Who was Harris Burdick?

I was thinking about making this a series, but I'm not sure I have the time to do it up right. At least for now, I'll post the story and link, and I might revisit later.

In the 1950's, Burdick presented himself and his drawings to a publisher who was fascinated by them and wanted to read the stories that the pictures illustrated. Burdick promised to return the next day with those stories but did not keep the appointment. The publisher tried for many years to find the man but was never able to discover who Burdick was or what had happened to him.

Then, in the '80s, the publisher showed the images to an author friend -- hence the book, published in 1984.

When the author received the pictures from the publisher, he was also given a box containing dozens of stories written over the years by the publisher's children and their friends. He read and found all of them remarkable -- some bizarre, some funny, some downright scary -- the makings of another great book.

Since Burdick never did return as promised, you'll have to write your own stories. You have a jump start, as Harris Burdick had written a title and caption for each picture.

-- from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

Chris Van Allsburg has written and illustrated other children's books, with a similar technique so the question becomes, was there really a Harris Burdick?

And does it matter?

This looks ideal for exercising the creative writer inside you or for firing up a child's imagination. Even a child too young to write can be encouraged to tell a story based on the picture.

This nifty site has all of the mysterious illustrations and more links to some of the creative writing submitted by students as inspired by the pictures.

As a teaser, I've included the first picture, complete with title and caption in the extended entry.

If you'd care to, write a story based on it and link back to this post, or send me the link and I'll include it. If the response is favorable, maybe we'll do more of them. I'd especially love to hear the tales from the little ones. Those can be magic.

ARCHIE SMITH; BOY WONDER
A tiny voice asked, "Is he the one?"

Posted by Ted at January 3, 2005 05:38 AM | TrackBack