RAR #213: Sweep: A Story You Don’t Want to Miss

Sarah (00:03): It's Victorian London in the late 1800s. And it's been five years since the Sweep disappeared. Orphaned and alone, Nan Sparrow has no other choice, but to work for a ruthless chimney sweep named Wilkie Crudd. She spends her days doing dangerous work, sweeping out chimneys. The job is thankless, but with her wits and will, Nan has managed to beat the deadly odds time and time again. This time though, she gets stuck in a chimney fire. She wakes to find herself unharmed in an abandoned attic, and she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature, a Gollum made from soot and Ash. This Gollum will come to know as Charlie. (01:04): He's large and lovable and Nan, our heroine will raise him almost like her own child. He is in the end, her protector. Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster is a book written by Jonathan Auxier. It won in 2019 Sydney Taylor Book Award and it won a place in my all time tippy top favorite books. It's a Charles Dickens like adventure about the everlasting gifts of friendship and wonder. Today, I want to introduce you to the book and to the man who wrote it. I'm Sarah Mackenzie. Welcome to the Read-Aloud Revival. Jonathan (01:59): Charlie was sitting on the edge of Nan's bed just as she had left him that morning. For all she knew, he had been waiting in that spot the whole time. "Can you read me a story?" He was holding a book of English tales, which included Jack the Giant Killer, Tom Thumb, and The Wee Bannock. It was the only proper story book in the house. And he had been asking Nan to read it over and over for weeks. The Wee Bannock was his favorite, but it also troubled him. It was about a sort of cookie man who came to life and ran away to escape being eaten. Charlie was convinced that The Wee Bannock was a Gollum like him. "Why would all those animals and people want to hurt him?" He would always ask at the end. "I'm tired of that book," Nan said unwrapping her muffler "And my hands are too sore to turn the pages." (02:43): "Oh", Charlie said, and then "I will turn the pages for you. I will be very careful not to rip them." Nan rolled over and looked at him. She wanted more than anything in the world to go to sleep. But there was something in Charlie's face that checked her response. She thought about Toby's question, what sort of life was she giving Charlie cooped up in this empty house? She pulled herself up. "I think it's time we taught you to read." Charlie's eyes went wide. "Will it hurt very much?" "Of course not." Then she added, "But it might give you a headache." Nan and Charlie went to the study, which seemed like the right place for a lesson. "Just think when we're done, you can read any of these books" she told him. "I thought these books were dulled" Charlie said. "Well, they are" Nan said, "But you can still read them." (03:35): She found some books filled with nautical charts, which she decided would make excellent scrap paper. "Before you can read, I need to teach you to spell" she said. "Oh yes," Charlie said, "I know about spells. Spells are magic that witches and fairies do." "Let's start with the letter A," Nan said. She took a bit of chalk and wrote A on a piece of paper. "Now you try it." Charlie put his finger to another sheet of paper and traced out an A of his own. His lines were clumsy and his first two tries ended in failure. "It's okay" she said, giving him another sheet, "Take your time." This is what the Sweep had always said to her when she was learning something new. Most adults were impatient with children, snapping at them to hurry. But the Sweep had been different with Nan. He would say, "Take your time" over and over for as long as it took to get a thing done. He said it so much that you couldn't help, but take your time. (04:34): At last, Charlie finished an A that looked something like Nan's. "The letter A makes the sound, ah," she explained. "It does" Charlie's eyes went wide. "How wonderful," he leaned very close to the paper and pressed the side of his head against it. 'What are you doing?" Nan asked. "Shh" he said, "I want to hear it make the sound ah." Nan tried to explain "The letter doesn't make a real sound. You just hear the sound in your head when you look at it. The words happen inside of you." "Oh, now I understand" Charlie said nodding. "Words are feelings." Nan sighed. She wondered if it had been this hard for the Sweep when he taught her about letters for the first time, maybe we should try again in the morning. Sarah (05:27): That was Jonathan Auxier, the author of Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster. You hear me tell about lots of books I love on this podcast. So, when I find a book that I love with a capital L, a book I think should win all the awards, that should live on every bookshelf, that has the ability to impact just about every soul. It's hard for me to figure out a way to share just what I mean when I say this book is different, but this one it is okay. Now you may know Jonathan Auxier from some of the other books he's written. Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, The Midnight Gardener, the Fabled Stables. We'll talk about some of these later for now. Let's hear from Jonathan Auxier about writing Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster. Jonathan (06:23): Sweep took almost 15 years from the kind of initial ideas to actually having the story written. There were three main threads that helped form the story. The first little thread to the story happened when I was in university and I briefly got to take a trip with my father out to Prague, and it was magical and wonderful. And while I was wandering through the beautiful city of Prague, I discovered Gollums. I had kind of heard about them because I was someone who was a little nerdy and followed fantasy. And if fantasy literature, Gollums are kind of a stock creature, kids today, actually know Gollums a lot more than I think people in earlier generations like mine. And I had always known them as sort of the original Frankenstein's monster. These creatures made of mutter clay who come to life and kind of are unthinking servants of their masters. But it wasn't until I got to Prague that I learned kind of the most significant canonical story, which is about the Gollum of Prague. (07:19): It's a beautiful story, there are many different kind of variations on it. But the fundamental idea that I didn't know about was that this creature was created as a sort of hero and protector for people who couldn't protect themselves. I was really deeply affected by that and I was really compelled by that about the weight of that story, of that creature. And also the creature itself, I loved the idea that you could create something in the shape of a human and speak a word and bring it to life. And I thought, why not clay? Why not do you know some other substance? And som I'd spend years and years doodling and drawing in various notebooks and journals, different kinds of Gollums made out of different weird substances. Now, here's a Gollum made of barbed wire or here's a Gollum made of cotton candy. And just- (08:03): ... a gollum made of barbwire or here's a gollum made of cotton candy, and just being silly and playing but the more I did that the more I thought that there was a story. I was interested in that creature and the meaning of this creature who's been created to be a protector. I'm also always very drawn to kind of gentle giant figures. I was a very large lumbering kid, who -- I was also kind of a little bit timid. Everyone assumed I played football, I really don't like being jostled. I was the opposite in temperament from a linebacker, even though I was an extremely large kid, and so I think I have a soft spot for those sorts of figures. So that was the first thread. (08:43): This is a book about chimney sweeps and specifically what we call climbers, often climbing boys, and these were the children who worked for chimney sweeps. It's nothing like Mary Poppins, they didn't have those brushes that go up, the chimney sweeps. And adults, who we called sweeps or master sweeps, didn't actually do the work because the flues were too small and so they had to use children, for hundreds of years. It's on record as arguably one of the most dangerous jobs in human existence. For hundreds of years, certain people, activists, people with a mind toward justice, were trying to reform this and change the system but people, sort of through inertia, and laziness, and some of them through greed, it just didn't change for years, and years, and years. (09:24): And the more I started learning about the history of these children and just how horrible it was, it really was a really dark period to read about, and that kind of sent me down this rabbit trail where I suddenly was reading a ton about this. And once you become invested in the world of chimney sweeps you become invested in the history of Victorian London and that legacy. I wanted to tell a story about this girl, Nan, who was the little climber forming in my mind. She needed a miracle of some kind and I realized what would be better for a kid like that than a protector? And that was sort of the moment where Sweep kind of came together because now I have this chimney Sweep and now I have this gollum. (10:01): And the last surprise for this story was for the longest time I thought the gollum would kind of emerge fully formed as this hero and champion. It was going to be about a kid and her protector. And it wasn't until several years into struggling with this book that I became a father. I had three young kids, quickly in succession. And as I was going through the experience of raising little humans, and they're so weak, and timid, and curious, and exhausting in the beginning, I realized that the last thing that the story had been missing was actually maybe this idea that when this gollum first comes to Nan, when Nan first meets Charlie, she doesn't meet him as this fully formed big, heroic monster but she meets him as this newborn little creature made out of just a little lump of coal. And it's her job to raise him and teach him about the world. Sarah (10:56): Now you must understand Charlie, our gollum, is no ordinary creature. He's a character that sort of just lives with you after you meet him on the page. In fact, I asked RAR Premium members to tell me about their favorite character from this book. Every single person who did named Charlie. Colby (11:20): Hi, I am Colby. I am nine and I live in Florida. I would like to say that my favorite character in the book is Charlie and he is very funny. Jodie (11:34): My name is Jodie and I'm a mama here in Florida. I really enjoy Sweep because it pulls at all my emotions and my nine year old really enjoys listening to the audio book. I have a favorite character, it's Charlie. I enjoy his innocence and his openness, and his unselfish nature. Collin (11:57): Hi, my name is Collin. I am 11 years old and I am from Chelsea, Alabama. One funny thing I remember about Sweep is how Nan tried to give Charlie an antler and all he said was, "Ow." Bye. Elijah (12:15): Hi, I'm Elijah. I am 11 years old and I live in Vermont. My favorite part of Sweep is when Charlie is making the Quiet Room. Sarah (12:27): By the end of the month the captain's house was properly turned out and they set to reorganizing. "We need to make this place our very own," she explained. The house was so big that they could make a room for everything. They had a tantrum room filled with cushions and pillows; a dress up room full of capes, hats, and regalia; a banging pots and pans room, self-explanatory; an inventing room; a gauntlet, which is where Nan made mazes for Charlie to roll through; and a rubbish room, which they had to stop using because the smell of the food scraps became so bad. Nan named all the rooms except for one. Charlie had requested that he do one room all by himself. "Do not peek on it," he said to her. "I want the room to be a surprise." (13:24): Nan had said he could use the attic, which was enormous and crammed full of unused furniture that she was too lazy to sort. Charlie spent several days working on his room. Nan would hear occasional crashing sounds as pieces of furniture tumbled down the staircase. She had no idea how a creature without arms and legs could move furniture. Perhaps Charlie was stronger than she realized. At last he came to her with an announcement. "I have finished with my room," he said. Nan followed him up to the attic. The climb was difficult, on account of the stairway being full of broken furniture. She opened the door, and stepped inside and looked around. "What do you think," Charlie asked? "I ..." Nan did not know what to say. "It's enormous." "I will call it the Nothing Room," he said, "because it is full of nothing." (14:20): This was true. Every piece of furniture, and every trunk, and every crate and cobweb was gone. All that remained was a grove of chimney stacks stretching from floor to ceiling like brick tree trunks. Nan nodded, "That is a good name." She hesitated, "What is it for?" Charlie took a deep breath, "For being quiet and things like that." Nan sat down next to him, "A nothing room is just what this house needed." Charlie got so warm his head smoldered, he was that proud. Nan and Charlie stayed in the room all through the afternoon, and into the night, just being quiet and things like that. (15:13): Oh Charlie. Okay, so let's talk about the book itself. Not the story but the actual thing you hold in your hands. As you know here at Read-Aloud Revival we are keen to pay attention to the way a book itself is made, how it feels in your hands. That's why we put such a strong emphasis on both beautiful illustrations but also on book design; on well-made book construction; on excellent typography; and on those glorious, glorious papers that are pasted to the front and back cardboard of the cover. Those are the end papers. And they serve as a kind of opening and closing curtain to a story. Jonathan Auxier, in fact, illustrated the end papers of Sweep. Jonathan (15:59): I wanted to kind of represent that space because so much of the book was about moving through those -- (16:03): Wanted to kind of represent that space because so much of the book was about moving through those spaces. That was really where I found so much of the story. When the book finally came out, I was like "Can I put a map in the book?" I don't even care about maps. Actually, I don't pay attention to them and like Lord of the Rings and stuff. But this was the one case where I was pretty nerdy about a map. I'm like "I think everyone show people where places are, so they can get a sense of where Nan's going, if they care." Sarah (16:26): The end papers are indeed a map of Nan and Charlie's streets of London. Your kids can spend some time there perusing these. There's something else going on here too. If you hold Sweep in your hands, you'll notice that the edges of the pages are uneven. I'm always curious when books do that, why do they do it? I didn't know those pages had a name, but of course they do. Jonathan told me what they're called and why he wanted them. Jonathan (16:53): Those are called deckled or beveled edges. Here's a book nerd thing. You've all held books that kind of have that. Well, those old rough pages and they look great. That's a simulation. It's actually not... It's a totally artificial little tweak today, but it came from the way books used to be published and distributed where it used to be every 20 or 40 pages, I guess, they would be folded over. When you bought a brand new book, the pages were sealed shut, because they were attached to each other. Page one would fold and become page 40. Page two would become page 38 and onward and onward. It's maybe hard to describe visually, but basically there was a specific type of knife that any book owner owned. (17:34): When you bought a brand new book, you couldn't read it. You couldn't flip through the pages because they were all bound together on the outside of the book and you had to take your knife and slice up the pages to open them up. This is why those old books have those rough edges. The reason they're angled the way they are is because those are what they call the signatures or the quires, which is why I named my character, Sophie Quire. That's the way they attach. Sarah (18:03): What was it like to write this book? Well, there's only one way to know and it's something we do on the regular around here. We ask the author. Jonathan (18:13): I am glacially, slow pivoting between projects. Part of that means I have to be extremely careful how much I take on, because if I start bouncing between things, I don't actually get anything done. I just mess around in each idea, but I don't actually move it to toward its conclusion. With Sweep, I started making my first real attempts to write it probably in 2007. I did about six or eight months writing that book. I probably got about 90 pages and they were fine, but they were wrong. They were wrong because I was basically doing a lighthearted, cute fantasy romp about child labor or in the backdrop of child labor. I realized I needed to do more research. I put that book aside, wrote another book, but the whole time I was researching chimney sweeps. (19:06): I must have... That process, I probably rinsed and repeated five or six times and every single time, the new draft had some interesting ideas in it and it was an abject failure. Then at some point after a couple of years of this, I finally wrote the first five pages of Sweep. It was almost like a short fable called The Girl and Her Sweep. Nan's youngest memory of being cared for by someone, the man who raised her and then disappeared when she was six years old. I wrote it, I was like "This is the book." I was like "I am not a good enough writer to write the rest of the story." (19:38): I put it in a drawer for several more years, until finally I felt like I had learned enough as a writer. I had grown as a human being. I now had kids of my own. I now had things I felt like I could say about that experience of caring for someone who you might not be able to protect. Probably all told, wrote about 2,000 pages, maybe 3,000 pages even to get to the book we finally have. It wasn't changing commas and spelling. It was complete reimaginings of the story and the world and the characters and the themes. (20:17): Being a parent has changed me so dramatically. Again, I mentioned before I wrote the first five pages of Sweep and they finally felt right and I felt like I was not up to the challenge of continuing the story that was started in those first pages. It was the process of becoming a parent, the growth and the change that went inside me, and some of it's aspirational. I think you could extrapolate from my books that I'm a much better parent than I am, but I'm a flawed human being. I get grumpy. I do my best. I think my kids think they have a pretty cool dad, but I'm just an ordinary person. But these books are often a way to teach myself how to be a better parent, better husband, a better neighbor and just a better human being. I've used these books as not just therapy, but almost sitting forth lessons for myself. Sarah (21:04): Jonathan is in fact, a husband and a father of three. I mentioned earlier that he's the author of many books. That includes a newer collection that I've been recommending like crazy. It's a trilogy called the Fabled Stables. It includes Willa the Wisp, The Trouble with Tattle-Tails and Belly of the Beast. Jonathan (21:24): Fabled Stables came out of my experience as a parent. I have three young girls they're all two years apart. I think a lot of people with multiple kids really want to just do one read aloud for bedtime. But when you've got a really wiggly three year old, and then a sort of a smarty-alecky nine year old, you know what's going to hold the nine year old's attention and what's hold the three year old's attention, totally different things, usually. Then once in a while, there's some manna in the desert. For me, Princess in Black is that series, all day long. I adore those books and I adore them because it is a really low word count per page. You're getting a picture book experience for your young reader, but the story is more complicated. There's an A plot and a B plot, and there's callbacks, and the language is more complicated. (22:06): Picture books often have really complicated, interesting language. I didn't want to sacrifice that. Exactly as you're saying all of those things, and I will say that there was a little bit of a... Battle's a strong word, but there was a process in which I had to basically educate my publisher about the actual book I was trying to create. Explaining to my publisher, they heard the story and they're like "Oh, this sounds like a great chapter book series. Each one will be 20,000 words." I'm like "No, no, no, no, no. Each one has to be able to be read comfortably in a single sitting, 15 to 20 minutes." (22:41): Chapter one: At the top of the world, sat an island, and at the heart of that island lived boy named Auggie. Everyone's good at something. Auggie was good at caring for animals. Wherever he went, turtles peeked from their shells, birds hopped closer, and worms wiggled up from the ground. In most ways, Auggie was just like other children, except for one thing. Auggie had a job, and most jobs are boring, grown up things, but not Auggie's job. Auggie worked at the Fabled Stables. The Fabled Stables looked very small from the outside, but on the inside, they were filled with one of a kind creatures. Some were magical, some were mysterious. Some were just plain weird. (23:23): Auggie marched between the stalls, and he sang "Come big, come small, come breakfast for all," and the hungry herd rushed to meet him. Now animals can be picky eaters, but luckily Auggie had a magical horn of plenty. All he had to do was reach inside and pull out the exact food that each beast loved best. So he fed the hippopotamouse, and the Bush squid, and the long beaked curmudgeon, and the yawning abyss. Auggie loved his amazing beasts and they loved him right back. Now, they didn't stop a few from trying to eat him, but just like each of these creatures, Auggie was one of a kind. He was the only boy on the island, and even the best job in the world can get lonely without a friend. So, that's a little- (24:03): Can get lonely without a friend. So that's a little peak into the Fabled Stables. It's about these magical stables packed full of these one of a kind creatures, and the little boy Auggie who cares for all of them. And every once in a while, the stables will shake and shutter and twist and sputter. And when the dust clears, Auggie will find a brand new stall that is empty, but for a sign over the head, which has the name of a brand new, one of a kind creature. And it's Auggie's job to venture out into the wide world, find that creature and bring it back to the safety of the stables. Sarah (24:34): The Fabled Stables series is a really fantastic read aloud if you have a wide range of ages, especially let's say ages three to 12 or so. I think there's something in the books for all of those ages. They're really great on audio, but I will say you're kind of missing something if you miss the illustrations by Olga Demidova. So don't miss those. Like Jonathan said, they are full color. Every page has an illustration. They're like a novel length picture book. What could be better? Okay. So what's next for Jonathan Auxier? Jonathan (25:09): I am in the middle of writing a third Peter Nimble adventure. This follows Peter Nimble and Sophie Quire on going on that huge new epic adventure. But I thought I ended that story. I was never going to go back, and I got so much overwhelming feedback from readers, kids who would show up in a signing line. They've read the book 10, 12 times, and it's tattered to bits. That kind of sparked within me this thought of like, 'Well, what would I do if I wanted to give these specific kids who love this book in this really humbling and beautiful way, more story? What could I do?" And Sophie Quire was born out of that. I loved that book. I love the character, Sophie. I really couldn't get enough of writing her. She was in many ways, a tribute to the woman that I'm married to and the kind of sensibility and personality of my wife Mary. (25:51): And after actually the very first time I visited your podcast and it was you and your daughter, and we were talking about Peter and Sophie. And if I recall, she was really excited about Sophie Quire, which meant a lot to me. And since that appearance, the number of Read-Aloud Revival readers, who will show up at public events, library events, things like this, they are just really amazing people. Awesome kids who read a ton, are super cool to talk to, and they are really, really excited about these stories. And that was one of the large pieces of the puzzle that made me realize I can't leave those kids hanging. So it's taken me a little while to wrap my brain around how to do that. But now I am in the swing of things. I'm deep in the middle of it. It's going to be swashbuckling and gnarly magic and monsters. And it's amazing how basically these books have all kind of woven together, and that's been really fun. A fun space to play in. Sarah (26:40): Yep. Kids who read a ton are super cool. That's not an exaggeration. Malie (26:47): Hi, my name is Malie and I'm 13 years old from Kentucky. My favorite part of Sweep is when Dent is showing Nan his nest which is in Charlie's arms. It shows the cycle of life and death perfectly, past life, nurturing, future life. Monica (26:58): Hello, my name is Monica. I'm 13. I live in Indiana. And really cool thing about Sweep is that it made me cry. The first time I read it, I think I cried during the part where Charlie heals Nan, and then I think it might have been the third time I read it, I cried during the part where they're talking about how the Sweep died. So it's really cool that it was so good it made me cry. And I think Sweep is an amazing book. Charles (27:33): Hello. My name is Charles. I'm 15 years old from Indiana. Some of the things I liked about Sweep were the historical context and the poetry. I love history, and it's always impressive when an author can bring to life a time period, other than their own, because of how much research has to go into it. I think Jonathan Auxier did this very well in Sweep. I especially liked the information and knowledge about the chimney sweeps' or climbing boys' plight, and think it is a great book. Sarah (28:08): And the best thing about books is that they get even better when they're shared. Marcie (28:14): Hello, my name is Marcie Maloney from South Dakota, and I wanted to share about my 10 year old and I reading Sweep. Last fall. We homeschool, and though my 10 year old loves lots of things, it's not always school. Things get tense and tempers flare, and sometimes it's hard to have those cozy, loving moments together, but then we read Sweep together aloud this fall, and she read a chapter, and then I read a few, and then we read a few by ourselves, and she absolutely loved the story as did I. And it was my second time through. We snuggle close every day, and I'll never forget reading the last two chapters out loud together on a bed, in our cabin, in the woods. We just had to finish it. Jonathan (29:04): I love words. I like looking at them. I like the sounds of them. It's not even a question of whether I'm good at wielding them, but I just like being around them. I want all of my books to make kids feel proud of being children, the state of childhood. I want to ennoble it and celebrate it. Sarah (29:24): Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster. It's our family book club selection at RAR Premium. And we'd love to read it with you. You'll get our 20 page family book club guide to use with your kids from about age eight up through high school, including open ended discussion prompts, shared experiences, poetry, history, and geography connections and ideas for prompting your older students, your high schoolers, to read upstream and to use the books that formed Jonathan Auxier's writing or that show up in the book through the story as a way to think and discuss and write about the ideas they're encountering. (29:58): Your kids will also get to meet Jonathan Auxier himself in a live Zoom, where they can ask their own questions and get them answered. As you already know by now, he's pretty fabulous. But what you can't see on this podcast is that he does a mean yo-yo, and you can see it when he comes visit us live on Zoom. (30:15): Jonathan also has taught a couple of Wow Writers on writing workshops for us, which our kids can access in RAR Premium. One is on keeping a writer's notebook. You can see inside Jonathan's own writer's notebook during that workshop. And he gives them tips for coming up with ideas and what to save in a notebook. And then another workshop is called What Happens Next? This one might be one of our member favorites. It's one of my own favorite workshops. It will help any writer, you or your kids, get clear on the structure of a story and the way stories work. And also a stop by Jonathan, so it's a lot of fun. (30:51): To get any of this go to RARPremium.com. We'd love to read Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster with you. Thanks for listening. This episode was written and narrated by me and produced by the team at Yellow House Media. I'll be back in two weeks with another episode here at Read-Aloud Revival. Until then go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books.