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Mr. Pine creator breathes new life into kids books
By NANCY CHURNIN / The Dallas Morning News
03/05/2002
Texas Living section
Mr. Pine fans, rejoice!
Leonard Kessler, who began writing his Mr. Pine books a half-century ago, is at work on a new one for Jill Morgan of Keller-based Purple House Press.
It's called Mr. Pine's Furry Family, about Mr. Pine's dog and cat.
And while you're waiting, you can enjoy the newly released 40th anniversary edition of Mr. Pine's Mixed-up Signs (Purple House Press, $16).
Mr. Kessler, 81, is certainly enjoying it. "There is a second act," says Mr. Kessler, who illustrated more than 200 children's books, many of which he wrote. Three of them made The New York Times list of the 10 best illustrated books for children.
Mr. Kessler put work aside seven years ago to care for his wife and collaborator, Ethel, who has Alzheimer's. They've been married 55 years and have two children and four grandchildren.
Now he visits her in a nursing home regularly. Usually she doesn't recognize him, but every once in a while, she'll say, "Straighten up, Lenny!" he says with a laugh. Then, serious again, he says he sometimes thinks about writing about her and the other patients and what it must feel like to lose one's memory.
"I get up every morning and can't wait to get to my computer. I have enough ideas to keep me going for the next 139 years."
He credits Ms. Morgan for the new lease on life. She named her company for Mr. Kessler's book Mr. Pine's Purple House, which she loved as a child. The story about a man who liked being different was also the one she wanted to publish first.
When she wrote to Mr. Kessler at his home in Sarasota, Fla., asking permission to republish the book, she told him she loved it. That, he says, won him over.
"I thought to myself, 'How many publishers love the books they print?' "
Not only did he agree, but when Ms. Morgan asked if she could call her imprint Purple House Press, he offered to design a logo for her. The purple turtle, like Mr. Kessler and Mr. Pine, wears glasses. He's also reading a book.
"How else do you expect him to learn anything?" Mr. Kessler asks.
Mr. Kessler feels close to his books, because so many of them have been inspired by his own kids or others who are dear to him.
Here Comes the Strikeout (HarperCollins Juvenile Books) is about his son, Paul, when he was 7. He's called Bobby in the book.
"He wasn't very good at baseball," Mr. Kessler recalls. "That one scene in the book where he was in the bathtub crying because he struck out 22 times in a row really happened. We asked, 'Are you OK?' And he said, 'Twenty-two times at bat, 22 strikeouts. They pick the little kids before they pick me.' "
In the book, Mr. Kessler creates a friend for the strikeout king. Willy practices with Bobby until he learns how to hit. In real life, Mr. Kessler was his son's Willy, throwing the ball to him over and over again.
Later, Paul treasured the book his father created for him. Paul grew up to be a cardiologist and artist. Mr. Kessler's daughter, Kim, for whom he's also done books, works with the developmentally disabled.
Mr. Kessler had his first book published at 29, but he credits his real start to his grandmother, who gave him a box of crayons when he was 6.
"She said, 'Lenny, with these crayons you could make your own world.' Still, when I go to an art store, I buy crayons."
In 1949, he headed from Pittsburgh to New York with one of his classmates from Carnegie Mellon University, Andy Warhol. For a while they shared a studio: Mr. Kessler, Mr. Warhol, Mr. Warhol's mother and the Warhols' 22 Siamese cats, all of whom were named Sam.
One thing Mr. Kessler has always loved about his job is working at home and playing with the kids – and now the grandkids. He gets his best ideas from them, he says, listening to them, writing down their questions, just enjoying them.
He says he has a special kinship with the bespectacled Mr. Pine. He calls him his alter ego.
"There's so much of Pine in me – being different, doing your own thing, enjoying life," Mr. Kessler says. He would keep making up knock-knock jokes, he says, until his wife would tell him, 'Knock it off. Tell me in the morning.'
One of the thrills of reissuing Mr. Pine's Mixed-up Signs is that he got to make a few changes, he says. He darkened some of the faces in the town to add a little diversity. He made one of the store owners female instead of male – Mrs. Brown, who owns the bookstore. He's happier with it.
Now with two Mr. Pine books republished by Purple House Press and a new one on the way, he feels he has never really left childhood behind.
"I still feel like I'm 6. That's my real age. Maybe next year, I'll be 7, but I doubt it."
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