Several years ago, Kate DiCamillo was waiting for a friend in the lobby of a New York City hotel. Suddenly, she had a moment of pure inspiration, as she saw a picture in her mind of a magician and felt his desire to perform some extraordinary magic.
Desperate to capture this image in writing, DiCamillo rummaged in her handbag to pull out her notebook. As she did, she caught sight of another, fancier notebook -- a gift for a friend -- that she also was carrying in her bag. On the cover of that notebook was an elephant.
Thus was born the newest novel by DiCamillo -- "The Magician's Elephant" (Candlewick Press, $16.99). In the book's first chapter, a magician tries to conjure a bunch of lilies during a performance at the local opera house in a city called Baltese. Instead, he somehow conjures an elephant, who crashes through the ceiling of the opera house and lands in the lap of a noblewoman, crushing her legs and crippling her for life.
That tragedy, however, sparks a chain of events that will reunite a boy with his long-lost sister, bring new life to a barren couple, and produce happy endings for a number of people who need them. It is the elephant that somehow brings them together, helped by the courage and perseverance of a boy named Peter Augustus Duchene, who refuses to believe his little sister is really dead.
As a fortuneteller tells Peter at the beginning of the book, "Truth is forever changing" and by the end of the book, readers understand how the impossible can become possible, with luck, hard work, faith and yes, a bit of magic.
Once again, DiCamillo -- the Newbery Medal-winning author of "The Tale of Despereaux -- has fashioned a compellingly readable story that combines the qualities of a fairy tale with characters whose joys and sorrows will ring true to young readers. DiCamillo's writing is poetic yet spare, while the ethereal, black-and-white drawings by artist Yoko Tanaka that are found throughout the book add a haunting quality to the text.
In a recent telephone interview, DiCamillo discussed how her moment of inspiration in that New York City hotel -- in effect, a bit of magic -- led to her latest novel.
"It's always a mystery to me as to how these things happen," she said. "And I wish I could make it happen more frequently!"
If readers think, however, that DiCamillo, 45, took that moment of inspiration and just sat down and wrote her book, they are quite mistaken, she added.
"It took a year and a half of weeping in front of my computer," she said. After writing the initial draft, DiCamillo then had "my usual miserable experience of writing draft after draft after draft. And I had doubt after doubt.
"Yet, for all of that suffering, the story itself had shifted something inside of me.... Even though I was terrified, I was also, in a strange and wonderful way, healed by the telling of this story."
Interestingly, "The Magician's Elephant" continues DiCamillo's tradition of featuring animals in her books, from the dog in her first novel, "Because of Winn-Dixie," to Mercy Watson, the pig who stars in her popular easy reader series.
"It's become a joke," she says. "So many adults think that writing for children is all about writing about ducks and bunnies. And I do!"
DiCamillo never planned to become a writer for children. Born in Philadelphia, she moved to Florida as a young child. After graduating from the University of Florida, DiCamillo worked in various jobs before deciding, in her twenties, to move to Minneapolis. There, she worked as a "book picker" in a book distribution warehouse and, by chance, was assigned to the floor where children's books were shelved.
"That was a huge turning point," she says now. "I entered into that job with that prejudice that a lot of literate adults have, that children's books are somehow a lesser form of literature, and then I began reading the books."
DiCamillo decided to try writing a children's book herself and wrote "Because of Winn-Dixie." Candlewick Press bought the manuscript, and the book went on to win a 2001 Newbery Honor. DiCamillo's place in the world of children's literature was firmly established in 2004, when she won the Newbery Medal for "The Tale of Despereaux."
Now, she can't imagine doing anything else.
"The thing I love about writing for kids is that you are duty-bound to offer hope. And I also love that books for children allow for magic -- either implicit or explicit -- in a way that is hard to do in stories for adults... although that's something we need just as much."
(Karen MacPherson, the children's/teen librarian at the Takoma Park, Md., Library, can be reached at Kam.Macpherson(at)gmail.co
CHILDREN'S CORNER
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