Crockett Johnson: The Art of Imagination
Small stories, big questions
“Can you tell me a story?” My 7-year-old son asked while slurping a big spoonful of marshmallows from his bowl of cereal. It was early; the sky was still dark as night. My husband and daughter were cozy asleep in their beds, and my coffee had yet to kick in. I was not in prime storytelling shape. “How about we tell one together?” I suggested, knowing he’d eagerly take over, allowing me more sleepy-zombie-mommy-coffee-time. “What should the story be about?” he asked. I looked at a note I had scribbled on a nearby notepad. “How about a skeleton’s garden?” I asked. And that was it; he jumped right in without hesitation. He knew that this was a fairy tale about an old farmer who loved to plant cabbages. His cabbages were the best in the land. Then, one night, someone—a witch—had snuck into his garden and put a spell on his special cabbages, a poisonous spell. So when the farmer woke the next day and took a bite of his beloved cabbage, he immediately keeled over and died, leaving the cabbages all to the wicked witch. But a year later, buried deep down in the garden soil, among worms and bugs and eerie things, laid the skeleton of the restless, vengeful farmer who was determined to catch the witch and take back his garden.
Hearing this story, I no longer felt drowsy; I was rapt. This kid knows how to tell a story, I thought. But because he’s 7 and not me—an adult obsessed with a good story—he got distracted by the lack of marshmallows left in his bowl and moved on. I, on the other hand, have been obsessively wondering how the story ends. Of course, I could come up with my own fairy tale ending, but I’d rather know his. Did the skeleton catch the witch? Surely. But if my son were telling it, this story would have delightfully gone off the rails somehow, like the introduction of an alien spaceship crashing into the farmer’s garden. Then, the aliens abduct the witch and ship her to Mars, where she’s held prisoner and forced to eat dry cereal without any marshmallows for eternity. The End.
The story wasn’t the only thing that got me thinking; it was how my son immediately and confidently knew what it was about. I was envious of how he could dive in and out of his imagination without skipping a beat. I thought of a quote I’d read by the famous children’s book author-illustrator Maurice Sendak:
“Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.” 1
It also reminded me of one of my favorite children’s books, Ellen’s Lion, by Sendak’s mentor and close friend, Crockett Johnson. It’s a series of 12 short stories about Ellen, a spirited young girl who uses her robust imagination to engage in skits, stories, songs, and, sometimes, Socratic dialogue with her best friend, a stuffed lion. Like my son, Ellen effortlessly transitions between fantasy and reality. Her imagination has gaps where reality slips in and out; there are conflicts in the details. Imaginative play is full of inconsistencies. The fantastical and mundane swirl together, like in a dream. Reading stories that feel like dreams can be stressful, but not with Johnson; he keeps the stories tight: they’re funny and warm and almost always end on a perfectly abrupt note.