Picture Book Breakdown: Writing Adults in kids literature with the Questioneers. Book 1 Iggy Peck, Architect

Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

IGGY PECK ARCHITECT

BY: ANDREA BEATY

PUBLISHED: ABRAMS BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

YEAR: 2007

AGES: 4-8

PAGES: 32

After a recent discussion in one of my critique groups I’d like to talk about how successful picture book writers handle adult characters in their stories.  According to Ann Whitford Paul, in Writing Picture Books, there are three ways to handle adult characters  in any children's literature.  The most popular method is to make them child-like protagonists.  However, you want your protagonist to remain young there are three other options.   

The Questioneers series by Andriea Beaty gives us three examples of how to handle mature adults in children’s literature.

The first Questioneer book, Iggy Peck Architech, shows us how to handle an adult antagonist who hinders the point of view character from being happy.  

P1: Copyright

P2: Title Page

ACT I

P3: Young Iggy Peck is an architect and has been since he was two, when he built a great tower - in only an hour - with nothing but diapers and glue.  

P4: “Good Gracious, Ignacious!” His mother exclaimed.  “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”  But her smile faded fast as a light wind blew past and she realized those diapers weren’t clean!

“Ignacious, my son!  What on Earth have you done?  That’s disgusting and nasty!  It stinks!”

P5 - P6

 But Iggy was gone.  He was out on the lawn using dirt clods to build a great Sphinx.

P7 - P8

When Iggy was three, his parents could see his unusual passion would stay.  He built churches and chapels from peaches and apples and temples from modeling clay.  

P9-P10

At dinner one night, to his father’s delights Iggy got a bright gleam in his eye and out on the porch built the St Louis Arch from pancakes and coconut pie. 

Author Andrea Beaty

In this first act we are introduced to Iggy’s character.  His  need to design and build interesting things out of unusual material seems compulsive.  It’s also an introduction to what architecture is and how creative one can be with it.

His parents are present in this first ACT but they don’t seem willing, or able, to discourage his passion for building with unusual materials.  They are awed by it, maybe even annoyed.  But they don’t really get involved in the plot.  They hands off at best and just let him do this own thing.  

Iggy doesn’t face resistance until he starts school in ACT II.   

ACT II

P11-P12

Dear Ig had it made until second grade, when his teacher was Miss Lila Greer.  On the very first day, she had this to say  “We do not talk of buildings in here!  Gothic or Romanesque, I couldn’t care less about buildings - ancient or new.”  She said in her lecture about architecture that it had no place in grade two.”  

P13 - P14

That might seem severe, but she was sincere.  For when she was no more than seven she’d had a great fright at a dizzying height in a building so tall it scraped Heaven.  

On an architect’s tour of the nighty-fifth floor, young Lila got lost from the group.

P15-P16

She was found two days later in a stuck elevator, eating cheese with a French circa troupe.    

After that day - it’s quiet safe to say she thought all buildings-lovers were nuts.  As a teacher she taught that, above all, one ought to avoid them.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  

P17 

As you might guess, it would cause Iggy stress to hear such terrible talk.  But he didn’t hear.  He sat in a the rear while building a castle of chalk.  

P18

“You!  Iggy Peck!  Your desk is a wreck!  Tear down that castle right now!  You will not build in here.  Is that perfectly clear?  Do you need to see Principal Howe?”  

P19-P20

“No, Ma’am,” Iggy said.  He lowered his head and his heart sank down to the floor.  With no chance to build, his interest was killed.  Now second grade was a bore.  

In this extreme example we are taught how architects are important. Badly designed buildings can lead to accidents, or to children getting lost.  This bad design lead to our teacher Ms. Greer being traumatized as a child.  Now she  hates buildings, the very thing Iggy loves.  

This also illustrates the problem with adults in children’s stories.  It is just far too easy for an adult to get in the way of a young main character.  The child is the one who is supposed to solve the conflict of the story, but how can they if the teacher is teaching, or the parent is parenting.  This is why so many stories the adults are omitted, or in some way moved out of the way just long enough for the POV character to shine.  

ACT III

P21 

After twelve long days that passed in a haze of reading, writing and arithmetic, 

P22

Miss Greer took the class to Blue River Pass for a hike and an old-fashioned picnic.  

P23-P24

They crossed an old trestle to a small island nestled in the heart of burbling stream.  But they no sooner passed than the footbridge collapsed and Miss Lila Greer started to scream, 

“We’re trapped here!  Oh my!  Alas, kids, good-by!” Her eyeballs rolled back in her head.  She dropped to the ground with a vague growing sound.  

(Luckily fainted - not dead)

 As unlikely as it is this silly  situation was set up with Ms. Greer’s introduction.  Of course being this close to yet another example of badly handled architecture would cause her to be upset!  Passing out is extreme, but we need her to get out of the way so that Iggy can do this thing.

Ms. Greer serves her purpose as the story's antagonist.  She is opposed to the exact thing Iggy loves.  She hindered his progression which affirmed his passion.  Now she must be moved out of the way so that he can succeed.  

                 

        P25-P26

The class was amazed.  They stood there quiet dazed uncertain of what they should do.  But one bright young man was off hatching a plan which started with Miss Lil’s shoe.  

Soon each lad and lass there at Blue River Pass was working together as one.  

P27

And when she came to, Miss Lila Greer knew that something quite brave had been done.  She looked in the air and saw hanging there a structure with cables and braces.  And on the far side - beaming with pride - where seventeen smiling young faces.

P28

Boots, tree roots and strings, fruit roll-ups and things (some of which one should not mention_. Were stretched ridge to ridge in a glorious bridge dangling from shoestring suspension.  

P29

It all became clear to Miss Lila Greer, as she crossed that bridge over the stream. There are worse things to do when you’re in grade two than to spend your time building a dream.  

    With the adult out of the way our hero steps forth to save the day with an event perfectly designed for his special skills.  It’s wacky, but the previous bits set it up nicely.  If he can build a tower out of dirty diapers at two years old, then surely by six he can build a bridge out of shoes.   

    Our theme/lesson for this book appears at the comes near the end.  It’s unusual for books to state their morals as we mentioned in our study of Endings with "The Summer Nick Taught his Cats to Read".  The lesson is clearly stated here and it does bother some readers, if the "Goodreads" comments are anything to go by, but I think it works with the flow of the story.  

 

P30

Now every week at Blue River Creek Elementary in second grade, all the school kids can hear, alone with Miss Greer, how the world’s greatest buildings were made.  

The weekly guest speaker, in T-shirt and sneakers, talks of buildings from Rome to Quebec.  Of course, he’s the guy who builds towers from pie that brilliant young man, Iggy Peck.  

 Some of the "Goodreads" commenters were upset about the teacher being the antagonist because teachers catch so much grief in children's literature.  But who else are they coming into contact with more than their parents and teachers?  Using anyone else verges on dangerously scary grounds.  

I also argue that Iggy helped transform Ms. Lila Greer from a woman ruled by a past trauma into a really awesome teacher.  Iggy isn't the only pupil to be given the freedom to explore and learn in her class, as we'll see in later books.  

MY TAKE AWAY

So the lesson here is when you have an adult that is over managing your main character they have to be removed (either briefly or deleted entirely).  

This was the lesson my critique group was trying to explain to me.  In my Jasmine Smalls series the character of Jasmine’s father is to be “Captain Safety”.  Also, Jasmine’s mysteries involve studying various insects or invertebrates which her mother is afraid of.  My challenge then is how to show these characteristics of her parents while still allowing Jasmine to explore and investigate her mysteries.  How can she look for clues without her mother and father getting in the way?

Solution, in book one, her parents have left her in the care of her grandparents who are much more willing to let her play outside.  And in book two her parents are  distracted by Jasmine’s little brother, who is only two years old and getting into way more trouble than she is.

But in the next two books I’d like to show them giving Jasmine more attention.  Perhaps the other two Questioneer books can help me with that.    

What’s your solution for handling helicopter parents so your young MC can thrive?

BEDTIME BREAKDOWN!

Unfortunately, my daughter was not interested in the any of the Questioneer books.  She’s only two so the subjects and vocabulary were a little over her head.  I’ll try them on her again in a few years, but for now we’ll just move on.

If you like these books by Andrea Beaty please consider purchasing them from your favorite local book story or renting them from the library.

I’ve been Porsche B. Yeary

I’ll see you on the next page.  

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