Horatio Einstein, the Hero

Horatio Einstein, the Hero (2007) Post 362

Horatio Einstein, the Hero has an actual comma in the title. The title I gave it originally was Horatio Einstein is a Hero, Kind of so the comma must have come in from the editor.

During the late 1980s to the early 2000s, I has a ball writing reading scheme stories (bonsai novels) whose only specifications were genre, length, reading age and a few subjects/themes to avoid. In other words, they were almost exactly like a mainstream children's book in miniature. By the time I wrote Horatio, things had changed, big time. The 1980s change (to learn to read by reading stories rather learning to read so as to be able to read them) had moved on to a different ideal; "curriculum-based" reading, which meant the fiction had to address something that tied into other parts of the curriculum. The brief for this story was conservation and national parks. Other books from around the same time include Summer at Drought Palace and The Penthean Problem, and in all three cases I took the subject matter (water conservation and multicultural food) and ran with it. For Horatio, I sent my characters to Cheese Hill National Park... Only it wasn't really called that... The story begins more or less like this...

My adventure in the Cheese Hill National Park was exciting. It was also uncomfortable and scary.

Before I tell you about it, I'll introduce myself. My name isn’t really Horatio Einstein, but let's pretend it is. (I'll explain why later on.)  I'm a thinker. Ever since our adventure, I've done some really deep thinking. I came up with something our teacher, Ms Galah, calls a paradox. This is the way it goes.

Humans live in the world. If the world is sick, humans get sick.

Think about that.

Now for the next bit.

 Things people do to survive sometimes harm the natural world. That makes it harder for humans to survive.

There's my paradox. Let's work on survival skills for the world.

My best mate Montmorency Butterfinger is leaning over my shoulder while I write. He says that's all very noble, but when will I start the story?

OK, Monty. I'm starting it now.

Things went wrong on our hike through Cheese Hill National Park because people made tiny mistakes. These added up to danger. Why not see if you can spot them as you read along?

 I won't use real names in this story, because the park rangers need to keep something secret. My mate Monty isn't really called Montmorency Butterfinger, and Cheese Hill is not really called Cheese Hill.  Names are changed, but everything else is true, more or less.

This excerpt is taken from the edited form of the ms, and I see Montmorency's original surname was "Birdfinger". The ed. changed it to "Butterfinger". I was allowed to keep Horatio's alias, Ms Galah, Mr Sockenberger, Mayflower Bunjuggler, Boris Einstein and Velia Mutton (but Horatio's nickname of "Veal" for her got ruthlessly red-pencilled). As you can see, I had fun with the rather pedestrian and earnest subject matter... and I hope the readers do too!


ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist.