A Labor of Love Bears Gift of Joy

It was 1990 when they said it couldn’t be done, when a slew of big-time literary agents and publishers told Barbara Saltzman that her son’s book was wonderful, but . . .

It was only one of thousands of children’s books written by unknown authors each year. They could not possibly risk big bucks to produce “The Jester Has Lost His Jingle” as her son David had envisioned it: printed on fine paper, in brilliant colors and with all the jubilant illustrations he had painstakingly perfected at age 22, right before he died of Hodgkin’s disease.

What was a mother to do?

Publish it herself, of course.

This was not deemed entirely rational by some of those close to her. She was enmeshed in grief over David’s death, they said, exhausted from living through his illness. She had a full-time job to contend with, as an arts editor at the L.A. Times. And she had no expertise in the esoteric book publishing arena.

But she believed in the book, about a bell-jingling jester who had lost the knack of making people happy, and his scepter friend, Pharley. (“Nobody giggled. Nobody Yuckled. Nobody laughed. Nobody chuckled.”) She thought it might even become a children’s classic. She was an experienced editor, she said, and she knew good writing and artwork when she saw it--even if it was David’s. She had also promised her son that his book would be published.

Son’s Determination

Inspired Her

David was a promising writer and artist who graduated from Yale with honors. He managed to achieve academic excellence in his senior year while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation and experiencing severe side effects.

If he could accomplish all that while maintaining his sense of humor and finishing his upbeat tale for children, then she could certainly keep her day job while learning how to publish the book.

And so, with her husband, Joe, and older son, Michael, and money obtained by mortgaging their Palos Verdes Estates house, she did it. The book hit stores in 1995 and has turned out to be a sleeper--a slow-building winner that eventually placed on bestseller lists of the L.A. Times, New York Times and USA Today.

About 250,000 copies have been sold to date, and sales continue to burgeon as children, parents, teachers, pediatric nurses, librarians and social workers discover the 64-page gem that seems capable of bringing smiles to even the saddest or sickest kids.

The book that was once seen by some as an anguished mom’s attempt to preserve her son’s final legacy is now acknowledged in publishing circles as a legitimate work of children’s literature.

But Saltzman no longer has need of such expert opinion. She has enough proof of her own, stashed in the home that has become her office. In overflowing files, on desks, in drawers, still arriving daily in letters, e-mail and phone calls. She says she cannot count or catalog the touching responses, the ongoing requests for books and readings, the remarks from hospital personnel and teachers who say that the Jester makes even sad children laugh.

This obituary, excerpted from a Syracuse, N.Y., newspaper, is one of dozens of documents Saltzman culls at random from her ever-growing stash:

Every time Elizabeth Ackerson walked into her daughter’s hospital room, Samantha wanted her to read “The Jester Has Lost His Jingle” by David Saltzman. The girl in the story said it was hard to laugh. But the jester’s cure for pain was laughter. “Whenever I feel like crying, I smile hard instead! I turn my sadness upside down, and stand it on its head!”

Samantha, 7, of Bear Road, North Syracuse, died at home after a long battle with cancer. But the day before she died, she laughed.

Ironically, David wrote the plot a few months before he learned he was ill with an inoperable tumor lodged in his lungs.

Taking the Message

on the Road

After “Jester” was published, Saltzman left her job at The Times to work full-time as president, chief executive, publicist and one-woman road show for the Jester Co., which produces the books and related dolls, and presents dramatized readings (often complete with a live “jester”) at schools and hospitals around the country.

The Jester project is not a moneymaking operation. Saltzman takes no salary, and plows profits into the printing of more books and the manufacture of more dolls. Her goal is to donate both items to every child in America who is diagnosed with cancer, and then to all the other sick, lonely and abused children.

The Jester’s discovery--that laughter lives within each of us all the time, and that it can help us face terrible problems if we learn how to make it pop out--appeals to a broad range of children. Like the elementary school student who recently wrote:

When [our teacher] read the book, it totally changed my life. I always feel like I don’t fit in this world. Now I know that when my sisters say my mom took the wrong baby, they don’t really mean it. Now that I know there’s always laughter inside of me, I don’t need to feel sad.

So far, about 30,000 books have been donated to sick and needy children, an amount that Saltzman says doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of her goal. But, at $20 a book and $25 a doll, she would have to sell millions to earn enough to pay for the books and dolls she’d like to give away. So she has begun enlisting corporate donors.

The Bristol-Meyer Squibb Foundation recently donated 24,000 dolls and 600 books to pediatric cancer centers, and Saltzman is eager to find more such donors. She also works with various children’s literacy organizations, where donated books would be helpful in teaching children to read, she says.

Saltzman, now considered something of an expert in high-style publishing, says she’s beset with requests from authors who want her to publish their books. She also gets occasional job offers from firms that admire her accomplishment. But she says that for now, she cannot conceive of doing anything other than what she does. She will never let the Jester languish, she says. It is the least she can do to fulfill her son’s dream.

* The Jester Co. can be reached at https://www.jesterbook.com or (800) 9-JESTER or P.O Box 817, Palos Verdes Estates, CA 90274.

* Bettijane Levine can be reached by e-mail at bettijane.levine@latimes.com.