My chief memory of these meetings was that he brought me delicious chocolate chip cookies, made by his wife, Priscilla. I remember a lot of correspondence with John, but only one or two actual face-to-face meetings. I was impressed by its wonderful combination of humor, obscure intellectual references, the supernatural, and cozy, down-to-earth milk and cookies. Jean Van Leeuwen, herself at Dial at the time, says she found the manuscript "in the 'slush pile' of unsolicited manuscripts. "Īfter multiple revisions over the next five years, and originally focusing on the elderly uncle rather than the child, the end result was his first young-adult novel featuring the first of his young protagonists, Lewis Barnavelt of New Zebedee, Michigan - a small community not unlike his hometown of Marshall. But I realized it was what I wanted to do and what I was good at. Learning to write for children instead of grown-ups. The editor there was herself a children's book writer, and she liked it but wanted it shorter. Originally "350 pages and the plot a real mess, I sent it around to three or four publishers until it landed with Dial Press. Main article: Lewis Barnavelt series charactersīellairs said that "out of boredom" during his time at Emmanuel College he began piecing together his next work, originally perceived as another contemporary adult fantasy. It's 1948 and 10-year-old Lewis Barnavelt rides a bus by himself.
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