Writer is just a 70-year-old kid

Young Chang

Shirley Schieber lives in a Corona del Mar home she calls “the Mole

Hole.” She jokes about her life -- she feels she is stuck in a Gary

Larson cartoon. She calls herself “a kid.”

But a tragedy brought the 70-year-old children’s book author to this

point. Her oldest son died as a teenager about 20 years ago, and it was

then that she began writing stories about little boys. For years and

years she did this, until one day she wrote about a little girl.

“At which point I knew I had probably healed my mind,” Schieber said.

She will sign books Wednesday at the Newport Beach Tennis Club, where

she works part time.

“Kid Stuff,” her compilation of stories and verses, was recently

released for sale online. Some of the stories it contains are “Clarence

the Clam,” “Mainly Monsters” and “A Tale of a Kite.”

Though she started from grief, her stories are fun. They involve a

clam, monsters that come alive and a boy who learns about sharing.

Schieber said there is one main ingredient to a really great

children’s book: fun.

“Anything that gets their attention, gets them involved, their

imagination going,” she said. “Rhyming, alliteration -- this grabs kids.

. . . The adults may not like weird stuff but the kids do.”

One of the lessons Schieber could teach is the value of perseverance.

About three years ago, a near-fatal car accident left her blind in her

right eye. For a while, Schieber couldn’t see, and she worried she would

not be able to read again.

But Barbara Craven, who illustrated part of “Kid Stuff” after

Schieber’s accident, remembers her friend’s positive attitude when she

was struggling with her sight.

“Her attitude hasn’t changed about anything,” Craven said. “She works

and continues to write.”

The author said she knows what makes a kid tick. After all, she claims

she is one.

Take her character Clarence. He’s a clam who grows a pearl, which he

keeps and hides because clams aren’t supposed to grow pearls. Joe the

scuba diver saves his life one day and asks Clarence for a favor via

“sea-mail” -- could he bargain with an oyster and get his daughter some

pearls?

Clarence thinks about it and instead gives Joe his. The pearl is

“twice-blessed.”

The story shows that anyone, despite their differences, can share

love.

“It’s got to be playful,” Schieber said. “It doesn’t have to have a

moral, and it’s got to be something that children like -- like monsters.”

Earlier in her life, she baby-sat for a little boy named Slade in

Hawaii. He was one of those kids who answered, “I don’t care,” when

asked, “Do you want a hamburger?” He almost never talked and offered only

monotone “OKs” to suggestions.

One day, they walked past a poster of monsters in a store.

“I’m feeling really, really funny,” Schieber said. “And I’ve got him

all day, so I ask, ‘Say Slade, do you like monsters?’ And he never shut

up again.”

Her story “Mainly Monsters,” about a boy who imagines and draws

monsters that slide off the table and leave the house, started with

Slade.

“If you looked at his face when he was telling me about monsters, he

wasn’t scared. He was fascinated,” Schieber said.

Her favorite books do not contain any monsters. Schieber said “The

Velveteen Rabbit” and “The Grasshopper and the Ants” have special places

in her heart.

Her father used to read her the latter story aloud. The grasshopper

played all summer long while the ants saved up food for winter. When the

weather got cold, the grasshopper suffered and the ants happily dined.

The lesson was about saving things.

But Schieber and her father always liked the grasshopper best -- he

was free, while the ants were regimented. Freedom is something that

influenced her career early on.

Reading has always been important to the Klamath Falls, Ore., native.

As a child, she witnessed other children who were illiterate struggle

with sounding out words.

As an adult, she made sure her four children knew how to read.

“If you can’t read, you almost can’t do anything,” Schieber said. “How

can you get free if you can’t read about freedom? I saw how vitally

important reading was.”

FYI

WHAT: Shirley Schieber signs “Kid Stuff”

WHEN: 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

WHERE: The Newport Beach Tennis Club, 2601 Eastbluff Drive, Newport

Beach

COST: Free

CALL: (949) 644-0050