Note to “Bucky Flies, Almost” by Govinda Srinivasan

For our last offering in this special issue on children’s literature, we present an illustrated text created by a living child. Children are inspired by literature to create their own stories and pictures, and we felt this issue would not be complete without honoring that youthful impulse. Govinda Srinivasan, of Chennai, India, was eight years old when he wrote and illustrated The Adventures of Bucky. He presented me with an inscribed copy when I went to India on a lecture tour in 2008. The background to his creation is that Govinda had been given a book about the Amazon jungle and was fascinated by squirrel monkeys, which are native to that region. He began to imagine a set of tales about a particular monkey to whom he gave the name of “Bucky.” He would dictate the words and punctuation to his father, who typed them up as he went along. Govinda’s father reports that occasionally he offered editorial suggestions but that Govinda did not necessarily adopt them. When Govinda rejected the suggestions, it seemed clear he did so because he saw the stories as his very own, even though they could not have reached a final polished stage without his father’s technical collaboration. Although Govinda visualized and made the drawings entirely by himself, “he outsourced some of the coloring to me,” his father reports. We ask you to imagine their richly vivid hues.

As you read this chapter of Govinda’s book, “Bucky Flies, Almost,” you might reflect on its strong connections to questions posed by the authors of many of the preceding essays here: How important is fantasy? Can gratification in imagination serve as a substitute for gratification in one’s lived life? What sort of learning goes on in this story? Is it philosophical? What kind of relationship does Bucky have with the other denizens of the Amazon jungle? Is he fundamentally alone or a part of a community or, perhaps, both? Does Bucky fail, or does he, in even more important ways, actually succeed in his endeavor to enact his wish to fly? And many others . . . Above all, we hope that this child’s pleasure in creation comes through, for it is that joy that, above all, has persuaded me to include it here.