Brambletale Blog
These Poets Have Been Dying to Meet You: The Making of Midnight Poetry
The challenge was finding poems that belonged together while giving readers something different with each turn of the page. Poe, Dickinson, Shakespeare, and the other featured writers each bring their own kind of uneasiness. Some poems tell a story. Others leave you with a strange mental image or a weird feeling that follows you down a gloomy hallway.
For an anthology aimed at ages 8–12, that variety mattered. I wanted the collection to feel inviting, with enough mystery to keep curious young readers moving through unfamiliar language without boring adult readers along the way.
Golden Tickets, Giant Peaches, and Gobblefunk: The Story of Roald Dahl
Dahl often wrote as if he and the child reader shared secret information that the adults had missed.
He knew that children notice hypocrisy. They know when a punishment is unfair, when a bully is hiding behind a title, and when an adult expects respect without behaving respectably. Dahl exaggerated those injustices until they became enormous enough to topple. The greedy became grotesque, the cruel became ridiculous, and the underestimated child discovered a hidden advantage.
Matilda has intelligence and mysterious power. Sophie has courage. Charlie Bucket has decency. Danny has ingenuity and a loving father. None of them begins with much control over the world, but Dahl allows each of them to change it.
He also understood that a children's story can be frightening and funny at the same time. The danger creates suspense. The absurdity lets the reader breathe. Somewhere between those two sensations, courage becomes possible.