Ansel Adams (1902-1984) said, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."
As a boy he loved to hike around Golden Gate Park and along Lobos Creek, or out to Baker Beach - a boy who didn't care so much for school, who wanted to become a concert pianist. But when he was 14, his parents gave him a Kodak Brownie camera, and that same summer he saw Yosemite for the first time. He went back every year from then until he died at 81.
Maybe that quote could apply to stories, too. Knowing where to stand: knowing whose story it is, whose telling it and getting that all important "voice".
As an extra special treat, why not stop doing whatever it is you're doing, sit back and listen to an excerpt from a story written by one of the greatest children's picture book writers read to you by one of the greatest actors. Spinky Sulks by William Steig, read by Meryl Streep.
Ansel Adams (1902-1984) said, "A good photograph is knowing where to stand."
Maybe that quote could apply to stories, too. Knowing where to stand: knowing whose story it is, whose telling it and getting that all important "voice".
"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty—except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all."
