Kinds of Success

One of the iron­ic results of writ­ing a very suc­cess­ful book was expressed to me by a very well-known writer: “Why should I work hard? They will always tell me __________ is my best book and won’t both­er to read any­thing else.”

Teach­ers, think of your favorite writer. Think of your favorite book by that writer. Think what that writer has writ­ten recent­ly. In many cas­es you can’t answer the third ques­tion because, tru­ly sat­is­fied by your answer to the sec­ond ques­tion, you don’t read any more. And yet, there may indeed be a bet­ter book by that writer.

In the world of children’s’ books, a suc­cess­ful book may well lead to a whole shelf of that book in a class­room. As a result, you, as teacher, are less like­ly to pur­chase anoth­er set of a sec­ond title by the same writer. And, if you have suc­cess­ful­ly taught book A, you are more than like­ly going to con­tin­ue teach­ing book A, rather than book B.

Yet, I can almost guar­an­tee you, a writer’s favorite book is rarely his or her most suc­cess­ful book. Quite often it’s a book that is not con­sid­ered a suc­cess at all.

Hap­pi­ly, that is not the way young peo­ple read. In fact, just the oppo­site. Once they find a writer they enjoy, they more than like­ly will read more by that author. Or, again, they read the same book over and over again.

“Dear Avi,” some­one once wrote to me: “I have read The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle six­teen times. My moth­er said I can’t read it again. Will you please write a sequel so I can read anoth­er book?”

One of the most flat­ter­ing expe­ri­ences I can have as a writer—and it does happen—is when doing a sign­ing, an adult presents a bat­tered copy of a book I pub­lished years ago. Slight­ly embar­rassed, they say “I apol­o­gize this is so bust­ed up, but this was a favorite book when I grew up and I could nev­er throw it out. Would you be will­ing to sign it?”

Suc­cess comes in many ways.