited by George Ella Lyon University Press of Kentucky September 2003 $28, ISBN 0-8131-2279-1

Betty Winston Baye is an editorial writer/columnist for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the author of The Africans (Dell/Emerald, 1983) a novel, and Blackbird (August Press, November 2000), a collection of columns and essays.