Laughter Is Great Medicine

Newbery Honor Medalist Joan Bauer credits laughter for her success as an author for teens. “Everyday I need to laugh,” she said at the BYU Symposium of Books for Young Readers in 2007.

Being able to laugh not only gave Bauer a great career, it literally saved her life. Before her first novel (Squashed) was even a dream, Bauer was poised to become a screenwriter, and then a car accident occurred and the resulting long-term pain took over her life. Eventually, she learned to laugh, wrote the novel, and a new career was born. According to Bauer, “Laughter changes people. How do they get through hard times? One step at a time.” And her characters do the same, just like she did.

Speaking not only to readers, but also to authors, she asked, “When does a book begin? I don’t know—memories—things get inside you.” An idea kernel appears, and those who listen, can begin to write. Although a book begins with the author, she said it soon becomes everyone else’s, meaning that first the characters take over, then eventually the reading public makes the book their own.

Bauer spoke fondly of “those days when nothing could deter me from writing.” The tragedy of 9/11 struck her deeply. She was moving into a new home that day near the twin towers, a move that kept her husband home from his job at the World Trade Center. For a long time, just looking out her new apartment window and seeing the empty hole kept her in a depression. The original cover of her 2000 release novel Hope Was Here featured these buildings as part of the artwork, and now that hope was gone for Bauer. But the words of one of her own characters helped to bring her out. “It’s gonna be a long night folks. Whatever you’ve learned about getting through hard times, I hope you’ll share it with the people around you.”

And share she did. A believer that pain and laughter go together, Bauer says we must apply the words of Shakespeare who said, “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Those points of adversity are the starting points of her books, but the connection she makes with readers comes through the laughter she brings along with characters who are survivors, just like the author herself.