JENNIFER K MAHAL -- IN THE WINGS

o7 “They looked in vain for flowers. They heard no songs of birds.

But saw lots of angry faces and heard lots of bitter words.”

f7

If there ever was a time for David Saltzman’s “The Jester Has Lost His

Jingle,” it’s now. My best friend gave me a copy of this children’s

picture book for my 22nd birthday. It’s traveled with me ever since.

The book tells the story of Jester’s quest to regain his ability to

make people laugh, a journey that takes him through the countryside, into

the city and finally to a hospital.

o7 “Maybe someone can tell me. Maybe someone might know. How come

people aren’t laughing? How come spirits are so low?” f7

Barbara Saltzman, the author’s mother, will be reading the book at 11

a.m. today at Bloomingdales, Fashion Island. For every Jester book or

doll purchased at the event, one will be sent to Children’s Hospital of

Orange County.

It’s a beautiful book with a poignant story. Not just the story inside

-- although that’s wonderful -- but the story of the author and how the

book got published.

In 1988, David Saltzman was a junior at Yale attending summer classes

in Greece. One day, he came to class and made a bunch of jokes. No one

laughed. So he began doodling in his notebook, drawing an oval with three

triangles on top. Above it he wrote “The Jester Has Lost His Jingle.”

“That afternoon, he returned to his room -- he always wanted to write

children’s books -- and he outlined the entire story,” Barbara Saltzman

said.

The book became the English and art major’s senior project. But that

October, David Saltzman was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a type of

cancer. He kept working on the book, even while receiving chemotherapy.

Nine months after he graduated from Yale, David Saltzman died. He was

23. But he finished the book.

o7 “Oh Pharley, I fear, it’s much worse than I thought. Is laughter

something people these people forgot?”

f7 Barbara Saltzman and her husband promised that they would see the

book published as David had envisioned it -- in full color, on quality

paper with the rhyme scheme intact.

“It took us five years,” Barbara Saltzman said from her Palos Verdes

home.

After going around and around with publishing companies, the Saltzmans

took a mortgage on their house and published 30,000 copies. Ten thousand

of those were donated to every child in the country who was diagnosed

with cancer in 1995.

“Before it was on the bookshelves, it was in every hospital in the

country,” Barbara Saltzman said.

o7 “There must be someone somewhere with a smile upon their face.

There must be someone cheerful in this cold and lonely place.”

f7 The Saltzmans formed the Jester and Pharley Fund -- Pharley is

Jester’s talking wooden stick -- to help take the book to children

everywhere.

“ ‘The Jester Has Lost His Jingle’ speaks to children in such a way

that they’re able to rediscover their own sense of laughter and joy,”

Saltzman said. “

Among the programs that Saltzman and her husband have started is a

literacy program. Children are encouraged to read books and every page

read translates into one penny donated in the form of Jester books and

toys to local hospitals.

“There’s a line in the book when the Jester and Pharley are standing

outside a hospital and the Jester says ‘It’s up to us to make a

difference. It’s up to us to care.’ That’s really one of the things we’re

trying to instill in children,” Saltzman said.

o7 “We’ve found where it’s been hiding. We’ve discovered where it’s

been. It’s hiding inside everyone. It’s buried deep within!”

f7 Saltzman has story after story to tell of people who have written

to her about what the book means to them. And though I never was one of

the people who wrote in, I can say here that on some of my darkest days,

“The Jester Has Lost His Jingle” has reminded me that there are reasons

to smile.

o7 “So when you’re feeling lonely or sad or bad or blue, remember

where the laughter’s hiding . . . It’s hiding inside of you!” f7

More information about the Jester and Pharley Fund can be found at o7

https://www.thejester.org.

f7

* * *

Do you know a local artist, writer, painter, singer, filmmaker, etc.,

who deserves to get noticed? Send your nominee to In The Wings, Daily

Pilot, 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627, by fax to (949) 646-4170 or

by e-mail to o7 jennifer.mahal@latimes.com.f7

* JENNIFER MAHAL is features editor of the Daily Pilot.