Not-Just-Anybody Family (13 page)

He leapt up the bank and shook himself. Drops of water hit Maggie and Vern, and they turned their faces out of the way. Mud rolled in the grass. He got up, shook himself, rolled again.

Pap stepped out of the creek with the aid of a small tree. Pap used trees like walking sticks. He pulled himself up the bank.

He said, “Vern, I noticed a lot of beer and pop cans when I was riding into town. After lunch, what say we go pick them up?”

“Fine with me,” Vern said.

“Well.” Pap straightened. “Let’s go up to the house and see if we smell good enough to be allowed inside.”

And with Mud leading the way, the Blossoms headed for home.

All about the Blossoms in …

The Not-Just-Anybody Family

and more!

Discussion Questions

An Interview with Betsy Byars

1. Describe the Blossom family. What are the unique traits of Vern, Maggie, Junior, and Pap?

2. Why do the Blossom children run when the police come to the house after Pap is arrested? Discuss whether their view of the police changes by the end of the novel.

3. Why is Pap so surprised by his arrest?

4. The Blossom children have been instructed to call their mom only if an emergency occurs. Discuss Vern’s definition of an emergency.

5. The Blossoms are so busy trying to break into jail that they forget about Mud, Pap’s dog. What evidence is there that Mud misses Pap?

6. Maggie calls Vern a hero. How do his heroic actions help the entire Blossom family?

7. Discuss Junior’s reaction to Ralphie. Why can’t Junior see through Ralphie’s wild hospital stories?

8. Explain how Ralphie works his way into the Blossom family.

9. Discuss how the Blossoms deal with their fame. How does their mom react when she reads about them in the newspaper?

10. Maggie tells Ralphie, “We Blossoms have never been just ‘anybody’ ” (p. 117). How do the police, the judge, Ralphie, and the entire town realize this after Pap’s trial?

Prepared by Pat Scales, retired school librarian and independent consultant, Greenville, South Carolina.

You’ve written more than sixty books! Where do you get your ideas?

What an author does to make an idea work is a lot more interesting to me than where it came from. Here’s what I do: First I get rid of the parents. Then I pick my main characters—either two girls and a boy or two boys and a girl. This book will take place in two or three days so I’ve got to start with action, maybe put one of the characters in danger. Hmmm … how about the smallest boy—Junior.

Where did you get the idea for the very first book about the Blossom family?

My idea for the first Blossom book was this. I would take this wonderful, close-knit family and split them up so nobody knew where anybody else was. It would be like a big, crazy game of hide-and-seek. Then I would bring them back together again.

Did you ever have a pet like Mud? Do you have any pets now?

I never had a dog like Mud except in my imagination. I have two dogs now—May and Pearl. They like to ride in my pickup with me, but they never ride in the back like Mud.

Are any of your children like the Blossom children?

My kids do share some traits with the Blossom children. They were adventuresome, fearless, and liked to invent things. Also, I could never predict what they would do next.

Where do you live?

I now live in South Carolina on an airstrip. The basement of our house is a hangar, so we can just taxi out in our airplane and take off—almost from our front yard.

Happy landings, everybody!

Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning author of more than sixty books for children and young adults, including
The Summer of the Swans
(1970), which earned the prestigious Newbery Medal. Byars also received the National Book Award for
The Night Swimmers
(1980) and an Edgar Award for
Wanted … Mud Blossom
(1991), among many other accolades. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she has fans all over the world.

Byars was born Betsy Cromer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father, George, was a manager at a cotton mill and her mother, Nan, was a homemaker. As a child, Betsy showed no strong interest in writing but had a deep love of animals and sense of adventure. She and her friends ran a backyard zoo that starred “trained cicadas,” box turtles, leeches, and other animals they found in nearby woods. She also claims to have ridden the world’s first skateboard, after neighborhood kids took the wheels off a roller skate and nailed them to a plank of wood.

After high school, Byars began studying mathematics at Furman University, but she soon switched to English and transferred to Queens College in Charlotte, where she began writing. She also met Edward Ford Byars, an engineering graduate student from Clemson University, whom she would marry after she graduated in 1950.

Between 1951 and 1956 Byars had three daughters—Laurie, Betsy, and Nan. While raising her family, Byars began submitting stories to magazines, including the
Saturday Evening Post
and
Look
. Her success in publishing warm, funny stories in national magazines led her to consider writing a book. Her son, Guy, was born in 1959, the same year she finished her first manuscript. After several rejections,
Clementine
(1962), a children’s story about a dragon made out of a sock, was published.

Following
Clementine
, Byars released a string of popular children’s and young adult titles including
The Summer of the Swans
, which earned her the Newbery Medal. She continued to build on her early success through the following decades with award-winning titles such as
The Eighteenth Emergency
(1973),
The Night Swimmers
, the popular Bingo Brown series, and the Blossom Family series. Many of Byars’s stories describe children and young adults with quirky families who are trying to find their own way in the world. Others address problems young people have with school, bullies, romance, or the loss of close family members. Byars has also collaborated with daughters Betsy and Laurie on children’s titles such as
My Dog, My Hero
(2000).

Aside from writing, Byars continues to live adventurously. Her husband, Ed, has been a pilot since his student days, and Byars obtained her own pilot’s license in 1983. The couple lives on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina. Their home is built over a hangar and the two pilots can taxi out and take off almost from their front yard.

Byars (bottom left) at age five, with her mother and her older sister, Nancy.

A teenage Byars (left) and her sister, Nancy, on the dock of their father’s boat, which he named
NanaBet
for Betsy and Nancy.

Byars at age twenty, hanging out with friends at Queens College in 1948.

Byars and her new husband, Ed, coming up the aisle on their wedding day in June 1950.

Byars and Ed with their daughters Laurie and Betsy in 1955. The family lived for two years in one of these barracks apartments while Ed got a degree at the University of Illinois and Byars started writing.

Byars with her children Nan and Guy, circa 1958.