Weeks before children’s author Dan Gutman was to pay Clarendon School a visit on Oct. 15, students were scribbling out essays on what they expected.
Reading Specialist Irene Dewland had noticed how many of her students enjoyed Gutman’s books and decided to invite him to the school for lunch.
"I knew he visited schools," she said. "And I thought this would really inspire some of the students."
Gutman is the author of 37 books, fiction and non-fiction, and though some were written for adults, his children’s books were most successful – especially those written about baseball. The most famous and the most popular of Gutman’s books among Clarendon School students was "Honus and Me," which was the first of a series of stories that involve a boy traveling back in time to meet a famous baseball star of the past.
Other baseball books of his concern Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio. Gutman also adapted the autobiography of Cal Ripken, Jr. for kids.
In his essay, fifth grader Kevin Innis said he had already read "Honus and Me," "Babe and Me" and "Jackie and Me," and is currently reading a Gutman book called "The Kid who Ran for President."
"I really like the way he writes," Innis said. "He seems to be a very unique individual."
Innis, in anticipating the author’s arrival, wondered how Gutman came up with all his characters.
"I know that it is very hard to come up with character names and personalities," Innis wrote in his essay. "But from reading his books, he makes it look so easy."
Gutman overcame rejection
Gutman, 46, said he was born in New York City, but his family moved to Newark when he was about a year old. He remained there until 1968, when his father abandoned the family, a moment he called traumatic.
"But we all survived," he said.
He now lives in Haddonfield with his family.
As a boy, Gutman envisioned himself as a photographer, but decided he didn’t have enough talent in that area. When he attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, he sought to get a degree in psychology.
"After spending a few unhappy years in graduate school, I decided psychology was not for me," he said. "What I really wanted to do was to write."
He had always enjoyed writing letters and felt his writing was as good as that which he read in newspapers, magazines and books. Although he started writing in 1978, his first book wasn’t published until 1985. He didn’t start writing children’s books until 1993.
During his visit to Clarendon, Gutman showed the students copies of rejection letters he received over the years.
Gutman later said that he has several purposes when he visits schools. He visits about 100 of them per year.
"First, I want kids to realize that everybody has to deal with adversity in their lives, and that if you stick with it you can conquer that adversity, " he said. " I also want them to know that if they really enjoy something, they can make it into a career someday, even if they aren’t particularly skilled at that thing [sports, for instance]. Finally, I want them to know that even professional writers have to write things over and over again until they make it as good as it can be."
Gutman said “Honus and Me,” a book he wrote about a boy who finds the most valuable baseball card in the world, was rejected by 10 publishers before he found one to invest in it.
It has since sold 100,000 copies.
Gutman said he started out thinking he could write humor like Art Buchwald and Erma Bombeck, but soon discovered that the essays he cranked out weren’t particularly funny. He tried writing magazine articles, but that proved unsuccessful as well. He even wrote a few screenplays, but they did not sell.
Success came from an unexpected source. It was 1982 and the video game Pac-Man had become a national craze. He started a video games magazine called Computer Games and became known as a computer expert, even though he still knows next to nothing about computers.
In 1985, he became a freelance writer, starting off with computer topics, then a variety of other ideas. His stories appeared in Esquire, Newsweek, Science Digest, Writer’s Digest, Success, Psychology Today, The Village Voice and other publications. Yet despite this apparent success, he claimed he hadn’t yet found the kind of writing he wanted to do. So he decided to write about something he loved: sports – more specifically, baseball. These books were aimed at an adult audience.
In 1992, when his son turned 2, he decided to write sports-oriented books for children. In 1994, he tried his hand at fiction and sold his first effort.
"I don’t try to teach moral lessons or provide deep psychological insights into the human soul," he said. "What I try to do is to write stories that are so compelling that kids who don’t particularly like to read, usually boys, will look up after two hours and barely even realize they had been reading. To do this, I take an ordinary kid and put that kid into an extraordinary situation that readers can fantasize about."
Gutman said that of all the characters in all the books, the main characters in “The Million Dollar Shot” and his baseball card adventure series are based on his own childhood.
All dressed up for Gutman’s visit
Students dressed up in sports costumes from several of Gutman’s novels. They said they were thrilled to have him there.
Clarendon School sixth grader Bao Ngo said he had read "Babe & Me" and loved it.
"I really admire Mr. Gutman because I know how difficult it is to write a book," Ngo said. "He didn’t just write a book, he wrote 37 good books."
Ngo said he might want to be an author someday.
Sixth Grader Gina Zaccagnino said she wanted to know where Gutman’s ideas came from
"Does the idea of aliens in centerfield just pop into someone’s head?" she asked.
Alyssa Hopper called Gutman’s stories awesome.
"The way [he] uses words make us really able to envision and feel as though we are a part of the story," she said, noting that she would also like to become a children’s author some day.
Ashleigh McAdam found a connection with Gutman because her grandfather, Charles McAdam, also wrote self-published novels.
"He was excellent," McAdam said. "He was just like a normal person. I thought he was going to be a celebrity, but he was just like us."
McAdam introduced Gutman at the student assembly and gave a short speech about his life. Later, students had lunch with the author and had a chance to ask him questions.
"I found out we had a lot in common," McAdam said.
Gutman said he often asks students for suggestions when he came to schools, looking for glean from them ideas for future novels. In Clarendon School, students were more than willing to oblige him.
McAdam suggested Gutman develop a story about a boy going to back to help a baseball player who had missed tagging a base during a World Series.
"I wanted to go back and make sure the baseball player touched the base," she said.
Dewland said the visit and the discussions were part of the school’s effort to promote student reading and writing.
"Mr. Gutman’s stories are action-packed and very popular with the students," she said.