The Muse in the Square

Walk through Dedham Square enough times, and you’re likely to spot an unassuming, kindly face meandering between his artist studio atop the Dedham Community Theatre and the building he owns across the street. Its owner is kindly yet intent, and he’s as likely to wax nostalgically about the history of the town as he is to offer determined advice about the future of its public school system. At 57, he’s young enough to look for ways he can still make his mark in an quickly-evolving retail market that continually endangers his store, a unique business that serves as a community center as much as a purveyor of paper books.

This is Peter H. Reynolds. He’s the award-winner author and illustrator of children’s books that have sold over 2 million copies the world over. And he’s a visionary determined to enhance the cultural touchstone that is Dedham Square.

Here in town, he’s perhaps best known for that store – the Blue Bunny – he founded 15 years ago.

“Being only two blocks from Dedham Square I would wander down and there was a little spark that was happening back then,” he explains. “Mocha Java opened and then Isabella followed. I went to James the Tailor with a jacket and I asked him to shorten the sleeves. He said, ‘OK, but make sure you’re back here by Wednesday. If you’re here on Thursday you don’t get your suit.’ I asked why and he said, ‘Because I’m retiring.’”

Reynolds turned around to leave the store, and the vision of his future storefront swam through his head. “I could see bookshelves, picture books, puppets, art supplies, and I walked out of the shop and looked back and I could see ‘Bookshop’ in gold letters.”

Vision turned reality: it’s what happened next in Dedham Square. But it’s also part of Reynolds’ unique DNA, originating in a watershed moment some 40+ years earlier in a 7th grade math class, when he was caught doodling. His teacher, rather than scolding a child, made the unusual choice to harness his abilities.

“He asked if I could use me imagination and artwork and storytelling to teach math,” Reynolds recalls with a grin. “So I went home and made a comic book. I couldn’t believe he had mentioned art and storytelling in the same sentence as math.”

The comic book led to a short film, the painstaking result of stop motion animation executed on construction paper stained with paints and crayons along with numerous round trips to Kodak for film processing. All because a teacher saw through the standard curriculum to a streak of imagination.

“That was probably the first moment when I thought I could actually do something with this,” he says. “Teachers up until that point had sort of marginalized it, they said it didn’t fit into the classroom. They would tell me to do it on my own time.”

Instead, it catapulted the young artist into a career that has spanned decades. From freelance beginnings as a teenager to a degree in Communications Media from Fitchburg State College and the Mass College of Art, Reynolds pursued the unusual talents he had discovered within. He worked a dozen years for one of the world’s first developers of educational software in Harvard Square, then alongside his twin brother founded FableVision, a company housed above the Boston Children’s Museum that seems to channel the creative energy flowing through the building to provide innovative educational technology to teachers the world over.

Reynolds was successful individually as well, soon illustrating a number of children’s books – most notably Megan McDonald’s prolific “Judy Moody” series and its associated spinoffs. The publisher, Candlewick Press in Somerville MA, soon asked Reynolds, as he puts it, “What else you got?”

As it turns out, a lot.

It started with a little girl named Sarah, who had the enviable fate to be born to a dreamer. An avid reader, she loved nothing more than to cuddle with her father and hear him spin tales of his own, launching off the colorful illustrations in her favorite books. One Friday night, her love of his ad-hoc fiction saved Reynolds from a potentially disastrous dinner with a friend.

“We’d had a 40-minute wait at the restaurant, and she was done,” Reynolds says of Sarah at the time. “She wanted to go home. So I said, ‘Sarah, please let Daddy have this meal, and if you do, I’ll write you a story.’”

The girl agreed; over the meal, Reynolds scratched out a narrative called “The Blue Shoe” on table napkins that he handed to her in sequence.

“By the end of the evening she was asleep,” he recalls. “I took her home to bed and when I took her jacket off, there were all these napkins stuffed in the pockets.” Reynolds was somewhat surprised to find that the story told therein was strong and sweet, and he set about making it into a book. FableVision made it into an award-winning film. And Reynolds’ writing career was launched.

He’s perhaps best known for his transcendent short story “The Dot,” which visitors to the Blue Bunny can easily find thanks to its honorific placement in the store. It’s the story of Vashti, a girl who feels she cannot draw, and who perfunctorily plants a dot on a blank page when her teacher urges her to “just make a mark and see where it takes you.”

“I was doing a workshop with kids,” Reynolds recounts. “I asked all the kids to draw something to warm up. Everyone is drawing away, and I see this little girl and she’s drawing something. I go over to see what it is, and she throws her body over her artwork. At first I thought she was kidding, but I could see her arms were shaking and she was having a really traumatic moment.

“I said, ‘What’s the matter?’

“And she very slowly turned her head, looked at me, and said, ‘I just can’t draw.’”

Reynolds was heartbroken for the child.

“I thought, ‘Who taught her that?’”

The encounter spawned a book that encourages kids and adults alike to believe in themselves. It’s also spawned a movement in education – particularly public education – to give kids the space they need to explore art and storytelling. Every September 15th(ish) is International Dot Day, when 10 million people in 170 countries celebrate creativity.

But more importantly, as Reynolds will explain from his ritual meet-and-greets in the store on Saturday mornings, it makes people think.

“To me, art and writing is thinking,” he explains. “You have to use your brain. Whatever you dream comes out on paper, whether it’s art or words. And to turn that spigot off I think is sad and dangerous. Because if you stop doing your own thinking, then you’re going to let someone do your thinking for you.”

In the extreme, he suggests, this type of stagnation leads to oppressive regimes. In our local communities, it has led directly to standardized testing and the dangers such streamlined approaches to education pose for public schools.

“It’s insulting to think that a standardized test can take an accurate snapshot of a child’s potential,” he puts it. “In fact it’s probably the reverse. That kid is sitting down, taking a test with the clock ticking, the sweat’s pouring down their brow, their heart is racing, and they end up with these test scores that become a label for their future. And that label is very sticky. They end up thinking they’re not very smart.”

When funding is attached to classroom scores, he believes, the circle gets more vicious. The kids’ performance is associated with the teachers’ performance, which then is tied to the school’s ability to thrive in the public funding arena. And if money gets pulled, as Reynolds explains, it bleeds the creative arts first.

It’s not difficult to draw a mental, Crayola-colored line from Reynolds first experience in math class to his determination to use his significant gifts to help change these equations. He wants parents to be among the first to step up with him.

“Participate more,” he urges. “Talk about it at dinner. Be involved, notice the good things that are happening in the schools, and celebrate those things. Help spread the word. Use social media to talk about a cool program, or a great teacher. Shout it out. Help educate the general public that creativity and innovation is happening in our schools. And that we should be wanting more of it. Let your politicians and your superintendent know who the stars are.”

He also dedicates part of his store to the children we so often overlook – those within ourselves.

“Don’t be an observer. Be a participant. Sometimes I see well-meaning adults and they’ll buy a pad of paper and watercolors and they’ll give it as a gift to the kids in their lives. The cooler thing would be to get your own paper and watercolors and say let’s paint together.”

It’s why you’ll find art supplies, blank books and creative ideas in abundance. It’s also why the store has a coffee bar and lots of places to relax… and dream. “There are two parts to a picture book,” he says with a wink. “There’s a side for you to hold, and a side for your child to hold, and you have to be snuggled together to read that book. So we have couches here and armchairs and I see it almost every day, a parent or grandparent cuddled with a child reading a book.”

He’s betting the store – now run by the child for whom he drew his first book on napkins – will survive the onslaught of Amazon and the proliferation of digital media.

“I have a saying: when the going gets tough the creative get going.” And it bears fruit, according to Reynolds. “We actually noticed a funny counter effect of Amazon brick and mortar opening up a mile away. Our loyal fans became even more loyal. People come in to us and profess their undying love for the physical book.”

For the boy who painstakingly modeled his first film out of construction paper, it’s a tactile reminder of the power of vision turned reality.

“I’m one of the lucky ones. I could see my gifts and talents. They’re right in front of me. I’m having so much fun and I’m able to connect with so many people around the world. It’s an honor, and it’s a privilege.

“That power is inside everyone,” he states. “Start with your mark, and keep going. Never stop. Even if you don’t get wildly better, if it brings you joy, keep doing it.”

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The Blue Bunny is at 577 High Street in Dedham Square, and online at bluebunnybooks.com

Information on Peter H. Reynolds and his upcoming books can be found online at peterhreynolds.com

Also on the web:

International Dot Day: http://www.thedotclub.org/dotd...

FableVision: https://www.fablevisionlearnin...