A couple of years ago, Madison resident Brooke Saucier dusted off a children’s book he’d written and kept on a thumb drive for 17 years. “The Isle of Stuck Faces” centers around a young man named Steve, “Stick” to his friends, who “expresses his personality by making faces at his parents and his elders, perhaps a little too much,” Saucier said. “He takes it too far with his babysitter and she uses a spell to stick his face in place.”
Saucier jokes: “At its core, it’s a kidnapping story.” But really, once on the island, Stick learns about manners and the importance of a smile, he said. The book, written as an epic poem, was published earlier this year and Saucier will discuss it during an event at Mystery to Me bookstore later this month.
Q: Congratulations on “The Isle of Stuck Faces,” your debut book. How did it come about?
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A: When my daughter Julia was 4 or 5, I was a preschool teacher at her school in Evanston, Illinois. That’s when I wrote (“The Isle of Stuck Faces”) and it kind of stayed on a thumb drive for 17 years. I would dust it off, figuratively, and send it to someone here or there. It’s something that just kind of stayed hidden until late 2021, when I read it to my nieces and nephews.
My wife, Deanna, of five years … didn’t even realize I had written this. In 2005, I had reached out to agents and publishers … and just never got any traction. I saw an article in 2022 about Little Creek Press (in Mineral Point) and reached out. I totally thought it would be the same from Kristin (Mitchell, owner of Little Creek). (But) she responded within 15 minutes and within a week or two we agreed to do it. I’m also a property manager in Madison. My wife’s family owns a large apartment building. People make faces when I give them rent increases.
Q: Growing up, did you have someone tell you your face would “stay like that” after making one?
A: When I was in kindergarten, maybe first grade, someone showed me how to make cross eyes. I went home and my grandmother was at home and I said, “Look how I can do this!” and she said, “Oh no! It will stick like that.” Over the years, and especially in the last three or four months, (people have come to me and said) my aunt, my grandfather, etc., would say that.
Q: What made you decide to write the book as a poem?
A: Shel Silverstein is a hero (of mine) and I was a stay-at-home dad for five years and I read a lot of books. (“The Isle of Stuck Faces”) … just started coming out like “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Q: Was it hard to keep writing it as a poem? Keep up the rhyming and flow?
A: It’s just like exercise. Get one more stanza done … then it just starts to flow. (For example), a minor character, Hector, is so named because it rhymes with “nectar.”
Q: How much did you rework the book after not touching it for so long?
A: A few things needed to be changed just to make punctuation consistent. (The illustrator also) had some ideas that meshed with some of his drawings. Most of the work happened in the last month.
Q: How did you connect with illustrator Matthew LaFleur?
A: Matthew, not the Packers head coach, and I have known each other for almost 10 years. We met through mutual friends. I’ve run out of ways to tell him (how good the illustrations are). I’m hard-pressed to find an example of asking him to change anything.
Q: At the end, your book teaches a gentle lesson, would you agree?
A: Yes. Do something for others. And a good face to make is a smile. It can cut across (boundaries). You can make quick friendships, (and smiles) can start conversations, a little better than a frown.
Q: Do you plan to write more?
A: I have about a third of another one written that I also wrote in 2005. The goal for 2023 is to finish the next one and publish it in 2024. It’s not the same characters, but a similar premise: A boy spits water and does water tricks too much. It’s kind of on the gross side, but really funny.
“It’s just like exercise. Get one more stanza done … then it just starts to flow.”
Brooke Saucier, on the art of poetry
