Michael K is on a mission to help three aliens save the world.
They call themselves Spaceheadz, and they’ve come to P.S. 858 in Brooklyn for his help in getting 3.14 million and one kids to say they are Spaceheadz — or else “Earth gets turned off.”
As if this isn’t an impossible task already, Michael K‘s efforts are hampered by the fact that two of the aliens, Bob and Jennifer, walk around with perpetual grins, eat pencils and kitty litter and speak only in commercial jingles, advertising slogans and pro wrestling parlance that have traveled from our TVs on airwaves to their planet.
Oh, and the third Spacehead, Major Fluffy, speaks primarily hamster.
If you think this sounds like the plot of a Jon Scieszka book, you’re right!
In Scieszka’s “Spaceheadz, Book #2!”, out now, Michael K enlists the help of two of his tech-savvy fifth-grade classmates, Venus and TJ, to get the word out.
Still, how are they going to sign up all those Spaceheadz, help the kindergarten class put on a play, avoid the bumbling Agent Umber from the Anti-Alien Agency and hide the whole thing from his mom, dad and the school’s faculty?
Park Slope’s Scieszka has thrown out the operator’s manual in this series, aimed at readers ages 7 to 10. Some chapters are a few sentences long. Some sentences trail off and pick up in the next chapter. Some chapters are written in hamster squeaks, others are upside down. There’s this weird alien language subtitle to each chapter. A few of the pages are just a random collage of black-and-white stickers proclaiming “SPHDZ” — the book’s way of referring to Spaceheadz.
Brooklyn Family sat down with Scieszka to learn more about this wacky series.
Brooklyn Family: You’re drawing attention to the fact that kids are inundated with advertising slogans and commercials every day. What moved you to shine a spotlight on this?
Jon Scieszka: I’ve always been interested in reading, literacy and storytelling. But just seeing how the 21st century world works made me realize that kids need to be more than literate today. They need to be fully media literate. Actively involving kids in becoming media literate is the very heart of the whole Spaceheadz experience.
BF: Why does Michael K feel compelled to help Bob, Jennifer and Major Fluffy, although they’re strangers and they’ve basically ruined his fifth-grade social status?
JS: Like most kids, Michael K wants to be liked, and he wants to have friends. He is initially thrown together with what he thinks are the weird kids in class. But he comes to find out that these kids, even though they truly are from another planet, are real and true friends.
BF: You could almost feel Michael K squirm when he‘s unexpectedly called on by Mrs. Halley. And your ears almost ring as the kindergarteners overrun Michael K and his friends. What is your secret to writing vivid scenes?
JS: Having been an elementary school teacher, I have been in those scenes. In my writing, I do my best to get every detail right. And I think one of the best compliments I ever got was from a reader who said, “I felt like I was right there.”
BF: Why did you go against the conventional way of making a chapter book?
JS: The Spaceheadz have learned everything they know about Earth from watching TV and absorbing radio, computer and microwave emissions. So their story is told in Spaceheadz style, and that style very consciously mimics multi-strand, cut-and-jump TV narratives. Pages from Michael K’s favorite science book appear in between chapters. The subjects of the science pages (camouflage, network structures, swarm intelligence, the wave nature of energy, etc.) add a fun, factual harmony that supports the fictional storyline.
The chapter where Spaceheadz’s Major Fluffy (who has chosen to disguise himself as the class hamster) explains everything (in hamster) is one of the best chapters I have ever written. I read it to every audience. Just to see how long I can read “eeeks” and “squeaks” before someone stops me. And the great news about Major Fluffy is that he speaks many languages. He speaks a chapter of dog in Book #2. He speaks a chapter of baby in Book #3. And who knows what he might speak in Book #4? I also love that I got to title the four books in true Spaceheadz style: “Spaceheadz Book #1!”, “Spaceheadz Book #2!”, “Spaceheadz Book #3!”, and possibly something even stranger for Book #4.
BF: There’s an interactive element to the book. Just as the kids are trying to get people to sign up at their website, you’ve offered, what, three Spaceheadz-related websites? How did you intend for them to be used?
JS: The digital, interactive element is actually fully half of the storytelling. There are websites, blogs, videos, ads, homemade commercials and, most importantly, the SPHDZ.com website that Michael K builds to collect 3.14 million and one more Spaceheadz to save the world.
When you read Spaceheadz, you actively become a Spacehead. You sign up more Spaceheadz. You create Spaceheadz stories. You create Spaceheadz art. You create Spaceheadz ads and commercials. Kids become creative producers, instead of just passive consumers.
The world of Spaceheadz digital is created and maintained by fellow Brooklynites: my writer-daughter Casey Scieszka and her illustrator boyfriend Steven Weinberg. And I have to say they are brilliant at it. They live in the digital world. They know how the Spaceheadz would use it. And they create pieces as models to show Spaceheadz kids how to be creators (of text, audio, video, etc.) in the same way. This is also a perfect reason to give Major Fluffy a blog and a Twitter account where he blogs and tweets, in hamster of course.
BF: The enlistment numbers are going up at about the same rate as the plot. We are slowly learning more and more about Bob and Jennifer. We find out they are waves that need to watch a certain amount of TV each day to hold their human form. We get a glimpse at their “home.” We learn that they are kindergarteners. How do you know how much to reveal and when to reveal it? Will they ever get the 3.14 million and one SPHDZ?
JS: The full Spaceheadz story will be told over the course of four print books with new websites and digital pieces and online content that evolves out of the story. I just finished Book #3 for next spring. Book #4 to follow in the fall. The Spaceheadz mission is to create a social network of 3.14 million and one creative, media-literate Spaceheadz kids. I’m sure they can do it. But I am worried about a few characters who seem a little too anxious for the Spaceheadz to succeed. I wonder what they are up to.
BF: You mentioned that you threw all of your favorite places in Brooklyn into the story. Can you point out a few?
JS: The school the Spaceheadz invade is a combination of P.S. 58 on Smith Street and PS 39 on Sixth Avenue. I’ve been to both schools, and was inspired by their kids. Book #1 is dedicated to the class of PS 58 fifth graders, their teachers and principal — all who heard the earliest version of the Spaceheadz story and helped me refine it. Park Slope pizza places, junk shops, toy stores, donut shops, grocery stores, appliance stores, streets, stoops, brownstones, and the particular neighborhood connectedness are featured in all the books. I’ve lived in Park Slope for 30 years, raised my kids here, and with my job as a writer could really live almost anywhere in the world. But I love Brooklyn. It has the craziest mix of people and the best kind of real community. I think that is why the Spaceheadz decided to invade here.
BF: You’ve been a proponent of a literacy program aimed at boys. Was it something that first struck you during your time as an elementary school teacher?
JS: “Guys Read” came out of my experience growing up with all boys, teaching elementary school with almost all women, and working in a business (children’s books) that is mostly women. I know that boys are capable of being great readers. But I saw so many choosing not to. I just had see if I could make a difference. I actually taught on the Upper East Side. I taught First through Eighth [grade] over the course of 10 years.
BF: What has been the most fun aspect of making the books?
JS: SPHDZ has been so much fun — from the very beginning of the idea to have three not-too-sharp aliens come and invade Brooklyn. The stories almost write themselves. If you walk around and look at our world through the eyes of someone new to all of this, you would think humans are nuts. The slogans and jingles and ads are all real. And I love to ask kids to watch commercials as if they were from another planet. You do that, and you really have to wonder, as the Spaceheadz do, what Charmin toilet paper is all about. It is, apparently, something that makes large colorful bears happy because it is ultra-strong and ultra-soft.
For more information, visit www.sphdz.com.
