Cabot, Meg
Meg Cabot’s Rules for Girls
Though best-known for The Princess Diaries and her books for teens, Meg Cabot enjoys setting the kissing aside and spending time in fourth grade with heroine Allie Finkle. Though she usually decides what to write next by looking at her deadlines, the author confides that “When my schedule is clear and I’m writing for myself, it’s usually because there’s a story idea stuck in my head and the only way I can get rid of it is to write it down.”
Meg keeps it real by remembering what was important to her when she was Allie’s age, how she was parented, and how she felt about it. “Since I don’t have kids of my own, I eavesdrop a lot on other people’s conversations,” she reveals. “Being a writer is like being a spy in a lot of ways–I find the ladies’ room at Cheesecake Factory in particular is rife with material.”
And, as she knows from that same rich repository of real life, The Cheesecake Factory, “There are a lot of dramatic fights going on out there–it’s like “The Real Housewives of New Jersey, only set in elementary school,” reveals the author. Cabot confesses that she receives “an oddly high amount” of letters requesting “more fighting” between Allie and her friends. “I assume the girls want ‘more fighting’ in the books because they’re looking for clues on how to navigate the choppy waters of their own social circles,” Meg muses.
Allie herself is based on Meg and her family when the author was that age. “Many of the plots from the books— moving to a new neighborhood and starting a new school, being bullied by a bigger girl, having a ‘Cheyenne’ in my class who called me names, even losing my cat in the wall during home construction— all happened to me!” Allie’s friendships have that extra ring of truth because even Allie’s friends are based on the real friends the author had in the fourth and fifth grades. She adds that “I’m still friends with many of them today (though things never did work out with Cheyenne I’m sorry to say).”
Just like Allie, Meg also had two annoying little brothers. “They’re grown up now, but like all little brothers, they can still be a little annoying sometimes” says their older sister.
Just as the family and friends are drawn from real life, Allie’s amazing teacher is modeled on a real Mrs. Hunter–the author did not even change the name. “She would read aloud to us from her favorite books for the last ten minutes of each school day (of course this was in the days before statewide testing, so there was time for this). The young Meg Cabot couldn’t wait to see how the story turned out, so “I would check the books out from the library (or beg my mother to buy them for me), and read ahead.” Some of her favorites were The Noonday Friends, Harriet the Spy, and A Wrinkle in Time, but she also loved the Boxcar Children (like Allie) and the All-of-a-Kind-Family series.
Her reading did not stop there. “On my own I discovered Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series (which of course I loved because it featured a spunky princess), and then got hooked on fantasy novels, especially Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series and of course the Chronicles of Narnia.”
Meg Cabot’s elementary school also had an amazing school librarian who noticed she was a reluctant reader. Meg fondly recalls that the librarian spent a long time with her one day helping me to find the perfect book that she’d enjoy.
“Weirdly, the book I remember latching onto was about the life cycle of the baby kangaroo because I loved animals and, like Allie, wanted to be a veterinarian when I grew up.” She confesses that “I must have checked out that book about fifty times before the librarian gently pointed out that there were other books in the library about animals that I might enjoy as well, and showed me the section–Black Beauty soon became my new favorite book.” After Black Beauty, Meg moved on to Lassie and every other book in the library, and never looked back.
Interviewed by Ellen Myrick, June 2014
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