The character of Kaline in Kaline Klattermaster's Tree House was inspired by my son, Obadiah. He's now eleven, but between the ages of four and seven he was the most hilarious, peculiar little person in the world. He lived entirely in a world he created in his head, and it was highly populated and very BUSY. The most interesting thing about his imaginary world was how specific and real it was. I was reminded of the internal world of the novelist, where one character or one tree or a single sentence can give rise to a dozen pages, or to a wild and hilarious scene. Obadiah was so good at it, in fact, that one night at dinner I asked him how his brothers in the tree house were doing — what they were up to — and he talked nonstop for two hours (much to the chagrin of my older daughter). The things he said were so rich and imaginative and delightful I wish I'd recorded them, although many of them remain in my memory, along with the look in his eyes and his sense of excitement.
The other inspiration for the book was Obadiah's experience in school. He never sat still, he could never pay attention, he hated (and continues to loathe) holding a pencil, and his teachers, who were patient to the point of saintliness, finally asked us to have him tested by educational psychologists at Duke University. We did so, and the results were about what anyone would expect. The possibilities were special schools, medications, the standard course of action. But none of us — his dad, his sister, his grandparents included — wanted those things for him. We want him just as he is, even though he doesn't always fit in and doesn't seem to mind.
He is such a great and rare gift, that boy, and the more I thought about it the more I realized there must be thousands just like him, little people living with one parent or with grandparents, or, I don't know, a pack of friendly wolves; kids who have their own way of coping. They have their own magic, and it saves them, and it's a blessing.
