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Neil Gaiman, Savior of Reading
October 1, 2008
Much has been written and said about the difficulty in getting young teenagers -- especially boys -- to love books (or even just to read them), so I have a suggestion for the NEA, publishers, librarians and anyone else who's interested: get Neil Gaiman to come and talk to them. Last night in New York was the kickoff of Gaiman's book tour for The Graveyard Book, his first official YA title, and even though it was the Jewish holiday, the auditorium at Columbia's Teachers College was packed. (And don't even ask about the line in front to buy books: Gaiman's evening started fifteen minutes late to accomodate the book buyers, and long after the star had left the building, the fans remained there) Packed and breathless; grown-ups, little kids and, most astonishingly, young teenagers, like the spellbound 14 year old sitting next to me, scribbling a half dozen questions on the index card he would hand in at intermission in the hopes that Gaiman would answer them in the Q&A portion of the program. (He didn't, but I assured said 14 year old, my son Charley, that his questions were too sophisticated -- they were about character and plot, not the standard issue: "so what are you working on next?" kind of query -- to make for good sound byte answers. I'm sure Gaiman would agree; right, Neil?)
What makes Gaiman such a crowd pleaser? It certainly doesn't hurt, for the adult females, that he comes off as the British, writerly version of Javier Badem, stubble, hair and all; not Paul Newman-handsome, of course, but, well, way cool. But to kids, his appeal is something else: he reads his prose well, with a particularly British inflection even though he has now lived many years near Minneapolis (and his son, who inspired Graveyard, when he was a toddler, is now a twentysomething working for Google). But that's not really it, either. It's the WAY he talks, slightly snarky, not beholden, not kid-speak. "Having read your questions," he announced when he returned to the stage after a short, book buying intermission, "and for some of you, I fear for your sanity."
Charley thought this was hilarious, of course, even though when I say things like that to him, I get a stony stare. But I'm not bitter. No. I'm grateful to anybody who can stage a literary reading and get a standing ovation for it. That the performance also sold what looked like hundreds of books wasn't bad either.
It's enough to make you think that publishing, and reading, aren't dead after all.
Posted by Sara Nelson on October 1, 2008 | Comments (0)
