It happens every August and September. Kids go back to school and I look for a new purse. Not just any purse. One big enough to hold books, projects, pens. It has to have lots of pockets. It should probably be green. I’ve been on this annual hunt every fall since 1989.
A recent email from a reader made me realize I’m not really looking for the perfect purse. Nor do I want to carry the pocketbook I had when I was five that became the basis for my 1993 picture book, The Big Green Pocketbook. It’s something else entirely.
The story behind the picture book truly began when my father left my mother, my older sister, and me, still a baby. We moved in with my aunt and uncle, a form of homelessness called “piling in with kin.” In the early 1950s, there were no women’s shelters, only reluctant, begrudging relatives. Space, money, and patience were in short supply.
We were confined in a small bedroom that contained a double bed for my sister and mother. I slept in (and often stayed in all day) a crib. A dresser crammed against my crib held our few belongings. One night, my father backed up a truck to our former house and took all the furniture and nice things my parents had during their marriage. The bank foreclosed on our old house. We were left with next to nothing.
When I turned five, my mother remarried and we moved to a new house in the country. Everything in the house was new, too, yet some mysterious items appeared: an aqua tulle ballerina-length dress stiff with crinolines, a rhinestone necklace studded with “emeralds” and … a green pocketbook with a gold clasp that made a satisfying click when closed.
I played dress-up in the aqua gown, draping the rhinestone necklace over my head like a tiara. These fancy things seemed at odds with the mother who worked long hours at a job while my sister and I were at our aunt’s mercy, the mother who now labored in a huge garden and canned tomatoes in August heat, who owned homemade dresses and one black pocketbook. As I swished around, the crinolines whispered of smoky nightclubs and the rhinestone emeralds spoke of long-ago parties. A life before.
My stepfather drove our only car to work, so my mother took the Trailways bus to run errands.
I went, too, but insisted on carrying a pocketbook like hers. She gave me her old green pocketbook, out of style and impractical, but just right for me. I carried it over my arm, elbow crooked. In town, I collected small mementoes from our day: tickets, a lollipop, and other trinkets. And then I left my pocketbook on the bus on the way home. I was devastated.
My mother called the Trailways station in Washington, D.C. and asked if a green pocketbook had been found on the Manassas run. The next day, the Trailways driver stopped on the highway and put my pocketbook in our mailbox. I never forgot his kindness.
I grew up, married, and became a writer of children’s books. In 1987, my stepfather died. In 1988, I wrote my first picture book, The Big Green Pocketbook. I wanted to recreate a happy time my mother and I shared, so I put us in the story. I sent it to an editor who stated my story was “too quiet.” I sent it next to Harper & Row, then forgot about it. My mother was ill.
On my way to the hospital in April 1989, I found a big brown envelope from Harper & Row in my mail. Sigh. Another rejection. In tiny letters across the top someone had written: Not a rejection. Inside was a letter from editor Laura Geringer, who thought my story was “charming, perfect for a very young picturebook [sic].” She asked for easy, minor changes.
Well-known Felicia Bond agreed to illustrate my story. The book came out four years later, worth the wait. Felicia’s cheerful illustrations lifted my simple story and my still-aching heart, for my mother had died shortly after my story was acquired. Whenever I open the cover, my mother and my five-year-old self take that bus to town again.
The book has been continuously in print for 31 years, deemed a classic at 25. You can’t sit down and write a classic. The making of a classic book is entirely in the hands of readers. The Big Green Pocketbook was a Book of the Month Club Selection. It was the lead title in Harper & Row’s Spring/Summer 1993 catalog. The publisher printed a poster featuring Felicia Bond’s characters — and my little girl — sitting at my book’s drugstore lunch counter.
This fall, like so many since 1989, I’ve haunted TJ Maxx and Marshalls and scrolled hours on Amazon, searching for the perfect purse. No, not that tote. That bag has pockets but it’s not green. I rummaged through my stack of backpacks, purses, and totes. None suit.
Then a reader sent me an email. As a young child, she had (most likely) a first edition of my book, which remained high on the list for nightly reading. Like the girl in my book, this girl stuffed her own little pocketbook with treasures. And, the grown-up reader now admitted, she still does. Each night, she reads The Big Green Pocketbook to her young daughter, who has begun her own pocketbook-stuffing ritual.
As I read this sweet message, I smiled. At the end, though, I started to cry. Something inside cracked wide open. In the book, the little girl is bereft when she leaves her pocketbook on the bus. The girl’s mother offers her another purse. But I don’t want her straw purse. I want my big green pocketbook. My whole morning is in my big green pocketbook, and now it’s lost.
After all these years it finally occurred to me that I want not just one morning back, but all the mornings and evenings, the summers and winters, the Halloweens and Christmases, the first days of school and the last day my sister lived at home. I want all those memories back, even the boring ones, to keep safe and tight in my green pocketbook.
I can stop my futile hunt now. It’s a relief, really. As the last person in my little family, there will be no new family memories to put in any pocketbook. I still have my mother’s old empty purse and her tarnished rhinestone necklace. If I listen very hard, I can hear the whisper of aqua crinolines. A life before.
Hearing the story behind the story THE BIG GREEN POCKETBOOK makes me want to cry, too. Thank you for this insight into your story, and for adding a whole new layer to reading it.
Hi David: I never realized myself for over 30 years why I wrote that book. It was meant to be a little story about a mother and daughter on a day out. A reader made me understand it was so much more. Thanks for reading!
Candice, thank you for sharing such a personal story. I’m in tears for the bittersweet meaning of both your book and your pocketbook hunt. Isn’t it strange how long it can take us to realize exactly what pieces of ourselves and our lives we’ve put into our stories…
Laura, You are exactly right. Some stories we write we know exactly our intent, it’s for ourselves or just to share something we feel kids should know. I remember being dismayed when the entire school system in Montgomery County Maryland adopted that book to teach economics to second graders. My sweet little girl teaching dollars and cents? But however readers got the book, it’s all good. Thanks for commenting!