An Unorthodox Collaboration

Most writers and artists who work on picture books together do not meet until after their book is published. Rarely does the author get to pick the artist. But when Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) saw a piece of art by Jon Klassen in which the dark spoke, he was inspired to write a picture book called The Dark.

When I got to speak with them about their unorthodox collaboration for Kirkus Reviews, Handler said, "For a moment, it looked like The Dark was going to be Jon Klassen's first book, and then it looked like it was going to be his lifetime achievement award." 

Interestingly, Handler similarly approached author-artist Maira Kalman about working together on a picture book called 13 Words, which led eventually to the Printz honor–winning novel Why We Broke Up. Both Klassen and Kalman have an uncanny ability to tell stories through visual details. 

Daniel Handler, Neil Gaiman and Jon Klassen (l.-r.)
Photo credit: Cheryl Simon

We got to host the first "performance" of The Dark at the School for Children at the Bank Street College of Education. Their dynamic presentation was a comedy of opposites: Daniel Handler, standing in for Lemony Snicket, as the gregarious jokester, played against Jon Klassen as the nearly silent poker-face partner. Neil Gaiman also made an appearance as the voice for the audiobook (the only book he's recorded that he did not also write, he told us when he visited Bank Street).

Handler and Klassen's real-time banter in many ways played out the way they described collaborating on the book. Their push and pull allows children to be active participants; as readers, they sense young Laszlo's growing confidence as he confronts the dark (after his night light burns out) and uses his flashlight like a beacon to navigate to the darkest, remotest corner of his house.

Handler and Klassen's respect for each other is profound, but they also have a great deal of fun together, as you will discover in this recap of their performance (by Bank Street archivist Lindsey Wyckoff, with many photos), and in the "review" of their stage presentation by Betsy Bird (aka Fuse #8 and the New York Public Library's Youth Materials Collections Specialist.).

Letting Go

With Why We Broke Up, Daniel Handler ties a relationship to the objects that have been meaningful to (at least) one of the parties involved. Maira Kalman animates those objects in her artwork so that they almost seem to take on the emotional life of the two people involved in this ill-fated romance. When Daniel Handler discussed the seeds for this project (with a gathering of teachers, librarians and reviewers), he said it began with Maira Kalman.

Handler and Kalman had collaborated on a picture book, 13 Words, and Handler asked Kalman what she’d like to work on next. She showed him paintings of ordinary objects that she’d done. If you look at her picture-book biography, Looking at Lincoln, that’s what she does there, too. She enters President Lincoln’s story through the stovepipe hat she spies in the park, the $5 bill on the table at the diner, then delves more deeply into the details of his life. Handler said that he tried to think of what makes ordinary objects seem a bit magical, and felt that “endowing them with significance because of a romance” would do it.

Min and Ed form a pie-in-the-sky connection—two people from opposite ends of the high school popularity scale who meet because the co-captain of the basketball team is hiding out after his team’s loss at a party hosted by the “arty” crowd. (Ed never uses that term to describe Min, she does; he simply calls her “different.”) But the tangible objects that give their connection meaning keep their interactions credible. The couple operates most smoothly outside the daily rhythms of high school life. When they try to pull each other into their individual orbits, trouble brews.

Ultimately, Min cannot change Ed. She brings out his best but she cannot keep his best. He would have to wish to change, and he either cannot or will not (we know not, because we only see Min’s side). Through Min’s eyes, we see that Ed tries, and perhaps even wants to sustain it, but he does not. And that is why they broke up.

With her “Dear John” letter, the basis of the entire text of the novel, Min describes the objects in the box that she is returning to Ed and replays the key moments of their relationship. Her letter and her returning of the objects allow Min to begin the process of letting go. She expects nothing back in return. She allows herself to reflect on the meaning Ed had for her, and the best parts of him that she brought to light, and why she couldn’t see then what she sees now. She’s very human and very healthy about it. By doing this physical and emotional housecleaning, she will be able to move on. Don’t we all wish we’d had a Min to guide us through high school?