Loving your child's mind: Alana's Jabberwocky

Actually, that's interesting. So you found it— you were trying to create a nonsense poem like Jabberwocky, and you found it hard to create nonsense words. Can you say more why?

Well, at first I had to think of it and then kind of match it with another word to make sure that it actually meant something so I could actually put it in there. And so if you read my poem, it kind of makes sense.

Do you have it handy?

Yes.

Do you want to read it? Can you put it in the chat?

Okay, I will.

I think it's a very interesting thing, uh, and I love the fact that you had a hard time figuring out how to do a nonsense poem.

Yeah, I'm not that— sorry.

That's okay, that's okay. I think one of the things that makes Jabberwocky amazing is that it is mostly nonsense but not entirely. Okay, cool. Um, do you want to read it for me?

Um, okay. 'Twas a fuzzless prisoner whose happiness had long been lost, who was locked in a cell far under the surface, with rats and other critters rushing across the just cold floor. Oh, though high above on the earth's surface, where the sun shined very brilliantly, the reeds swayed, and the children played, they all remembered the rumoured prisoner who had been chastened so far away. The grown-ups would always alarm the younglings to not end up like the fuzzless prisoner whose happiness had long been lost, with fragment— fragsels of bread and cheese to fill his empty soul. I think that's— it kind of makes sense.

I think that's wonderful. I think it's very cool. And it's interesting that you, in every case where you made up a word, I'm looking at it. In every single case where you made up a word, in parentheses you'll show us how you made it up, correct?

Yes, or just the two words that I combined.

Yeah, so it sounds like you didn't make up any completely nonsense words or any completely new words. And did you say you tried to do that or you decided you didn't want to do that?

Um, I kind of tried in my mind and then I decided that it would make more sense if I just put two words together and they would have more meaning.

It sounds like you did not want to create a poem that had no meaning or no way to access the meaning. Is that accurate?

Yes.

So if we just made up noises, we're gonna go— that's not fun, huh? Because you could make up noises, right? You could make up words that had no meaning at all.

That's true. But then how would the reader understand what it meant?

I know, that's a great question. That's a great question. And actually, given your poem, it makes me wonder if the author of Jabberwocky, whose name was Lewis Carroll— I told you he was the same person who wrote Alice in Wonderland, right?

Yes.

So I wonder if Lewis Carroll knew the meaning of every word he used, and you're making me think he probably did. That is, he had some— because, you know, some of his words we could guess, just like with your words, they were combinations of two words. But I think there are some words where at least it was not obvious to me where his word came from. But you're making me think maybe he at least had some intention behind the word. So even if whether or not we understood it, he understood it. Does that make sense?

Yes.

And if you had to make up a completely new word and you knew that there is unlikely— that it's unlikely anyone could understand it, it sounds like that's less satisfying to you as an author. Is that fair?

Nonsense words?

Yeah, where there's no real chance of the audience understanding what you meant.

Yeah. Yes.

Okay. And so then you use a strategy. I want to go through the words you, um, you made up. So fuzzless, you want to explain how you came up with that one?

Sure. Um, well, I saw the prisoners in that cell all have to have their head shaved, or most of the time in prisons anyways. And when the men get their heads shaved, or at least partly short, and then they shave their heads, it's kind of like peach fuzz. And I always kind of thought of it like that. So I put that.

That's fun. And then under low, underneath and below.

Well, underneath plus below, because I was looking up synonyms for one word. And then just kind of put them together.

That almost seems like it could be a real English word.

That's true, but I couldn't find anything for it.

No, fair enough. And then "joff." That one is different. Jarring and rough. How do you pronounce it?

Joff.

Joff.

Okay.

I could imagine actually that one might be hard if I didn't have your explanation. It might be hard for me to guess. The joff cold floor, because jarring— joff, I might guess, was rough, but jarring, I don't know if I would get that. But I think one of the things that Lewis Carroll is doing too is playing around with the sounds, and so joff cold floor, I think my mind would create some sense of some kind of you're telling me something across the cold floor, whether I got it was jarring or not. Um, brilliantly, that's actually a little bit— didn't he use brilliant or brillig? He was brillig in his—

okay. Oh, I didn't notice that.

Yeah, so, but brilliantly is different. Um, bright plus marvelous. Swaked, swing plus shaked, that kind of makes sense. Rumorous, ruthless plus merciless. Rumorous is maybe the hardest one I can see.

So if I maybe copy and paste the poem into this chat without any of the explanations, some of them maybe wouldn't make sense?

Or it would be hard. I would be guessing. But that's okay. I think, you know, as you know, when you read something you don't quite know it, I'm sure you run across words you don't completely know, and your mind makes things up. In my experience, we still kind of make sense of the whole thing as long as there are not too many words we don't understand. That is, there's a point at which it's just too hard and we lose it altogether. So rumors, that can make sense. Chasen, chained and fastened.

I think you can pronounce it however you want.

How would you pronounce that?

Um, at first I didn't really play around with the sound, so I did "chassent." But I like it better when you play around with the sound, so maybe "chasin'" or something.

Okay. Um, did you know that there is an English word, a real English word called "chasin'?" Chasin' or chassent? So I'm going to put in the chat, um, chasten, spelled exactly how you spell it, but it means to have a restraining or moderating effect on. Um, okay, so it's— I'm trying to think, is it similar? It's similar to your meaning, but for instance, um, If you thought that a certain restaurant was going to be the greatest experience on earth, I might say, you know, I've been there, it's not so great. I'm going to kind of, you know, chasten your expectations. And that's not a great example. It might— or let's see if I can think of a better example. Oh, it says of a misfortune. So if you thought that You know, maybe, yeah, going someplace was going to be a really great experience, but you actually went and it was not such a great experience. That might chasten your expectations a little bit. So that's why chained or fastened. It's a little bit different, but it's interesting that you made up a word that was actually an English word. It's a slightly different meaning.

So after this call, I'm going to fix or change the poem a little bit. And then I can share it with you next week.

Okay, that sounds good. And then "fragsels," fragments and morsels. Fragsels of bread and cheese. In English, I think of fragments and morsels similarly. How are fragments and morsels different from each other?

Well, morsel to me, or from what I've read, or the context that I've read it in, It's like just a little bit, and then fragments are different parts, a fragment of a worm or something like that.

Okay, okay. No, they are a little bit different. Um, and morsel usually has connotations of food for me too, whereas fragment not necessarily. You could have a fragment of a, you know, table or something, something hard. Um, and in some ways, you know, bread and cheese, I'm thinking of fragments of bread and morsels of cheese, but maybe you combine it to say fragsels. OK, well, very cool. Very cool. Now I want to figure out what the poem means. So here, I'll try reading it. 'Twas a fuzzless prisoner whose happiness had long been lost, who was locked in a cell far under low the surface, with rats and other critters rushing across the chaff-cold floor. Though high above on Earth's surface where the sun shined, very brilliantly, the reeds swayed and the children played. They all remembered the rumor prisoner who had been chased so far away. The grown-ups would always alarm the younglings to not end up like the fuzzless prisoner whose happiness had long been lost with fragile fragments of bread and cheese to fill his empty soul. Okay, very interesting. So I guess my question is We don't hear— we hear about the prisoner in the first stanza, we don't hear about the grown-ups until the last, and so the grown-ups are alarming the younglings. So it sounds like in some ways the first two stanzas are kind of descriptions. Oh, the children are the middle, I see the children are introduced in the middle. I'm just talking out loud as I make sense of it. Does that make sense? So I get a sharp picture of the prisoner in the first stanza, then okay, high above we have the children playing, they all remember the rumors prisoner who had been chased so far away, and then you're— so there now we have the children, they're playing, but then they know about this prisoner, sounds horrible, and the grown-ups alarm the children not to empty, not to end up like him. Okay, So that's fairly interesting. Tell me what you were thinking when you wrote the poem as a whole.

Well, I guess I just started writing about a prisoner, and then I thought that, well, it would be kind of a lesson for the adults to remind and alarm the children to not end up like the prisoner down there in the cell. So I thought putting a lesson in there would be cool. Um, I also liked the story and I liked how all the words fit together.

Oh, it's great. It's great. Um, have you run across a story a little bit like this before, or did you make up the whole thing with the prisoners below and the children above and the parents warning them?

I didn't really base it on anything, but I kind of took the parent theme where I kind of took the idea of putting adults in there from Jabberwocky.

Uh-huh.

Because there's the mom in there.

Yeah.

That warns the boy about the Jabberwocky.

Yeah. Well, I think it's, it's kind of a compelling scenario. I could imagine you writing a book or a story about this because this whole thing of, you know, children playing on top and the prisoners below. And then of course what I'm wondering right away is how did the prisoners get down there and how do the children know about the prisoners and, you know what I mean? I'm wondering about what the relationship is. So I could imagine you writing a story where you tell us, I don't know, you'd have to make up something obviously about why are there prisoners there and how do the kids know about them and, you know, what's— is it like there are two worlds? I guess I'm wondering there are two worlds and what's the relationship between the two worlds? Did you figure that out, or you just got the poem done and that's as far as you went?

Um, I just got the poem done, but as you're saying that about writing a story, I'm thinking about it and kind of making up one right now.

Are you still writing books?

I am. I'm gonna start. I was busy in Hawaii, and this summer was really busy, but now that I'm homeschooling, I'm gonna start doing that.

And, uh, which is wonderful. And I forget, who's the protagonist of your earlier books?

Um, Medusa, mostly.

I thought she was the antagonist. Didn't you have a hero, a heroine who was fighting Medusa?

Yes, there is. Wait, what is— I've only heard the word protagonist once, and I've only—

No problem. Protagonist is kind of like the good guy, and antagonist is kind of like the bad guy. So Abigail, right? Abigail Williams, is that it?

Yes.

Are all of them Abigail Williams books?

Yes.

So if you wrote this, would that be another Abigail Williams book, or would you have a different protagonist?

Um, it'd be another Abigail Williams book.

I see. Would you have a Medusa in this one as well?

Yes, I do.

Is Medusa the antagonist throughout all the Abigail Williams books?

Yes, although I am introducing some more, so she's not the only one.

So just to help you remember, pro is like pro or in favor, anti is like against. And so a protagonist is the kind of one— usually the protagonist, when you're reading a book, the protagonist is one you're saying, yes, um, I want you to win, uh, you know, or the author, or it's clear that that's the one the author wants to win. Whereas the antagonist is usually the one the protagonist is struggling against. That's why I think of, you know, I think of Abigail Williams. Don't we want Abigail Williams to win? Yes. Okay. And she's kind of fighting against Medusa most of the time, right?

Yes.

So that's why I think of Abigail Williams as the protagonist when we're pro. And Medusa is the antagonist, the kind of one we're against and the one Abigail's fighting against. Make sense?

Yes.

So all of them— how many different books do you have now?

I have 2 published and then I have 1 more.

Okay, so it's 3. They're all Abigail Williams versus Medusa.

Yes.

And then this one, do you think that you might be interested in doing a story based on this one or a book based on this scenario?

On the poem?

Yeah, yeah, on the poem.

Yes, I'm gonna write that.

Yeah, I mean, you can see how it's kind of interesting because you'd have to have an explanation for these two worlds. And, uh, so if you do do a story based on, uh, this poem, I definitely want to read it. Okay, I will. Okay, well, I should let you go, but congrats, that really was a fabulous poem. I enjoyed it. It got my imagination going. I enjoyed the words and The Not Quite Nonsense Words. So congrats. And when is your birthday, by the way?

It's— it was on the 17th.

So happy birthday because you're now a 10-year-old, correct?

Yes, I am.

All right. Happy birthday and welcome to the age of 10. So maybe we'll see you next week, Alana. Okay.

Thank you.

Bye-bye. You're welcome. Bye-bye.