By Ramon Shiloh
As a society,
our love for books has always been regarded as a condition of hope, wonder and
an escape from everyday life. It’s a positive reinforcement of educating one’s
self, but it really lets us silently fade into a vast perspective as we flip
each page, entwined in the author’s universe.
My
fascination with books started with Syd Hoff’s “Danny and the Dinosaur.” At age
six, reading was always a wonderful lesson, but his illustrations were a particularly
harmonious distraction. As Danny rode along with a dinosaur for the day, I
enjoyed the fact that two friends could independently walk the streets, traveling
through neighborhoods, eating ice cream along the way, catching a sporting
event, goofing around at the playground. That blew my mind. Danny seemed like a
kid who got things done, and I envied that. Now that I think about it, I was a bit
jealous of Danny.
Many say that
Dr. Seuss was the best. For me, he was more of an acid trip with words that went
on and on and on. I loved Seuss’s books, don’t get me wrong, but my childhood was
geared to a simpler time. The 1970s, in my community, was an innocent time for
me, and “Danny and the Dinosaur” spoke to me about neighborhood relationships
and the value of friendship. That tale rendered me speechless. It had managed to pull me in like no other children’s book had ever done.
I lived in a
creative household and was whisked away from farm country to various cities as
my mother looked for work, so it was easy to connect with Hoff’s tale of
traveling from one place to the next. By age 10, my “Danny and the Dinosaur” book
was tattered beyond belief from being carted around through my many travels.
But I began to become disenchanted with the story as I lost my sense of
community. Soon, I abandoned the idea of following Danny’s life as my guide,
and the once treasured story found a place amongst the long-forgotten tales hidden
in our garage. See, my mother was a book hoarder. From outdated encyclopedias and
back issues of National Geographic to cookbooks, Native American perspectives
and worldview lifestyles, our garage was a sea of literary chaos.
Finally, at
13, we found a little home that we stayed in for a while. It felt nice, not trekking to another
town every three years. It was then that
I discovered, on one lazy afternoon, Gerald Hausman’s tale, “The Boy with the
Sun Tree Bow,” in the mix of Mom’s old books. As I recall, it was a flimsy
little paperback, but it grabbed my attention for some reason. I think it made
sense because of the title. The book was about a boy. I was a boy. It made
sense, right?
As I opened
the book, the story began like a poem:
“In the beginning,
the sea was a true blue eye.
With the sun in the center by
day,
and the moon in the corner by
night.
Bright fishes swam in and out
of the sun.
Dark turtles crossed over the
moon and all was well in the world.”
But
everything changed when Hausman introduced boy. With a quick-witted approach, his
words stung my imagination. Boy was a mischievous adventurer with only one goal
in mind: “To shoot out the sun and the moon with a single arrow.” What?!
This type of
reading material was foreign to me. It was as if I had discovered violence in a
beautiful way. But this was scarier; a boy taking out the sun and the moon with
a single arrow?! I couldn’t wrap my head around this idea, even though I had
done my share of hurtful things, as most little boys do. I’ve squished creepy
crawlers, trapped rats, dashed salt on slugs and snails. I spent many youthful
years zapping trails of ants with my trusty magnifying glass. I carried sticks
just to slash roses off their stems when walking from school. Ah, those were
the days.
But in this
tale, I felt my rebellious side was being called out. Hausman weaves a scary
reality: Boy walks through life chopping down Elm, Pine, Cherry, Maple, Beech, Hickory , Oak and Ash to
carve his perfect bow and arrow with the intention of shooting out the sun and
the moon in one flick. In doing so, boy annihilates swaths of grand forests in
search of two perfect trees – the sun tree and the moon tree.
Obviously, I
found boy to be the worst kid EVER! I was angry, and I must have looked bummed
out in front of my mother that afternoon. She asked me some questions, and I
recall saying that this book made me feel bad. She took the book out of my hand
and asked why I wanted to read this story. Like all children in the face of a
simple question, I responded, “I dunno.”
She told me
that she had found this book at a garage sale one afternoon and realized it had
a lesson in it. She felt compelled to share its message with her students, who
were troubled in different ways. Mom was an educator and activist in California . Her goal in
life was teaching truth in history, and she made sizable impacts in the Native
American community. She had a cool way of making complex issues seem simple to everyone
around her.
“The Boy with
the Sun Tree Bow” ends on a very tragic note. Boy finally reaches his goal,
only to discover too late the true consequence of his actions. His fate was
sealed along with every natural habitat by his own doing. What a sad reality. This
scarred me. It woke me up, and I found myself questioning my intentions for the
first time. I was that boy for a moment and never again.
Finding My Own Dinosaur
There was a
dark period in my life. My mother died at 58. I was 21 and my little brother
only 18. My older brother was married with my nephew in tow. The three of us
took part in separating our mother’s things. Our older brother had a house, big
enough to hold many of her belongings. But with my younger brother striking out
on his own, blindly moving to Seattle ,
combined with my couch-surfing lifestyle, a storage facility was necessary.
At 23, I had
many educators who tried their very best to help me emotionally. Many who knew
my mother offered money, jobs and their homes. My father was a distant memory.
I dropped out of college and followed in my mother’s footsteps to become a
storyteller and artist. It didn’t really pay the bills, but it made me happy
and that was most important. I lived a nomadic lifestyle with no rules. It felt
weird seeing old friends become successes seemingly overnight. When running
into them, the incessant questions about my personal life were awkward: “So,
what do you do Ramon?” “I’m a storyteller.” “So you’re a bullshitter? Hahaha!!”
“Um, yeah.”
On occasion,
I would find myself going back to Mom’s storage unit. Rifling through these old
memories gave me the strength to sort out many questions and answers. And like
magic, the one memory that had me teary-eyed, fell with a number of other
books, laid out by my feet. I shook my head as I stared down at Gerald
Hausman’s tale, “The Boy with the Sun Tree Bow.”
During 20
years of journeys, I’ve carried Hausman’s story. With every encounter, I was
always told his story is so relevant to today. The scary part about this tale
is it’s true.
In 2005, I
was called in to be a storytelling consultant for an animation project in the University of Washington Computer Science
Still, I
decided to share Gerald Hausman’s tale with the students. I don’t know why I
did it, and there was a part of me that was angry that I let go of this
precious story. But everyone was so floored by the colorful elements that they
wanted to start animating it right then. I was concerned about licensing and
copyright issues since they planned to share it commercially after producing it
for their film final. With the project on hold until we could secure
permission, I volunteered to make contact with my childhood idol – if he was
even still alive.
After letting
my nerves get the best of me for days, I finally sat down and typed out an
email, which I sent through his website. Within hours, he responded. I was
floored when I read his simple note, “I think I knew your mother. Call me.”
The
connection with Gerald was instantaneous. We talked for hours about the world
of storytelling, about “The Boy with the Sun Tree Bow,” about my childhood and
about my mother. Afterward, I put my whole heart into the animation project,
guiding the students through their work. What a surreal moment in my life and
very rewarding. For Gerald and I, this experience cemented our friendship
forever.
From then on,
we both talked about working on a project. There was a particular story Gerald
had in mind. It began with a simple word, “Listener.” It was going to be a
graphic novel, but then we decided to create an all-ages book. This grabbed the
attention of World Wisdom/Wisdom Tales Press, eventually becoming a 4 and up
read re-titled as “The Otter, The Spotted Frog and The Great Flood.”
Despite
working so closely together during the past eight years, in November 2013, I’ll
be meeting Gerald for the first time in person as we embark on our East Coast
Book Tour in Florida .
He and I will get to spend a whole month playing, talking, learning and
teaching kids to enjoy reading.
I would never
say this to Gerald Hausman’s face, but I think I found my Dinosaur.
Ramon
Shiloh
Additional appearances with Ramon Shiloh and
Gerald Hausman include:
November 13, Storytelling at the Pine
Island Public Library, Bokeelia , FL
November 10,
Young at Art Children’s Museum, Fort
Lauderdale , FL
November 16, Calusa Trail
Museum
November
21-24, Miami
Book Fair International, Storytelling Tent
