Pilgrims had streamed to the Vatican all week, to say goodbye to John Paul II. On Friday, here on Queen Anne Hill where I met with author Sarah Gerdes, our visit at first seemed unrelated to those extraordinary events in Rome.
Gerdes, a tall, lovely woman, full of enthusiasm, has written "Catacombs and the Lava Bed Forest," an adventure-fantasy for children. As she described it, her road toward the book unfolded like a pilgrimage -- not from one physical place to another, but from a successful, not wholly satisfying way of life to one closer to her heart's values.
Gerdes thinks kids today are "fed pulp fiction, entertaining but fleeting, that leaves them empty. I wanted to write something that lifts children, so they feel more hopeful and positive about all the forces out there."
With "Catacombs" she has succeeded. I forced myself to read slowly and absorb the details, because the story's momentum carried me along. For parents seeking summer kid lit, the book is ideal.
Although Gerdes had already written books for adults, and as a mother knows firsthand about the generation growing up today, her pilgrimage to "Catacombs" went through fears, doubts and temptations.
She first thought of writing a book for children four years ago. But she had her own business with many employees. McGraw Hill had been after her to write a business book, so she did that; "Navigating the Partnership Maze" came out in 2002. It has done pretty well, being available in 16 countries and even translated into Chinese.
She took a break. Again came the idea or, as Gerdes calls it, a prompting: "I need to write this book."
Fears and doubts invaded. She talked herself out of it again and wrote an adult fiction book. The 700 pages needed tightening, but her agent and editor loved it. A top agent expressed interest, and there was talk of a book and movie deal.
An opportunity for which many writers strive called out. Yet -- "It did not feel right," Gerdes said.
She continued to question the best choice. Her husband suggested, "You need to go with your feelings."
She realized she needed to write the children's book. Since she had already been doing the research, she now wove the many layers -- history, geology, myth and fantasy -- into an Indiana Jones-style adventure.
The history and geology came out of her childhood, when her family settled for a time near Medicine Lake in Oregon. Sarah loved to sit by the lake, on a former volcano's rim. She explored the catacombs beneath, experienced the fear of getting lost and hid in places where the Modoc Tribe had hidden when they fought the Klamath Indians.
Years later she took her own son to the catacombs, saw the strong impression they made on him, and thought to do more research and set a story in the area. "Catacombs" opens there, when the twins Almore and Mia watch their father, a volcano expert, vanish into a lava wall.
The mythical elements come from Gerdes' fascination with histories, beliefs and artifacts of different cultures. Because her parents moved often, they took her from Costa Rica to Honduras to Florida, and she experienced the rich heritage of other places.
The twins find a metal orb in a backpack left by their father. The orb's energy awakens only when the twins communicate respectfully to forces of nature like the catacombs. Through the magical orb, they travel in search of their father back in time to when the Modoc Tribe hid out from the Klamath. The twins fight evil and learn to use the volcano's power, a power that can help humankind.
A magic globe that transmits one through time seemed, on that Friday after the Pope's funeral mass, no stranger than the box called the TV, through which the world entered an ancient city and medieval ceremony. As good Catholics, bad Catholics, people of other faiths and people of no faith honored a man who had lived holy ideals, "Catacombs" fit with an odd synchronicity.
Gerdes does not think about "Catacombs" as a spiritual book, yet it comes from her sense that "we all have a spirit within us. It manifests in cultures and in people, in different expressions.
"All these culture," Gerdes said, "have an experience of the Great White Spirit, a radiant spirit coming down. From Mesopotamia to Asia and the Pacific islands, cultures relate a similar experience."
She is no theology expert, and only tried to put such a common human experience in a simple way, she said. "Children may not understand the symbolism, but they absorb it as they enjoy the book, while the question behind the story lingers: where does our insight come from?"
She thinks the message is there for the reader to listen to his or her own inner spirit. Which is exactly what Gerdes, initially offered a dazzling contract for adult fiction, did to write her book for kids.
She could have published following the normal route, but her agent said it would take 15 to 24 months. She decided to self-publish. She took time off work, did the marketing and her book sold 1,000 copies in a couple of months. Recently she signed with the Peter Rubie Agency.
She finds the change from writing books on business exhilarating. She used to speak to grownups in ballrooms about the hard-core problems of driving business and revenue.
"It's temporal," Gerdes said. "I've taken enough of a beating to see that."
Now she works with children. "You need to be right in the moment," she said. The work is meaningful, and she feels it is a privilege. She gets e-mails from students, teachers and parents, and cited one from Medina Elementary School. The principal had asked students to describe what they are learning; some wrote that the Sarah Gerdes book is their inspiration for writing.
She did not target a specific age group, but the tale meets needs of 8- to 11-year-olds, for whom there are too few good books. The timing is salutary: the 25th anniversary of Mount St. Helens' eruption will be May 18. Also, Washington state third-graders study volcanoes and geology, while fourth-graders learn Native American history.
"If I had planned it, I couldn't have done it better," Sarah laughed. "I would probably have ruined the whole thing."
She is excited about the next book, set in 15th-century China, where the twins meet a teenage Emperor and Empress, real historical figures whose disappearance remains a mystery: did they die in a fire or disguise themselves as nuns and escape?[[In-content Ad]]
