For Writers and Readers

Like James Marshall, Russell Hoban was amazingly consistent; the last of the Frances Badger books is just as popular as the first one.

Like Marshall, Hoban uses a slightly ridiculous protagonist who struggles with certain aspects of daily life: eating, maintaining a friendship, managing anxiety, coping with envy.

Maybe the greatest Frances book--"Bread and Jam for Frances"--has Frances rejecting a well-balanced diet. She will eat only bread and jam. The story has inevitable twists; peer pressure plays a role, and also, when Mother Badger stops fighting Frances, then the bread-and-jam diet seems less sensational, and less interesting. Frances finally demands spaghetti with meatballs.

To me, the thing that makes this book so special is the set of songs Frances writes about food. For example, a note to an egg:

I do not like the way you slide,

I do not like your soft inside,

I do not like you lots of ways,

And I could do for many days

Without eggs.

And a song for meat:

What do cutlets wear before they're breaded?

Flannel nightgowns? Cowboy boots?

Furry jackets? Sailor suits?

Finally, a celebration of sweets:

Jam on biscuits, jam on toast,

Jam is the thing that I like most.

Jam is sticky, jam is sweet,

Jam is tasty, jam's a treat--

RASPberry, STRAWberry, GOOSEberry, I'M very

FOND.....OF....JAM!

Like Marshall, Hoban did not "suffer" for his art. The picture books just flowed out of him. He spoke of them in a dismissive way, and he eventually left children behind and wrote just for adults. The mind reels.

I wish Hoban had stuck with Frances for ten or twenty additional books.

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