Jenny's Wonderland of Books

A Look at Historical Versions of Cinderella

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 04:30:00 +0000

My library was recently given a great collection of rare books which included a little book:

Cendrillon; ou, La petite pantoufle de verre. 12 gravures. Leipzig: Librairie de Baumgaertner, ca. 1835. [1] l., [12] p., 12 col. pls., 10 x 14 cm. The plates are hand colored. Text in French; footnotes on meaning of words and phrases in German. Blank peach boards.

I mentioned on Facebook that this version of Cinderella was very interesting in that it had full sisters, not stepsisters, no mention of a stepmother, and the prince had a worried mother. Various people asked me for a translation of the text. I provide here a transcription of the original text and below that my translation.

Un gentilhomme avait trois filles; deux d’entre elles étaient hautaines, petites-maîtresses, d’une caractère dur, laides, et gâtées par leur mère: elles se nommaient Javotte et Marton. L’autre, nuit et jour en butte à leur mauvais traitement, n’ètait aimée de personne, quoique jolie et d’un bon coeur; elle était chargée des occupations les plus viles, et devait obéir aux moindres ordres de ses aînées, qui l’avaient surnommée par mépris Cendrillon.

Il advint qu’un soir le fils du roi donna un bal; nos deux grandes dames y furent engagées. Ce fut avec un profond soupir, et les yeux pleins de larmes, que Cendrillon les vit partir: un tel bonheur ne m’arrivera-t-il donc pas! disait-elle.

Sa marraine entendit ses plaintes: “Sèche tes pleurs, lui dit-elle, je suis fée, et tu vas voir ce que peut ma baguette magique: fais seulement ce que je vais te dire, et tu iras au bal. Va d’abord me chercher une belle citrouille.” Cendrillon alla cueillir la plus belle qu’elle put trouver. “Leve maintenant la souricière. Oh! il y a six souris, nous aurons six beaux chevaux pour atteler à la citrouille, dont nous allons faire un carrosse des plus élégans et des plus beaux.” Et d’un coup de baguette ce qui fut dit fut aussitôt fait.

“Apporte-moi maintenant la ratière,” dit la Fée. Elle trouva dedans trois gros rats, elle prit celui qui était le plus gros, le plus beau, et dont la barbe était la plus épaisse; puis, l’ayant touché, le changea en un gros cocher bien grave, qui avait de superbes moustaches. S’étant fait apporter ensuite six lézards, elle les transforma en laquais à livrée chamarrée, qui montèrent aussitôt derrière le carrosse.

Lorsque le brillant équipage se trouva complet, et devant la porte prêt à partir, le bonne fée agita de nouveau sa baguette, puis toucha sa filleule, aussitôt les vilains habits de Cendrillon furent changés en habits de la plus belle couleur, brodés d’or et de pierreries, plus beaux encore que ceux d’une princesse.

Elle lui fit présent ensuite d’une paire de pantoufles de verre. Ainsi parée, Cendrillon monta dans son carosse; mais, avant de prendre congé d’elle, sa marraine lui dit: “Sur toutes choses, sois de retour avant minuit, car cette heure une fois passée, tes beaux habits, ton équipage, tes domestiques disparaîtront, et tes chevaux redeviendront souris.”

Quelques instans après Cendrillon arrivait au bal, où une foule brillante l’entoura bientôt; chacun admirait au jolie figure, sa tournure élégante et ses habits étincelans. Le jeune prince surtout, qui aurait désiré avoir une fiancée aussi charmante, vint la prier d’asseoir près de lui, et quelques instans après lui demanda la faveur de danser avec elle.

Mais, au milieu de ces plaisirs si nouveaux pour elle, Cendrillon oubliait l’heure… Déjà onze coups avaient sonné à l’horloge du château… Elle écoutait avec inquiétude… Un douzième se fit entendre!… Elle s’enfuit alors avec une telle vitesse, que personne ne put l’atteindre ni la retrouver; car les gardes dirent qu’ils n’avaient vu sortir qu’une jeune fille fort mal vêtue; on trouva seulement une pantoufle de verre la plus jolie du monde, que le prince ramassa bien soigneusement.

Le prince, quelques jours après, tomba malade sans que les médécins, avec tout leur savoir, pussent lui donner aucun soulagement; c’était au coeur qu’il souffrait. Souvent, lorsqu’il était seul, il portait en soupirant la jolie pantoufle à ses lèvres… Pressé par la reine sa mère, qui le chérissait, il lui avoua enfin tout l’amour qu’il ressentait pour la personne qu’il avait vue à son bal.

Peu de jours après un héraut fut chargé d’aller par toute la ville annoncer à son de trompe que l’héritier du trône épouserait la femme dont le pied irait bien juste à la pantoufle, et que toutes celles qui voudraient l’essayer eussent à se rendre le jour suivant dans une salle du château qu’il indiqua.

Le lendemain, jeunes et vieilles, jolies et laides, arrrivèrent en foule au palais: on commença l’essai, mais aucune ne put entrer son pied dans la pantoufle; Javotte et Marton se présentèrent aussi, mais sans être plus heureuses. Cendrillon, qui les regardait, dit en riant: “Que je voie si elle ne m’irait pas.” Ses soeurs se mirent à se moquer d’elle; mais quelle fut leur surprise lorsqu’elles virent qu’elle la chaussait très-juste, leur étonnement fut plus grand encore quand Cendrillon tira de sa poche l’autre pantoufle et qu’elle la mit à son pied.

La marraine, qui savait si bien changer une petite souris en un beau cheval, voulut bien faire encore quelque chose pour sa protégée: elle arriva, et, ayant donné un coup de baguette sur les habits de Cendrillon, chacun reconnut aussitôt la belle étrangère, parée avec encore plus de magnificence que les autres fois. Ses soeurs se jetèrent aussitôt à ses pieds.

Le prince la trouva plus belle que jamais, et, peu de jours après, il l’épousa. Cendrillon, dont la coeur était aussi bon que sa figure était jolie, pardonna à ses soeurs leurs mauvais traitemens, les fit loger au château, et les maria à deux seigneurs de la cour; aussi lui dirent-elles qu’elles voyaient bien que la beauté, jointe au bon coeur, sied bien aux femmes, et que par cela même elle était plus digne que toute autre d’être reine.

My translation:

A gentleman had three daughters; two of them were haughty, pretentiously overdressed, of a hard character, ugly, and spoiled by their mother: they were called Javotte and Marton. The other, night and day subject to their abuse, was not loved by anyone, although pretty and with a good heart; she was burdened with the worst tasks, and had to obey the least orders of her elders, who had disdainfully named her Cendrillon.

It happened that one evening the king’s son gave a ball; our two great ladies were invited to it. It was with a deep sigh, and eyes full of tears, that Cendrillon saw them depart: such happiness will never happen to me! she said to herself.

Her godmother heard her complaints: “Dry your tears, she said, I am a fairy, and you are going to see what my magic wand can do: only do what I am going to tell you, and you will go to the ball. First find me a beautiful pumpkin.” Cendrillon went out to pick the most beautiful one she could find. “Now lift the mousetrap. Ah! There are six mice, we will have six handsome horses to harness to the pumpkin, which we are going to make one of the most elegant and beautiful carriages ever.” And with a wave of the wand, that which had been said was promptly done.

“Now bring me the rat trap,” said the Fairy. She found within it three large rats, she took that which was the largest, handsomest, and whose whiskers were the thickest; then having touched it, changed it into a big, dignified coachman, who had a superb mustache. Having had six lizards brought to her, she changed them into lackeys in much-bedecked livery, who promptly mounted behind the carriage.

When the brilliant carriage and its retinue were complete, and before the door, ready to depart, the good fairy shook her wand anew, then touched her goddaughter, immediately Cendrillon’s ugly clothes were changed into clothes of the most beautiful color, embroidered with gold and jewels, even more beautiful than those of a princess.

She then gave her a pair of glass slippers. Thus bedecked, Cendrillon climbed into her carriage; but, before taking leave of her, her godmother said to her: “Above all things, return before midnight, because once that hour is past, your clothes, your carriage, your servants will disappear, and your horses will become mice again.”

A few instants later, Cendrillon arrived at the ball, where a brilliant crowd quickly surrounded her; each admired her pretty face, her elegant shape, and her sparkling clothes. The young prince especially, who had desired to have such a charming fiancée, came to beg her to sit next to him, and a few moments later asked for the favor of dancing with her.

But, in the middle of these pleasures so new to her, Cendrillon forgot the hour… Already eleven strikes had sounded from the castle’s clock… She listened with inquietude… A twelfth strike made itself heard!… She then fled with such speed, that no one could catch her or find her; for the guards said that they had only seen depart a very badly dressed girl; one only found the most beautiful glass slipper in the world, which the prince very carefully picked up.

A few days later, the prince fell ill, without the doctors, with all their knowledge, being able to give him any relief; it was in his heart that he suffered. Often, when he was alone, he brought the pretty slipper to his lips and sighed… Pressed by the queen his mother, who cherished him, he finally avowed all the love that he felt for the person he had seen at his ball.

A few days later a herald was ordered to go throughout the town announcing with trumpet blasts that the heir to the throne would marry the woman whose foot fit best in the slipper, and that all those who wanted to try it on had to come themselves on the following day to a room in the castle that he indicated.

The next day, young and old, pretty and ugly women, arrived in a crowd at the palace: the attempt began, but none could put their foot in the slipper; Javotte and Marton also presented themselves, but without being more successful. Cendrillon, who was watching them, said laughingly, “I will see if it doesn’t fit me.” Her sisters began to mock her; but whatever their surprise when they saw that the slipper fit her foot just right, their astonishment was even greater when Cendrillon took out of her pocket the other slipper and put it on her foot.

The godmother, who knew so well how to change a little mouse into a handsome horse, wanted to do something more for her protégée: she arrived, and having given a tap of her wand to Cendrillon’s clothes, everyone immediately recognized the beautiful stranger, clothed even more magnificently than the other times. Her sisters threw themselves at her feet.

The prince found her more beautiful than ever, and, a few days later, he married her. Cendrillon, whose heart was as good as her face was beautiful, pardoned her sisters their abuse, let them reside in the castle, and married them to two lords of the court; thus they said of her that they perceived that beauty joined to a good heart, suited women well, and for this alone she was more worthy than anyone else of being a queen.

I found myself very curious about this text so I emailed Andrea Immel, the curator of the fabulous Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University, one of the two other American libraries that holds a copy of this text, hoping that she could answer some questions for me. My library's copy has no date so I wondered why the Cotsen's cataloguers gave the date 1835. I also had been checking on the Bibliothèque Nationale’s Gallica digital library webpage and Google Books to see if other French versions had this variant of the story and the very beautiful, hand colored illustrations that showed a tiny fairy godmother floating on a cloud. None of the illustrations and texts I found seemed to match. Andrea informed me to my surprise that:

"Actually, Cotsen has two different editions of this: the one whose record you [gave me] and the other with the imprint 'Paris: Audot fils; Rue Paon, 8, Ecole de Medecine, 1836' BUT with the imprint of Librarie de Baumgaertner, Leipzig on the front wrapper. The text is the same in both (French with notes in German), although printed on different paper stocks. The Audot edition is rather badly foxed. The plates are the same as well."

"The book is a translation of the Cinderella, or the little glass slipper first published by John Harris in the Cabinet of Amusement and Instruction around 1827 (Moon, Harris 619) [Image from the Lilly Library website. A later edition of the text is available at Archives.org]. The Baumgaertner edition has reformatted the Harris original, which is a vertical format. The plates have been copied from the Harris set and reformatted also. A facsimile was published of it in the UK quite a while ago--I don't think the Opies included it in A Nursery Companion, but you might double check. The Harris Cinderella was in print for quite a while and the illustrations copied by other British publishers well into the 19th century. The tip-off is the little fairy godmother."

"The publication date of the Baumgaertner edition was most likely inferred from the publisher's trading dates. I assume our cataloger checked in German-language catalogues of institutional collections or issued by antiquarian booksellers such as Wegehaupt or Rumann. It couldn't be earlier than 1827 (the date of the first edition of the Harris original), but it certainly could be later."

How interesting! Cinderella was first written down by Charles Perrault in his Histoires; ou Contes du temps passé (1697) and was reprinted and translated throughout Europe. Here was an English adaptation from 1827 being translated back into French in 1835 in Leipzig, Germany, for the benefit of children learning to read French, as shown by the footnotes that gave the meaning of difficult words and phrases in German. The publisher had even copied the illustrations from the English publication. Then the next year Baumgaertner had arranged with the Parisian publisher Audot to resell its book in Paris, so a Parisian publisher had thought it worth selling in France itself which was full of copies of other editions! I do wonder what the young French readers thought of the German footnotes, though... All the images of the 1827 Harris edition can be seen at an Italian blog, Le figure dei libri [Book illustrations]. However, my library's copy and the Cotsen copy have finer illustrations although the scenes are the same. The Harris illustrations were produced from wood-engraved blocks, and the Baumgaertner illustrations were probably etched on metal then printed and hand colored, accounting for their delicacy of line. My library's copy also lacks a scene by the fire and a illustration on the title-page.

I suspect that the need to abbreviate the text to fit the verse format may have led John Harris or whatever unknown author he employed to create this version of Cinderella to cut out much of the original text. When it was retranslated back into French, the translator seems to have kept the cuts of the Harris text along with direct quotes from the Perrault original text instead of translating the English verses. I tried to provide an exact word-for-word translation, so mine is not an elegant translation. My apologies, but I felt a literal translation would be of more interest to my readers. I would like to share one choice in translation: the phrase petites-maîtresses led me to a fascinating website on French fashions, where it was explained that this referred to female equivalents of dandies, who were overdressed and arrogant. I chose to translate this as pretentiously dressed because I couldn't come up with a comparable term in English. Translation is always a series of choices, whether to be literal or poetic, or to change to a familiar version of the tale.

The World-Wide Web is full of versions of Cinderella, and digitized copies of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century texts with many different illustrations are easily discoverable. One little speculation here from my examination of these illustrations, is that the French editions show regal, full-size elegantly dressed fairy godmothers, save for the ones I have been exploring here. The French fairies were essentially self-representations of the French courtly ladies who originated the French fairy tale tradition. However, British folk lore had a long tradition of "little people" who were fairy folk, so that may have inspired the mini fairy godmother (dressed in a country-style, lower-class costume) of these illustrations. It would be interesting to see if later illustrated French fairy tale collections show any miniature fairies, that might trace back to these illustrations...

I hope my readers enjoy this post, and invite you to post comments and links to other resources on Cinderella!

January 2010 Carnival of Children's Literature

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:39:00 +0000

Welcome everyone! The Amazing Carnival of Children's Literature is back!! People shared their favorite posts of the past month or so, many with winter themes, some not. All are worth reading or listening to.

Here's a selection of fun reviews of children's books, some of which I've read, and quite a few I haven't read. Another pile of books for my room full of to-be-read books, groan...

Annette Berlin presents a book review of a children's cook book at her blog, Craft Stew. She says, "I drool over the children’s books from DK publishing. I’m crazy about their full color photographs, clear text and interesting topics. Cook It Together, a new DK cookbook for kids, did not disappoint."

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup, who doesn't love soup especially on a cold winter's night? Jama Rattigan presents sip slurp slurp: more soup picture books at her blog, jama rattigan's alphabet soup. Mmmm. Those yummy-sounding books make me want to cook a good pot of soup tomorrow evening.

Playing by the Book shares a delightful blog post, Winter Starlight, about wintry children's books and some recipes I really want to cook up soon.

Kathy Bloomfield shares some reviews of children's books that echo this theme, Bal Tashchit: Do Not Be Wasteful at her blog forwordsbooks: kids books that matter, saying, "This is a blog connecting secular children's literature to the Jewish value of Bal Tashchit-do not be wasteful in honor of the holiday of Tu B'Shevat, the birthday of the trees, being celebrated on January 30." Very timely and these are lovely books.

Groundhog Day is coming up and Esme Raji Codell reviews a fun list of children's books about groundhogs, GROUNDHOG WEATHER SCHOOL at her amazing blog, The PlanetEsme Plan: The Best New Children's Books from Esme's Shelf, saying these are "Groundhog Day books that won't give readers déja-vu."

Jennifer Bogart of Quiverfull Family shares a review of a wintry book, Tooga: The Story of a Polar Bear, saying this is "A fictional story of one young polar bear's explorations in northern Canada."

Jeff Barger shares a fun nonfiction title, Secret of the Puking Penguins...and More! posted at his blog, NC Teacher Stuff, saying, "Nothing says winter wonderland better than puking penguins. This book has the perfect title to attract elementary and middle school nonfiction fans. Each article is a great example of how researchers apply the scientific method in their studies."

Becky Laney has a tantalizing review of a picture book, Where Teddy Bears Come From, at her blog, Young Readers. Mmmm, look at that cover!

Anastasia Suen shares her lovely book, Baby Born, which is also available in Spanish, at her blog, Anastasia Suen's Book of the Week, saying, "New toddler time activity for Baby Born."

Anastasia also shares some lovely books in her post, 5 Great Books About Winter at another of her blogs, 5 Great Books, saying, "Some fun winter books for children learning to read."

Mary Ann Scheuer introduces us to what sounds like a delightful book, Rain Stomper, at her blog, Great Kid Books, saying, "Endless days of rain can dampen everyone's spirits. If you need cheering up, check out Rain Stomper, a book full of energy and optimism as one girl shows us that the parade will go on, rain or shine!"

Kate Coombs at her blog Book Aunt, has a special treat just for meee. Okay, okay, I'll share. It's a wonderful blog post talking about the various translations of Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen and four recent picture book editions. The covers are beautiful and the post is so thoughtful and insightful about the problems and issues of translation. Thank you, Kate!

Tim King presents Book Review: The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle posted at his blog: Be The Story, saying, "The Little One and I recently finished Holly Lisle's fantasy novel The Ruby Key, and here are our comments on the novel."

Janelle reports on a musical based on The Little House on the Prairie and reading aloud the series and related books to her daughter, Little House on the Prairie - Musical and Books. She even shares photos of the pancake men she made for her daughter! Look for more delightful posts at her blog, Brimful Curiosities.

Kevin Hodgson has a brief review of Scott Westerfeld's new book: The alternative history of Leviathan posted at his blog Kevin's Meandering Mind, saying, "I look at the book Leviathan and its use of alternative history. Plus, the book is a great read-aloud story for middle school kids." He also shares the book's trailer. Looks cool!

Terry Doherty shares two lovely middle grade books with dragon themes in her blog post, Book Talk: Dragon Wishes by Stacy Nyikos and The Last Dragon by C.A. Rainfield, at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, saying, "Here is my contribution for the carnival. It isn't winter wonderland, but given that we will have a winter wonderland of snow here on the east coast, it's a perfect day for staying in to read!"

Tricia Stohr-Hunt shares some fun books at National Puzzle Month - Great Reads at her blog, The Miss Rumphius Effect, saying, "January is national puzzle month, so I wrote this post about books for those who love puzzles." I didn't know about National Puzzle Month and I love puzzles. I learn something new every minute, sometimes.

Abby reviews two audiobooks Audiobook Effects: Good and Bad at her blog, Abby (the) Librarian. It's very interesting how much difference added sounds such as music can make in the listener's experience.

Jen Robinson reviews a winter-themed YA book that contains three stories by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Scott Westerfeld, Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances posted at her blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, saying, "I couldn't resist submitting it, because it fits so well with the Winter Wonderland theme."

I'm always envious when I hear about authors visiting with children in schools or libraries. I went to school before this started happening, and I would have loved any encounter with an author!

The YA author Crissa-Jean Chappell shares an account of Scott Westerfeld, Alex Flinn, and Crissa herself, speaking to teen readers during various events during Teen Read Week posted at her blog, total constant order. Oh for a photo of the teens who wore top hats, waistcoats and pocket watches to Westerfeld's talk!

Another great development is the succession of wonderful interviews with authors, illustrators and publishers that you can find around the Kidlitosphere.

Melissa Wiley shares a wonderful Interview with Julianna Baggott where Juliana talks about her writing process and her latest books at Here in the Bonny Glen.

Crissa-Jean Chappell shares a video interview with herself about her writing process by Kathy Erskine, another teen author at five questions

Lee Wind shares three wonderful interviews, saying, "I'm in with three wonderful pre-SCBWI Winter conference interviews with the fantastic author Jacqueline Woodson, the fantabulous art director Laurent Linn, and the fascinating literary manager/producer Eddie Gamarra - they shared so much great stuff, even including their votes in the hot chocolate vs. eggnog winter drink showdown!" Do look for more great stuff on his blog, I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?

Tarie over in the Philippines shares a fascinating Illustrator Interview: Ariel Pang which is loaded with wonderful images of Ariel's illustrations. Note to self, keep an eye out for her books, and an eye on Tarie's new blog, Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind.

The author and blogger Lori Calabrese shares an interview with the children's book author, Deborah Blumenthal about her latest book, Black Diamond & Blake, at her blog, Lori Calabrese Writes!

Sally Apokedak, at Whispers of Dawn, shares an interview with Shannon and Dean Hale, authors of the recently released graphic novel, Calamity Jack, and with Nathan Hale, who illustrated the book. I'm still waiting for my copy of this book to come in the mail and this interview makes me so impatient!! I adored Rapunzel's Revenge, and indeed all of Shannon's books.

Jon Bard has good advice for aspiring children's book writers: Five Reasons Why You Can’t Be A Writer (And Why None Of Them Are True) posted at his very useful website, the Children's Writing Web Journal.

Franki and Mary Lee share a wonderful round-up of tributes to the stupendous first Ambassador of Children's Literature, the one and only Jon Scieszka at THANK YOU, JON SCIESZKA! posted at A Year of Reading, saying, "The most exciting thing that happened on our blog in January was the Thank You Party we hosted for out-going Children's Literature Ambassador Jon Scieszka." This is a whole carnival in itself! Enjoy.

Heidi Estrin shares a fun podcast, The Big Reveal: 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Awards posted at her blog, The Book of Life, saying, "this is the blog post/podcast episode announcing the 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award winners, which always takes place in January, so that's my excuse for calling it a winter wonderland event." Do enjoy listening!

Sounds like Lynn E. Hazen had a great time at the 2010 Santa Clara County Reading Conference at Asilomar from her report on her blog, complete with pictures, at her Imaginary Blog, saying, "California Style Winter Wonderland of Books, Teachers, Librarians & Authors Passionate About Books and Writing for Children & Young Adults."

Sheila Ruth of Wands and Worlds asks an interesting question of all of us in Marian, Madame Librarian.

Plus poets and illustrators share their works with their admirers all over the 'net:

The illustrator and author Elizabeth O. Dulemba shares a great story at Operation Write Home at her blog, dulemba.com, saying, "This one isn't so much about reading as it is about writing. It's a very cool thing." I agree, and it gives me the warm fuzzies too!

Elizabeth also shared another post on the newest tech toy, Apple's iPad. She and other illustrators are already dreaming up picture books for the iPad!

Deborah Freedman shares a wonderful poem about snow along with one of her beautiful illustrations of a snowy scene at Time for Bed on her blog, writes with pictures.

Here's another snowy poem from Gregory K., The End of a Perfect Day in the Snow at his blog, GottaBook, saying, "Boy, I didn't post much Carnival-worthy in January, but at least this fits the Winter Wonderland theme!" Personally I think his blog is always worth reading!

Wendie Old of Wendie's Wanderings shares a delightful poem about writing at What are you writing? they ask. She also shares a link to a video about revision by a friend of hers, How many times did you revise that manuscript? Enjoy!

Candace Ryan shares a very funny poem about the spelling of our esteemed first Ambassador of Children's Literature, Jon Scieszka's last name that had me laughing out loud at Book, Booker, Bookest.

Carmela Martino shares her New Year's Resolution and celebrates a friend's big award at Resolution Wrap-Up and Hurray for New Year at the Pier, Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner at the group blog, Teaching Authors, saying, "A wrap-up of our series of 6-word resolutions."

Here are some posts on the importance of literacy and reading to children:

South Africa's Fiona Ingram has great advice for parents on Why Children Don't Enjoy Reading. Go read her post and try out her recommendations on your children or children of friends. She has more advice from herself and her friends for authors at her blog, Word Magic: Articles & Tips for Authors.

Susan Stephenson celebrates reading aloud in What's So Great About Children's Literature? at her Australian blog, The Book Chook, saying, "Jenny, it's summer where I live, so my post answers the question a friend asked me the other day,"What's so great about children's literature anyway?""

Jen Robinson shares her advice on Read yourself, and model an appreciation for reading at the wonderful group blog: Booklights.

Cathy Puett Miller shares a blog post on reading aloud, Playing with Sounds and Patterns/Engaged Interactive Read Alouds at Parents and Kids Reading Together, saying, "reading can be practical, engaging and fun."

Autumn Beck shares advice on reading aloud: Are You Reading to Your Children? posted at Homeschooling In Kerrville, saying, "It seems that everyone will agree with you that reading to your children is important. But how many are actually incorporating it into their homeschool schedule?"

Susan Kusel has a great idea, Write it down, at the stupendous Booklights group blog, saying, "Do you keep a record of what your kids read? How about what you read? Give it a try. Write it down."

Reading challenges are everywhere but this is a really special one:

I'm unsurprised to find that Terry Doherty has joined this reading challenge, People of Color Reading Challenge is Important. It really is important and if I didn't have a major research project with piles of books to read swamping me, I'd join her! I'll keep an eye on her blog, Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, for her reports on her reading. As she reminds us "reading is a perfect thing to do on a cold winter's day!"

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
Carnival of Children's Literature using our carnival submission form. The February carnival will be at: Whispers of Dawn.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Collecting Children's Books and the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:39:00 +0000

For years now, book lovers have mourned the loss of brick-and-mortar used bookstores as a major resource for discovering books, particularly rare and collectible books. For traditional book collectors this was perceived as a real loss, since they often learned about the importance of certain books they were interested in from book dealers, and about the differences between editions and terms such as good, fair, and poor condition. Other resources that are starting to disappear are the printed book catalogues sent out by book dealers to their clients, and journals that print articles of interest to book collectors. However, the rise of the Internet has meant that some of these traditional resources have shifted locations to the World Wide Web. In many cases this has been a boon for book lovers who have found a whole world of books opening up to them as well as entirely new resources that the Internet has made possible. This shift can be explored through an selective overview of the resources available online for the collection of children’s literature.

Many people begin collecting children’s books, either as children, or when they rediscover them as adults. Some choose to collect broadly, others to focus on award-winning modern children’s books such as those that have won the Newbery and Caldecott awards, or on comic books that they remember from their childhood. In many cases it is very difficult to locate brick-and-mortar stores that offer more than a few sporadic examples of these books. On the Internet, resources such as Abebooks, Vialibri, and eBay, as well as individual specialist dealers, offer a multitude of children’s books and comics for sale. However, distinguishing between good and bad dealer descriptions and judging what books to buy can be very difficult. Many book dealers on eBay and elsewhere post photographs of their wares to entice book buyers and to provide a substitute for examining the books in person. Reliable dealers generally state that the books are returnable if the collector is dissatisfied with them upon actual examination.

Once the collector has purchased the desired books, how can he or she discover how rare and unusual they are? WorldCat is now available in a public, free version on the Internet, although the listings are not as comprehensive as in the professional, paid version available through your local library, but it is still possible to ascertain how rare the book you are researching is. There are also resources on the Web for researching specific collecting areas. Often these have been created by collectors themselves or by collectors’ societies, such as the Randolph Caldecott Society in England which has an useful webpage on identifying early Caldecott editions. However, it was not detailed enough for my research purposes recently. In an effort to ascertain whether a gift to my library of some picture books by Randolph Caldecott were first or early editions, I sent an e-mail inquiry to a British listserv for the discussion of children's literature, asking who could help me identify early editions of Caldecott books. I was put in touch with the children's literature scholar, Brian Alderson, who informed me of a recent major publication by Tomoko Masaki, A history of Victorian popular picture books: the aesthetic, creative, and technological aspects of the toy book through the publications of the firm of Routledge, 1852-1893 (Tokyo: Kazamashobo, 2006; based on her 2001 PhD dissertation), which gives the details of the various reprintings of Caldecott and other children’s books published by the British publisher, George Routledge and Sons. Masaki's book is only available at six North American libraries, none near me, so Mr. Alderson generously reviewed jpg images of the books, particularly the publisher’s advertisements on the back covers, and confirmed that some of them were indeed first editions. Thus the Internet can enable collectors, scholars, and librarians to discover and communicate with experts in their areas of interest and to benefit from their knowledge.

Research into some recent gifts of children’s books published by the Henry Altemus Company of Philadelphia led to the discovery of the Henry Altemus Company website, which is maintained by the collector and bibliographer Cary Sternick. He has published the standard bibliography of the company’s publications, The Henry Altemus Company: a history and pictorial bibliography ([The Woodlands, Tex.]: C. Sternick, 2005) as well as an earlier bibliography, A bibliography of 19th century children’s series books: with price guide ([United States]: C. Sternick, 2003). The website provides detailed information on the myriad printings and series published by Altemus, along with images of the covers for the different series, so that the viewer can identify the series his or her copy was published in through a visual comparison. If the information needed is not available, he will answer email queries through his Ask the Expert page. He also maintains a very interesting blog, Thoughts of Bibliomaven, where he posts images and historical information about books and ephemera from his collection of nineteenth-century children’s books.

The scholar and collector Pat Pflieger has built a website, Nineteenth-Century American Children and What They Read, based on her ongoing research into and collection of nineteenth-century American children’s literature. The website provides transcriptions of periodicals, articles, children’s books, children’s writings, and biographical material on the authors and editors of these works for the reading pleasure of anyone who is interested in nineteenth-century children's literature. For collectors and librarians who are researching editions and imprints in their collections, another resource is online at the American Antiquarian Society, their 19th Century American Children’s Book Trade Directory. These and other resources on the Internet enable the interested collector and/or researcher to benefit from a depth of knowledge and research resources that were not available in previous decades, both because of modern technology and because children’s literature is a comparatively recent collecting area.

Not only collectors or scholars have developed bibliographic resources for the use of future researchers. Some major online book dealers specializing in children’s books such as Aleph-Bet Books, have ended up producing major bibliographies on children’s books for the use of collectors. A recent example is Helen and Marc Younger (of Aleph-Bet)’s bibliography, First editions of Dr. Seuss books: a guide to identification (Saco, ME: Custom Communications, 2002). Several websites and blogs provide information on identifying first edition points for children’s picture books, such as Children’s Picturebook Collecting, and Peter Sieruta’s Collecting Children’s Books websites. Bloggers like Peter Sieruta and Cary Sternick also provide thoughtful ongoing discussions of the history of children’s books, with opportunities through comments on their blogs to participate in the conversation.

In the area of comic book collecting, a recent article in the Wall Street journal by Susan Bernofsky, “Why Donald Duck is the Jerry Lewis of Germany: The cartoon character turns philosophical in translation; quoting Goethe,” surveyed the history of the comic book character, Donald Duck’s translation and publication in Germany since 1951, and the collecting community it has generated. The article sparked my curiosity about this children’s literature phenomenon and led me through an email inquiry for further information on the subject to a private collector. He informed me that the German collector’s group called D.O.N.A.L.D., mentioned in the above article, remains very active. It has its own newsletter, Der Donaldist, and a website. He also referred me to two websites on international translations of Disney comics, with databases and jpgs of individual issues. They are the COA I.N.D.U.C.K.S. database and the Disney Comics Worldwide website. A blog post at the latter website shows covers of international Disney comics in various languages and points out that while new Disney comics are scarce in the United States, they are flourishing abroad. Further exploration of the Internet retrieves far too many comic book collectors’ blogs and websites on various aspects of comic book illustration and history to discuss here.

This very selective overview of collectors’ resources on the Internet for children’s books and comics gives only a small taste of how wide-ranging collectors’ interests in the field of children’s literature can be. Their collections grow out of personal interest in the books they collect and are spurred by finding other collectors on the Internet. Personal communication with these collectors through their websites and blogs, as well as the perusal of scholarly articles located through specialist societies’ websites, conferences, and newsletters, generate further information and interest in these collecting areas. Through online bookdealers, eBay, and book search engine websites, it is possible for these collectors to obtain copies of the books and ephemera they covet. Collectors may still use brick-and-mortar stores that specialize in their fields of interest, as well as specialist bibliographies, but more and more they are relying almost exclusively on the Internet and its resources to build their collections.

[This was a short essay on book collecting for a recent class, and could only be a maximum of 1,500 words. I thought it was worth sharing as a blog and hope it provides useful information for my readers.]

Tracking Down a Forgotten Illustrator: Luxor Price, His Life and His Illustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:50:00 +0000

[Note: I've been telling my academic friends for some years that they should use online genealogical and historical newspaper databases in order to research obscure and not-so-obscure historical figures for biographies and research papers. Thus I venture to share this recent paper as an example of such research. Please forgive its inadequacies. The original paper had footnotes, which I could not put into this version. I can send the text with footnotes on request. Also, some of the links are to paid databases, so readers may have to view the original documents at their local public libraries which may have access.]

Unraveling the life, background influences, artistic influences, and analyzing some characteristics of the illustration style of Luxor Price, the illustrator of one of my treasured childhood books, The magic clock (author, Mary Graham Bonner) was the goal of my research project for a recent history of the picture book class. It entailed the consultation of print reference resources, genealogical databases, online newspaper digital archives, the examination of visual resources to trace artistic influences, and the location through personal library visits, interlibrary loan, and purchase of seven of the eleven books that Luxor Price illustrated along with several magazine stories. The result was more questions than at the beginning of the project and the future necessity of a series of letters to libraries and to Luxor Price’s descendants if these questions are to be answered.

As a genealogist, my first resource was Ancestry.com. To my surprise only the Biography & genealogy master index had anything on Luxor Price. The references indexed were Contemporary illustrators of children’s books. Compiled by Bertha E. Mahoney and Elinor Whitney (Boston: Bookshop for Boys & Girls, 1930); and Who was who in American art: 400 years of art in America. Second edition. Edited by Peter Hastings Falk (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999). Before I consulted them I had already begun to suspect that Luxor Price used a pseudonym, since Luxor is a very unusual name. However, neither resource listed his real name. Mahoney stated that he was born in Wales, educated at Christ’s College, Brecon, and now lived in Chilton Corners, NY. Apparently he had come to the United States in his teens and wandered around before settling in New York. He had never received formal art training. Falk referenced the resource, Clark S. Marlor, The Society of Independent Artists: the exhibition record, 1917-1944 (Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press, 1984). Marlor stated that Price was born in Cardiff, Wales, lived in Clinton Corners, NY, and exhibited two paintings on nursery rhyme-themed subjects in 1931 with the Society, according to their 1931 exhibition catalogue, which is not available in Illinois or via interlibrary loan.

A check of the Internet revealed that Clinton Corners was the correct address for the small town in upstate Dutchess County, NY. Searching the historical Chicago tribune and New York times databases as well as Google Books led to a review by Anne Carroll Moore of The all Mother Goose panorama by Luxor Price, which was produced by Frederick A. Stokes Company in 1923. The review stated that the panorama had been produced by the artist with the inspiration of his four-year-old son Peter. That led to a check on Ancestry.com of the 1930 U.S. census for a Peter Price in Dutchess County, NY. The only Peter Price in Dutchess County was 11-year-old Peter Price, who lived in the town of Clinton with his parents, John H. and Gladys C. Price, ages 56 and 50 respectively, both listed as born in England. John H. Price was listed as an artist who worked at home. He had immigrated in 1893 and was naturalized. Gladys had immigrated in 1913 and was naturalized.

This beginning point led me back in time. For the 1920 census, I searched the less common name, Gladys Price in the state of New York. John H. and Gladys Price were living in Marlboro, Ulster County, NY, with their son Peter P. Price, and John was listed as an artist for a magazine company. The right John H. Price was not in the 1910 census so he appeared to have been traveling at that point. A check of the World War I draft registration cards, 1917-1918 database turned up John Hyde Price in Milton, Ulster County, NY, born June 15th, 1874 in England. He was listed as a farmer in business for himself. His nearest relative was Eliza Maria Price, Cardiff, Wales. Cardiff was Luxor Price’s birthplace according to Who was who in American art. The 1891 Wales Census led me to John P. H. Price, son of Peter and Eliza Price. John was listed as a shipbroker’s clerk, and his father Peter, age 67, was listed as an architect, agent, and JP, i.e. justice of the peace. This clearly was a well-to-do family of the upper middle class or lower gentry according to the English class system. What took John P. H. Price across the Atlantic to the United States remains unknown. A check of the New York passenger lists, 1820-1957 showed John Penry Hyde Price on the SS Minnehaha sailing from London and arriving in the port of New York on October 2nd, 1905. He was listed as age 31, a private secretary, Welsh, last residence Cardiff. He had been in New York earlier that year and was going to his home at 107 East 16th Street. For whom was he a private secretary? A partial clue was on his 1910 passenger manifest. He was on the SS Majestic sailing from Southampton to the port of New York on July 14th, 1910. He was listed as John Percy Price, still a private secretary, and his destination was McLoughlin Brothers, 890 Broadway, New York. He was described as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with a pale complexion, brown hair and brown eyes, and born in Cardiff, Wales. This confirmed that he was the right person despite the misspelling of his middle name. None of the other John Prices born in 1874, plus or minus two years, on this database were the right John Price. A check of Footnote.com showed that John Penry Hyde Price filed a declaration of intention which is the first step in the naturalization process in Los Angeles, California on September 29th, 1896 [he did not complete the naturalization process until 1923 so he may have had second thoughts about becoming naturalized]. That petition stated that he sailed from Liverpool to the United States on the 24th of October 1893. Back to Ancestry.com, where a search in the New York passenger lists for the last name Price, male, born in 1874, plus or minus 5 years and arriving in 1893, gave the result of Hyde Price, a nineteen-year-old student, arriving 27th October 1893 on the SS Germanic from Liverpool. His destination was Los Angeles, California. Who did this young man know in Los Angeles? That question remains to be answered.

Checking Google Books for variants of Price’s name revealed, under J.P. Hyde Price, an entry in the Social register, New York, 1902 (New York: The Social Register Association, 1901), on p. 282. Indented under the entry for Mr. & Mrs. J. Gregory McLoughlin of Larchmont Manor, NY, was Mr. J.P. Hyde Price. This was the connection to McLoughlin Bros., the well-known publisher of children’s books. A check of the Internet revealed through online histories of the company and obituaries that James Gregory McLoughlin (1880-1918) was first a railroad official in California, and only later, from 1905 to his death in 1918 was he involved with his family’s company. Luxor Price and McLoughlin may have met in California but there is no evidence yet of that. More searching of Ancestry.com under variants of Luxor Price’s name revealed that in 1900 under the name of Hyde Price, he was listed in Mamaroneck, Long Island, New York, as living in James Gregory McLoughlin’s home as a friend of the family. No profession was given for him, and no profession was given for McLoughlin or his family. On these particular census pages only the servants’ professions were given, confirming that Price was viewed as a gentleman. Price may have worked for McLoughlin as a private secretary since 1899, because on a passenger manifest for the SS Cestrian sailing from Liverpool into Boston on October 2nd, 1899, he listed his occupation as a private secretary.

A picture emerges from these records of a young Welshman of good family, who had had a traditional public school education, with the usual basic art training at home and school in drawing and watercolors. An interest in design might have been inherited from his architect father. His travels in the United States from New York to California and back were almost certainly recorded in sketchbooks, as modern travelers record their travels with photographs. He found a job worthy of a gentleman, as private secretary to James Gregory McLoughlin, who appears to have been a wealthy railroad official in California at the time they met, and only later involved with his family’s company, McLoughlin Bros., in New York City. Since Price was still listed as a private secretary and involved with McLoughlin Bros. in 1910, my current guess is that he remained McLoughlin’s secretary either until Price’s marriage to Gladys Charlotte Powell on August 10th, 1914 or until McLoughlin’s death on February 4th, 1918. Interestingly, Price does not appear to have exercised his artistic talents for McLoughlin Bros.’ picture books. A well-illustrated catalogue of a major collection of McLoughlin Bros.’s books, Amy Weinstein, Once upon a time: illustrations from fairytales, fables, primers, pop-ups, and other children’s books (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), shows no illustrations that are even close to Luxor Price’s artistic style.

Since Price was listed as a farmer in Ulster County, NY in 1918, he may have found he could not support himself and a wife and son from a farm alone. By 1920 he was listed as an artist for a magazine company. Google Books listed him as illustrating some stories in The Outlook (New York: Outlook Co., 1893-1928), later The Outlook and Independent (1929-1932). The Newberry Library has this magazine, which had the column “Tell me a story” by Harriet Eager Davis, which encouraged readers to send in stories they remembered from their childhood. Luxor Price provided the illustrations for five of these columns in 1928 and 1929. and they are quite simple, small boxed illustrations. Only one 1929 story displayed Price’s trademark animated objects in a story of a live teakettle. He contributed two stories to the column; one he made up for his son; and one from his own childhood, that his father had told him, as related by his father’s uncle Major Price, “How Ma Kangaroo got a prop,” a pourquoi tale about how Kangaroos got enormous hind feet and long tails. The introduction stated that Price’s great-uncle had served in the British army and later written a history of the Mohammedan empire. A check of WorldCat, Google Books, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, showed this gentleman to be Major David Price (1762-1835), who had become a noted Orientalist after his service in the East India Company’s army. He was from Brecon, as was Luxor Price’s father, Peter, and both Major Price’s father and Peter Price’s father (presumably Major Price’s brother) were Anglican priests. Again, this added to the picture of Luxor Price’s family background, with family members in the clergy, the Indian army, and architects, i.e. a family, by British standards, of the lower gentry.

While there were some published reviews of the books Luxor Price illustrated in the New York times, Chicago tribune and various small-town newspapers digitized and indexed by NewspaperArchive.com, the key newspaper database for information on Price was the Old Fulton NY post cards website which has digitized and indexed over ten million New York State historical newspaper pages. The Fayetteville bulletin for March 28th, 1924 reported that a copy of Price’s The all Mother Goose panorama had been given to the local library. “The panorama, which is a beautiful big colored picture of all the Mother Goose folk in action, is the work of the artist, Luxor Price, done with the help of his small boy, Peter. A children’s librarian in New York learned of the picture, had it on exhibition in her library, and found it so popular with the children that she interested Stokes the publisher in reproducing it. It takes fifteen prints to produce this and it is probably one of the most difficult pieces of color engravings ever done in this country.” Articles about this panorama first appeared in 1923 though it is listed as having been published in 1924, so advance copies may have been sent to reviewers, such as Fanny Butcher Bokum of the Chicago tribune, whose rave review appeared in November 1923. The panorama was published by Frederick A. Stokes Company, and may have been acquired by the pioneering children’s book editor, Helen Dean Fish, who had become only the third children’s book editor in New York publishing circles in 1922. The next book Price illustrated was his own work, The Quoks (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1923). Fish may have offered Price work as a children’s book illustrator on the basis of this panorama and book, for his first illustrated books were with Stokes and his panoramas seem to have been principally produced by Stokes. By 1928 he had also illustrated one book for Harper and began illustrating books by Mary Graham Bonner in her Magic series for the Macaulay Company.

Articles in the small town New York newspapers reported on exhibits of Price’s artwork for his panoramas in local libraries through the 1920s, and he sold fanciful maps through the Arden Galleries in New York City in 1926, before the 1927 publication of Mary Graham Bonner’s The magic map by Macaulay. These maps either were originals of the book’s illustrations or inspired the company to commission him to be the illustrator for this book. The last book Price illustrated was for Stokes, Helen Fuller Orton’s Daddy’s adventures with the animals (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1933). By 1936, a Mason City, Iowa library reported in the local newspaper that it had tried to get a copy of Price’s map of the Old Testament as a favor to a local who loved the library’s copy of that map. The librarian had written to the publisher who replied that the map was now out of print. The article quoted a letter from Luxor Price himself, who had been forwarded the librarian’s letter by the publisher: “The poster of ‘The Old Testament,’ is hard to get hold of. There is one here and I believe it is the last one. The price is fifteen dollars ($15). I happen to be the poor miserable artist who was responsible for the original.” The article’s point was that this poster had originally been $1.50 and now the price had risen tenfold, demonstrating how valuable the library’s holdings of out-of-print books were. It concluded with brief reviews recommending several of these books to patrons. By 1941, Price was listed as a retired painter in newspaper articles, when he gave lectures on art to local small-town organizations. In 1950 his obituary appeared in the Millbrook round table, where it was stated he had lived in Hibernia, a local town since 1925.

Let us now consider the possible reasons why Luxor Price’s artwork was so distinctive. Part of it may be due to his lack of formal art training so that he was free of the need to respect traditional art and illustration. Another part, and here is where one ventures into the realm of guess and uncertainty, is that he was influenced by children’s books from his own childhood and those he read to his son, advertising, newspaper comic strips, and his publishers’ printing and engraving capabilities. His black and white illustrations have very strong lines and include a lot of silhouettes. Arthur Rackham’s silhouette illustrations may well have influenced him. There was a strong tradition of fantastic illustration in British art, and various artists such as John Tenniel, G.E. Madeley, and the British pottery firm, Martin Brothers, also depicted animated objects, eccentric perspectives and images of people and animals, and their illustrations and pottery might have well been encountered by Luxor Price in his own childhood. There was also a strong tradition of humorous illustrations in Britain, arising out of political cartoons. Illustrators such as George Cruikshank and Edward Lear certainly would have influenced Price. Price’s animated maps also come out of a long European tradition of animated maps dating back to the 1500s. One remarkable British book may have been part of Price’s childhood, Geographical fun: being humourous outlines of various countries, with an introduction and descriptive lines, by “Aleph” (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1869). It showed the countries of Europe as people, i.e. England is shown as Britannia. It must also be remembered that British furniture and everyday objects throughout the nineteenth century could have animals and fantastic illustrations decorating them. After Price emigrated to the United States, he worked for James Gregory McLoughlin, so he was exposed to the McLoughlin picture books but may have reacted against their conventional style of illustration. Winsor McCay in his Little Nemo in Slumberland newspaper comic strips (1905-1914) certainly played with perspective, beds and other objects coming to life and flying around, and other visually extraordinary images. Those strips were extremely popular and Price was almost certainly aware of them. A British illustrator who was a near-exact contemporary of Price was William Heath Robinson whose books were republished in America and sometimes appeared in American magazines. His fantastical illustrations also showed animated objects. Another American illustrator who did animated objects was John R. Neill in his illustrations for the Oz books by L. Frank Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson and others (1904-1954). Luxor Price was also part of a strain in American illustration and other media in the 1920s and 1930s that celebrated modernity, as exemplified by children’s book illustrators such as Mary Liddell, Virginia Lee Burton, Hardie Gramatky, and the visual and decorative art movement of Art Deco, and contemporary movies such as Modern Times (1936).

The all Mother Goose panorama does not appear to exist anymore, so the earliest set of Luxor Price illustrations available in the Chicago area is in Helen Fuller Orton’s The lost little pigs (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1925). The animals depicted appear very realistic, and indeed, the pigs appear again in Orton’s The city that Mrs. Winkle built (Stokes, 1931). A look at Price’s artwork in seven books and in his magazine illustrations show that he reused images, such as the pigs, and animated teakettles. While Price’s fantastic illustrations in later books are the ones that stand out in memory, this early book was the most frequently reprinted according to WorldCat and Vialibri (a book search engine), with eight printings, the last in 1953. The Horn book even stated that it was among the books given by the Rosenwald Foundation to black schools in the south. The next book in publication order to be viewed was Mary Graham Bonner’s The magic map, which was printed by Macaulay in 1927. It is in black and white with some plates colored in green or blue, which may indicate that Macaulay did not want to do elaborate color plates for this book, perhaps because they were more expensive. [The illustrations can be seen here]. The publisher did do color plates for the 1931 book, The magic clock. [The illustration at the top of the blog post is from that book]. The Magic series had objects such as maps, clocks, and musical instruments come to life in order to explain to a young child or two children, what they did, i.e. to illustrate through these fantastic stories the concepts of cartography, time and history, and the history of music, etc. Price was at his best when illustrating animated objects which were very whimsical in appearance. The animals and people shown in these books were much less visually attractive.

A good example of how varied Price’s illustrations could be is found in John Brett Langstaff’s From now to Adam: Peter Tompkins’ adventures in the Bible (New York: Harper & Bros., 1928). He may have felt that whimsy was not appropriate for this retelling of Biblical events through the eyes of a modern-day boy who had traveled back in time. The many color plates are richly toned and stylized representations of Biblical scenes and are less than successful to my eyes. The best part are the elaborate frames that are vaguely Art Deco in style, where Price could let his creativity go. However, in the back of the book is a folded poster in a pocket, which when carefully unfolded shows all the illustrations together in one large poster with additional framework. It is quite stunning and visually demonstrates why a library patron in Iowa in 1936 so badly wanted a copy for herself. Another point to consider in why the coloration is so different in this book is that it was produced by Harper. Harper was one of the largest publishers and could afford elaborate color printing for its children’s books.

This question of printing in color also arises at Stokes. They had been able to print The all Mother Goose panorama in 1924 in what was estimated to be a very complicated process, and printed some other panoramas that Price produced, but the books he illustrated for Stokes were not so lavishly produced. There were five color plates in The little lost pigs, and the rest of the illustrations were in black and white. The illustrations in The city that Mrs. Winkle built are in black and white with yellow as the background color. Yellow made the illustrations appear bright and cheerful in this book which expresses the wonder of modern inventions through the story of how Farmer Winkle went off to the city to see its wonders. Mrs. Winkle stayed at home, and refused to take time to go to the city, but she longed to see skyscrapers, bridges and trains, so Farmer Winkle built examples of them right there on the farm. Macaulay had simple one-color printing for some plates in The magic map (1927) and its sequel Magic journeys (1928). It introduced color plates in delicate pastels for The magic clock (1931), but The animal map of the world (1932), Price’s last book for Macaulay, did not have any color. The animal map focused on tales of animals and Price made a serious effort to portray very realistic animals. The frames are somewhat stylized, but the illustrations do not have the charm of the earlier books with animated objects and silhouetted figures. Of course the variations in color printing at these three companies may also have been caused by lack of funds due to the Great Depression.

It is still unknown why Price did not illustrate more children’s books after 1933. He lived until 1950 and occasionally gave lectures on art to various organizations near his home, so he remained active. One possibility may be that his style of illustration did not appeal to editors and publishers. The Magic books and the animal books were a mix of fantasy and nonfiction, and were intended to educate children about nonfictional subjects. There were more nonfiction books being published in the 1930s due to the influence of the Bank Street educators, that contained far less fantasy, and contained bold and striking illustrations that reflected contemporary art movements. Price’s very idiosyncratic style may have appeared out-of-step with these new books.

As was stated at the beginning of this paper, there are still many questions left to be answered. What kind of artistic training did Luxor Price have? Are there papers held by his descendants that give information on his art and his life? Why did he illustrate only eleven children’s books? What other magazines carried his illustrations? Could he really support himself and his family with his art as one article indicated? How could he afford to retire in the middle of the Great Depression? Several possible avenues for future research are indicated: contact Price’s descendants in the hope that they might have archival material and original artwork and to expand on his personal biography; contact his public school in Wales for biographical and archival information, and to learn what kind of artistic training they might have offered; research James Gregory McLoughlin, Helen Dean Fish, Mary Graham Bonner and Helen Fuller Orton, and the Society of Independent Artists, to discover if archival materials or biographies contain references to Price; and investigate whether local libraries in the Millbrook/Hibernia area might hold unrecorded paintings or panoramas by Price.

From my research into an unknown illustrator named Luxor Price has emerged the artist-by-chance, John Penry Hyde Price (1874-1950), an Englishman of Welsh background, from a family of curates, soldiers, and architects, who emigrated to the United States, but did not actually become a American citizen for thirty years. He moved in high society during his years with James Gregory McLoughlin, but settled in small-town New York among farmers and everyday folk. He made his name as a children’s book illustrator and painter of nursery panoramas, and drew praise from Anne Carroll Moore and other librarians. His illustrations reflected not only the fantastic and humorous illustration trends of nineteenth-century Britain but also comparable American illustrations from the 1900s to the 1920s. He synthesized these influences into a very distinctive style, particularly in his black-and-white animated object illustrations. Today his books are forgotten and are held by only a few libraries. In my opinion, he is worth rescuing from oblivion and looking at what his life and illustrations reveal about the history of children’s book illustration in the 1920s and 1930s.

Books and articles illustrated by Luxor Price

Bonner, Mary Graham. The animal map of the world, by Mary Graham Bonner. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Macaulay Co., 1932. 228 p., 1 l. incl. front., ill., pls., 22 cm.

Bonner, Mary Graham. The magic clock, by Mary Graham Bonner. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Macaulay Co., 1931. 187 p., ill., 21 cm.

Bonner, Mary Graham. Magic journeys, by Mary Graham Bonner. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Macaulay Co., 1928. x p., 1 l., 13-286 p., 1 l. incl. ill., col. pls., maps, col. front., 25 cm.

Bonner, Mary Graham. The magic map, by Mary Graham Bonner. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Macaulay Co., 1927. ix p., 1 l., 13-238 p. incl. ill., col. pls., col. front., 25 cm.

Bonner, Mary Graham. The magic music shop, by Mary Graham Bonner. Illustrated by Luxor Price. Music by Harry Meyer. New York: Macaulay Co., 1929. 95 p., ill., 30 cm.

Bonner, Mary Graham. The magic universe, by Mary Graham Bonner. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Macaulay Co., 1930. 250 p., [9] l. of pls., ill. (some col.), 24 cm.

Davis, Harriet Eager. “Tell me a story. Original tales remembered from childhood to tell to children. Conducted by Harriet Eager Davis. Illustrated by Luxor Price,” The Outlook, Feb. 29, 1928, v. 148, no. 9, pp. 349 and 355. The story was: “How the monkeys came to the zoo. As remembered by Sophie D. Wells, an Outlook reader.”

Davis, Harriet Eager. “Tell me a story. Original tales remembered from childhood to tell to children. Conducted by Harriet Eager Davis. Illustrated by Luxor Price,” The Outlook, Mar. 28, 198, v. 148, no. 13, p. 508. The story was: “The Mouse who saved the mill. As remembered by Mabel E. Pattee, an Outlook reader.”

Davis, Harriet Eager. “Tell me a story. Original tales remembered from childhood to tell to children. Conducted by Harriet Eager Davis. Illustrated by Luxor Price,” The Outlook, Apr. 18, 1928, v. 148, no. 16, pp. 632-633. The story was: “The Good old black teakettle. As remembered by the children of Marion G. Hartness, an Outlook reader.”

Davis, Harriet Eager. “Tell me a story. Original tales remembered from childhood to tell to children. Conducted by Harriet Eager Davis. Illustrated by Luxor Price,” The Outlook, Apr. 25, 1928, v. 148, no. 17, pp. 669 and 680. The story was: “How Ma Kangaroo got a prop. As remembered by Luxor Price.”

Davis, Harriet Eager. “The Grand animal mix-up. By Harriet Eager Davis. Illustrated by Luxor Price,” The Outlook and independent, Jan. 23, 1929, v. 151, no. 4, pp. 154-155. The story was: “The Grand animal mix-up. As invented for his son by Luxor Price.”

Langstaff, John Brett. From now to Adam; Peter Tompkins’ adventures in the Bible. Illustrated with a panel and drawings by Luxor Price. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928. xii, 190p., col. front., col. pls. (1 fold. in pocket), 24 cm.

Orton, Helen Fuller. The city Mrs. Winkle built, by Helen Fuller Orton. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1931. 3 p. l., 87, [1] p., col. front., col. ill., 16 cm.

Orton, Helen Fuller. Daddy’s adventure with the animals, by Helen Fuller Orton. With thirty-seven line drawings by Luxor Price. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1933. 3 p. 1., 81, [1] p. incl. ill., pls., 20 cm.

Orton, Helen Fuller. The little lost pigs, by Helen Fuller Orton. Illustrated by Luxor Price. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1925. 96 p. incl. col. front., ill., pls. (part col.), 14 x 19 cm. Reprinted the same year by Lippincott in Philadelphia and again in 1953. Reprinted by Stokes in 1928, 1929 and 1930. Reprinted by W. & R. Chambers in London in 1927 and 1930.

Price, Luxor. The all Mother Goose panorama, designed and drawn by Luxor Price. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1924. One advertisement stated “A beautiful and colorful map, size 20 x 40 inches, desirable for children’s room or library.” Not in OCLC.

Price, Luxor. Fairy story land. A panorama that he produced according to a newspaper article. I have yet to find other evidence of this panorama. Not in OCLC.

Price, Luxor. [Map posters]. He sold original map art through the Arden galleries in New York.

Price, Luxor. The panorama of American history. Drawn by Luxor Price. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1926. Mounted on linen, 24” x 51”. A tapestry-like frieze of the outstanding events of American history, chronologically arranged and with picturesque detail–cf. an advertisement. Not in OCLC.

Price, Luxor. The panorama of the Old Testament. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928. This may have been the folded poster in the back pocket of John Brett Langstaff’s From Now to Adam (listed above), and then sold separately. Not in OCLC.

Price, Luxor. The Quoks, by Luxor Price. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1924. 62 p., ill. (some col.), 31 cm. Reprinted by W. & R. Chambers in London in 1925.

He also painted many nursery panels, large and small, in various mediums of Mother Goose, Fairy Stories, Pirates, Giants, etc., for home nurseries.

Thinking about Ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:09:00 +0000

Some discussions on Child_Lit and Facebook got me thinking about the question of when friendly ghosts appeared in children's books. Ghosts have always been around in tales told to children. In the Greek myths which were told to both adults and children, people went to the gates of Hades and offered fresh blood to draw the shades (ghosts) out of Hades so they could talk to them and get advice. The ancient Celts believed that the dead walked on Samhain and could be dangerous to the living. Samhain became All Hallows' Eve, today's Halloween. Costumes and masks were often worn during the celebrations of these holy days in order to imitate or placate the spirits. Children wore costumes and participated in these festivals long before today's Halloween-mania. Ghost stories were certainly part of the early modern childhood experience. For evidence, see John Locke's warning in his 1693 book Some Thoughts Concerning Education that nursemaids were wont to frighten children with tales of "goblins, spectres, and apparitions," causing them to become superstitious (see p. 291 of the 1712 edition). He advised that children should be reared by their parents and tutors and kept away from the servants to train them to be logical and non-superstitious. Popular chapbooks from the 1600s onwards were full of ghostly apparitions bemoaning their dire fates and warning the reader not to follow their doomed paths. However none of these ghosts seem to have been friendly ghosts. Some eighteeenth-century authors stripped ghosts from their tales or used them to show the folly of superstition, as in Goody Two-Shoes (1766), where Goody shows the frightened populace that ghosts in the church were actually people making noises (see chapter VI, pp. 45-56). Later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century stories told of fake ghosts and how they were disproved.

Among the most popular ghost tales of the nineteenth-century was Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820). On GoogleBooks are various full view versions of Irving's tale. I like a collection of three of Irving's stories, Little Britain, Together with The Spectre Bridegroom & A Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1880). If you click on the last clickable page (90) of the table of contents and scroll down a few pages you come to the beginning of the Legend and can read it at your leisure. The illustrations are perfect for the story. The Headless Horseman when he comes along is very scary, although in the epilogue there is a subtle hint that he may have been a fake ghost. There was a long tradition of ghost stories being told around the fireside at Christmastime, and Charles Dickens did a series of small gift books to be sold at Christmas. The first was A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Story of Christmas (1843), which was an immediate bestseller, popular with both adults and children. The ghosts in this tale perform a by now traditional function of reforming both Scrooge and the reader. Robina F. Hardy's The Ghost of Greythorn Manor (1887) tells the tale of a nursemaid at an English country house who with her timid young charge bravely investigates mysterious ghostly noises and finds they are caused by natural things. These tales are fairly typical of the ghost stories nineteenth-century children encountered. But no friendly ghosts, or even the expectation of a friendly ghost. Ghosts were definitely scary.

Thinking about it, the only nineteenth-century story with a relatively friendly ghost is Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost of 1887. This ghost story was published in a collection of tales for adults, not children, but children did read it. Wikipedia points out that it was a satire of the popular gothic ghost tales of the day. It has a ghost trying to terrify the very practical American Otis family, but only a young girl, Virginia, pays any attention to the ghost who she ends up befriending. Here is an unstereotypical ghost with human cares and worries. In the end Virginia helps him resolve his situation and depart for heaven. The 1944 film of this story changes the ghost's background story and makes him a bumbler but the movie is very funny and the relationship between the ghost and young Jessica (Margaret O'Brian) is sweet.

Various juvenile series of the early twentieth century had young detectives investigating ghosts, always to find that they were fake.

It doesn't seem to have been until 1936 when William Pène du Bois came out with his first book, Elisabeth the Cow Ghost, that there appeared a children's book with a funny ghost. Elisabeth was a sweet, gentle cow who came back as a ghost and tried to be a scary ghost, even wearing a sheet to inspire terror. Pène du Bois rewrote and reillustrated the book in 1964 and that edition is generally available through libraries. The text of the 1936 edition is to be found in Philippa Pearce's compilation, Dread and Delight: A Century of Ghost Stories (1995). Pearce commented that when she searched for ghost stories written specifically for children for this anthology, she did not find any before 1900. The stories from 1900 to 1936 are quite scary, save for one by Eleanor Farjeon, "Elsie Piddock Skips In Her Sleep" (1928), that I personally do not see as a ghost story. Thus my conclusion is that friendly ghost stories are an American invention that spread first to England and then to Europe. American authors such as Thorne Smith, with Topper (1926) and Elswyth Thane, with Tryst (1939) had introduced the concept of funny and romantic ghosts to adult fiction and to the movies. The influence of movies such as The Canterville Ghost and the Casper cartoons seem to have spurred the development of children's stories with friendly ghosts. This was a remarkable development because in 500 years of English hauntings and investigations of hauntings there appears to have been no concept of friendly ghosts with their own afterlives, only of murdered ghosts who needed to be avenged, or were themselves ghosts of murderers and suicides, or of spirits summoned by mediums to assuage their loved ones' grief, according to the very interesting and scholarly book by Owen Davies, The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts (2007).

The author Robert Bright did a thirteen-book series about a friendly ghost named Georgie, starting with the first book, Georgie, in 1944. Georgie was a shy, gentle ghost who haunted the Whittakers' house. He did appropriate creaky noises around the house, and frightened away robbers, but the humans never knew he was there.

I remembered the Casper the Friendly Ghost comics from my childhood, and Wikipedia stated that Casper started as a concept for a children's picture book in 1939, conceived by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo. Oriolo sold the concept to an animation studio and Casper first appeared in a 1945 film. Here was a ghost who made friends with humans and interacted with them. Casper became the hero of a comic book series in 1952 which was published until the 1990s. He still appears in TV series and feature films.

The name Seymour Reit caught my eye because one of my favorite childhood books was The Worried Ghost (1976) by Reit! This tale of a ghostly clerk who needed a human to listen to him and get a long-overdue letter delivered is wonderful, and Quentin Blake's illustrations perfectly fit the book. What fun to find that Reit was at the beginning of this tradition of friendly ghosts back in the 1930s.

In 1948 appeared The Witch of Scrapfaggot Green, by Patricia Gordon, which was illustrated by William Pène du Bois. This story was set during WWII in England. American soldiers stationed near Scrapfaggot Green widened the road for their trucks, and unleashed a witch's ghost. Two young locals befriended the ghost, who turned out to be a mischievous prankster as well as their ancestress. I was fascinated to discover it was based on newspaper articles about a 1944 hoax in England, but in the book the witch was a real ghost. The author, Patricia Gordon, also wrote as Joan Howard, who wrote two of my favorite childhood books, and both names were pseudonyms for a husband-and-wife team, Rene and Patricia Prud'Hommeaux. This Witch book seems to have been the first to have an ancestral friendly ghost.

By 1954 the British author L.M. Boston had written The Children of Green Knowe, the first of a classic 7-book series, where an old house's ghosts interacted with the children who lived there in the mid-twentieth century. This, with its deeper sense of history, not the Witch book, seemed to be the real beginning of another thread in the tradition of friendly ghosts, i.e the concept of bringing history to life through the communication of ghosts and the living. These children interacted with ancestral ghosts and learned about the history of the house and their country. The author based Green Knowe on her own home, the Manor at Hemmingford Grey, which was originally built in the 1130s. It's on my very long list of children's literature-related sites to visit someday.

By 1958 the American author, Elizabeth Marie Pope, had written The Sherwood Ring, where a young girl encountered ancestral ghosts at her family home in New York. It was actually what today would be called a YA novel and quite different from the English Green Knowe books. But that sense of ancestry and history and getting a modern young person interested in the past was similar. There's a substantial section of it readable over on GoogleBooks. Just skip past the dreadful 2001 cover and enjoy reading it! (The cover shown is a library binding from 1958).

By the 1960s there were more children's books with ghosts in them who brought history to life for their young readers. These humanized ghosts were also usually shown in illustrations and the authors' descriptions as looking like people, not ghost shapes wearing sheets. I note that ghosts wearing sheets still appear in picture books for young children, but not usually in middle-grade and YA books. I wonder if their amorphous shapelessness is perceived as less frightening and thus safer for the very young? I also wondered when ghosts began to be portrayed as wearing sheets. I found a 1592 poem by Thomas Churchyard, "Strange farlies," which talks of ghosts walking in sheets. My brother suggested that the image of ghosts in sheets might be inspired by the very old custom of burying people in shrouds, also known as winding sheets. Davies in The Haunted confirmed this idea and gave information on ghosts' appearances dating back to the Middle Ages.

May Nickerson Wallace's Ghost of Dibble Hollow (1965) had a young boy moving to an ancestral New England farm and becoming friends with his ghostly boy great-uncle Miles Dibble who needed him to solve a family mystery and a feud with another family. Through his efforts at resolving the mystery, Pug also made friends and settled down to a country life.

Librarian Judith Spearing's The Ghosts Who Went To School (1966) was another Scholastic paperback staple for many years. I still have my childhood paperback copies of this as well as the Reit and Wallace books. This was about a whole ghost family who had been pioneers in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. It's very funny and the pageant where they retell the true history of the founding of the town is hysterical. I just discovered that Spearing did a sequel, The Museum House Ghosts (1969). I hope to get my hands on it.

The British author Antonia Barber wrote The Ghosts (1969). Charlotte's Library has a very good review of it here, so I won't try to summarize it. I show here an image of the cover of my childhood copy from 1977. I do observe that a theme of many of these books from the 1960s and 1970s is how humans can help the ghosts so they can be released from their ghostly existence and move on to heaven whereas the earlier books from the 1950s are more about the ghosts helping humans. Another point about this book is that it is both a ghost story and a time-travel story. Time-travel stories from E. Nesbit's The House of Arden (1908) onwards may have paved the path for the development of ghost stories for children. Many stories incorporate elements of both themes and emphasize the importance of learning about history.

The British author Eva Ibbotson's first book was The Great Ghost Rescue (1975) which is still in print. A young boy became friends with some ghosts and discovered that ghosts all over England were being driven out of their homes. He set out to rescue them and find them a permanent home. Ibbotson's ghosts have all kinds of idiosyncracies and the book is delightfully funny. She wrote some other ghost books, and any of them, indeed, any at all of her books are worth reading. Interestingly Wikipedia claimed that she stated that she disliked the supernatural and wrote her books to lessen her readers' fears of such things. However I found a 2005 interview with her where she stated that "I think ghosts generally get a bad press. My ghosts are very nice and often to be pitied".

During the 1960s and 1970s there was a vogue for collections of ghostly stories, some of which were truly creepy, or which purported to be stories of real ghosts. I avoided them as a child, but I did love the tales of Sorche Nic Leodhas, who collected Gaelic ghost stories, and presented them in books such as Ghosts Go Haunting (1965). These gentler ghost stories showed ghosts such as the mother who worried about her baby and needed reassurance that he would be taken care of. I do wonder if the creepier story collections may have sown the ground for the vogue for juvenile horror in the 1980s and 1990s such as the books by Christopher Pike and P.L. Stine.

There were a number of stories during the 1970s and 1980s that repeated the theme of teaching about history through these ghostly encounters. British authors such as Eileen Dunlop, Mollie Hunter, Penelope Lively, and William Mayne, drew on Britain's very deep history and their ghosts tended to be from earlier periods and less likely to be friendly. American authors drew from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War for inspiration, but you also find authors such as Mary Downing Hahn and Betty Ren Wright who had recent ghosts, often direct relatives, helping the children out of dangerous situations and helping them deal with the fact of their loved ones' deaths.

The 1980s also saw the appearance of some books that combined helpful and scary ghosts, such as E.W. Hildick's six-book Ghost Squad series, published from 1984 to 1988. The cover for The Ghost Squad Flies Concorde (1986) still frightens me when I see it among my books. The concept of the Ghost Squad was that of four teenage ghosts working with two human boys to solve crimes. One of the ghosts was Hispanic and a computer genius and found a way to communicate with his best friend, an African-American through a computer they had been working on before his death. The ghosts wanted to solve the mysteries of their deaths and found themselves solving other mysteries as well. They also encountered some truly scary and evil ghosts along the way.

1982 saw the publication of Virginia Hamilton's Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, which appears to be the first African-American ghost book and it remains distinct from other such books. I'm still investigating if there were earlier books with African-American ghosts. There aren't very many even today and they tend to have slave ghosts. This book has the ghost of the main characters' uncle who helps Tree and Dab understand their family history and why their mother is the way she is. I wonder if the current push to get African-Americans interested in their history and genealogy will inspire writers to produce relevant books with ghosts that are not associated with the Civil War.

There were also gentler books, such as Bruce Coville's The Ghost in the Third Row (1987) and its two sequels. I still wish he had written more books in that series. I loved the two friends Nine and Chris and their adventures. I do note that in the second book, The Ghost Wore Gray (1988), as well as a ghost of a Confederate soldier, at the end there is the ghost of a former slave who became a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

In the 1990s there were a number of books with ghosts and humans working together to solve historical mysteries.

Elaine Marie Alphin's Ghost Cadet (1991) portrayed the ghost of a real boy who was a Civil War soldier fighting on the Confederate side. Many Civil War ghost books focus on the Northern side or slavery so this is rather different. It was very moving in its final reunion scene. I was surprised to find that Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where this book was set, had a web page devoted to the young cadet William Hugh McDowell due to the many inquiries made by readers of this book.

I've found some books printed in the 2000s that have ethnic Chinese and Hispanic ghosts. In Meg Cabot's delightful Mediator series, Suze, a teenage psychic, can see ghosts and falls in love with Jesse, a Hispanic ghost. Much of the six-book series is taken up with trying to solve his nineteenth-century murder along with other ghostly encounters. Check Cabot's website for excerpts from the books and a free short story. Ethnic ghosts in children's books seem to be still uncommon, though that may be changing.

Today's books run the gamut with friendly and scary ghosts all over the place, from picture books to YA fiction. In the 2008 Newbery Medal winner, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book ghosts are key to the story. The hero is brought up in a graveyard by ghosts, and when he grows up, he must go out into the world of humans, never to see his ghost family again. This is unlike many earlier books, where ghosts are expected to go on to heaven after having their problems solved, leaving their human friends behind.

Over the last two hundred years children's books have shifted from showing ghosts as frightening images used to teach morals to ghosts as a common theme in all kinds of books for children, whether they be scary or friendly. The roots of this shift may well go back to 1887 but it really sprang to life in the 1930s and 1940s through picture books, comics and cartoons. I will hope to hear in the comments if my readers can identify earlier books with friendly ghosts and also that they will share their favorite children's books with ghosts in them.

Modern Pop-Up Books

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:50:00 +0000

The library where I work recently received a gift of a lovely collection of pop-up books published in the period from 1983 to 2009. I've been enjoying creating a detailed inventory of it and wanted to share some of the ones I loved with all of you.

Some funny and charming books are:

Bantock, Nick. Robin Hood: a pop-up rhyme. New York: Viking, 1993. As you read this book, you realize that there's something odd going on. Someone's playing pretend... I still smile at the memory of my surprise.

Carter, David A. Flapdoodle dinosaurs: a colorful pop-up book. New York: Little Simon, 2001. These delightfully silly dinosaurs charmed me and would probably charm any child.

Chu, Miyoko Coco. Birdscapes: a pop-up celebration of birdsongs in stereo sound. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008. This book simply amazed me. As you turn the pages, you see a landscape and hear the birds that you would hear in that particular region of the world. That's so creative and such a great way to get children intrigued with birds and birdsong and exploring the world! This book was developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a place I did not normally associate with children's books. However, a look at their website shows that they do a lot of programs to educate children and the general public about their work.

Harris, John. Pop-up Aesop. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2005. I was delighted to be able to read this in person because Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast did a great interview with the illustrator Calef Brown recently. The interview is full of his wonderful illustrations and I had wanted to get my hands on an example of his work and here it was! I was surprised to see that it was published by Getty Publications. That's the publishing arm of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Not a publisher you would expect to be publishing children's books. Turns out Harris is a senior editor at Getty Publications, and has published three children's books through that imprint. This book is fun and Harris has picked some tales that are rarely retold so this is not an ordinary Aesop text, plus Brown's illustrations make for a delightful visual experience.

Petty, Kate. The perfect pop-up punctuation book. New York: Dutton Children's Books, 2006. This delightful book explains punctuation thoroughly. I need to review it carefully since punctuation is not my strong point. Much more fun visually than the children's version of Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Kate Petty did a number of other pop-up children's books, including The amazing pop-up geography, which is also in this collection. I was sad to find that she died from cancer in May, 2007. I hope her books continue to be sold and reprinted. They are wonderful.

Rojany-Bucccieri, Lisa. Sammy's suitcase: a pop-up adventure. New York: Robin Corey Books, 2008. I enjoyed this tale of a young boy who goes off on the train to visit his grandparents. During the journey his amazing suitcase produces all kinds of tools to fix the adults' problems. Very funny and I think little boys will love it, and girls too!

Yoon, Salina. Opposnakes: a lift-the-flap book about opposites. New York: Little Siimon, 2009. I loved this book which is very funny. The illustrations kept me smiling. This was a preview copy, and the book will be published in June of 2009. I definitely recommend it!

Now, I'd like to share some pop-up books whose design blew me away. The books above are fun, but they aren't high art. I think these really are art and will be appreciated for their design by all kinds of people as well as children.

Carter, David A. 600 black spots: a pop-up book for children of all ages. New York: Little Simon, 2007. Carter does a lot of children's pop-ups, but for the last four years he's been doing some abstract and stunning pop-ups as well. A friend states that her young nephews love them just as much as we adults do.

Ita, Sam. Moby-Dick: a pop-up book. New York: Sterling Pub., 2007. My library collects every single edition and issue of Herman Melville's books, so I've seen a lot of illustrations for Moby-Dick. This is a wonderful retelling of the tale. The pop-ups and illustrations are spectacular. Ita also did a version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2008) which is also in this collection. I will definitely look out for more books by him.

Pelham, David. Trail: paper poetry. New York: Little Simon, 2007. This book absolutely blew me away. It is fabulous. This was the first book that made me realize how much pop-ups are changing and how they really are art. Pelham also does more conventional children's pop-ups, which frankly did not impress me. I hope he does more pop-ups like Trail.

Sabuda, Robert. Dinosaurs: encyclopedia prehistorica. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2005. Pop-ups everywhere under flaps, and springing up from center panels, as you can see in this image. Any child who loves dinosaurs will love this book, which is full of facts as well as images. I was astonished to see how much could be packed into a pop-up book.

Sabuda, Robert. The movable Mother Goose. New York: Little Simon, 1999. I loved the unusual nursery rhymes and the images in this pop-up version of Mother Goose. Sabuda clearly had fun creating this book.

Sabuda, Robert. Winter's tale: an original pop-up journey. New York: Little Simon, 2005. Sabuda has done a lot of wintry pop-up books, but to my eyes, this is the most original. While the Christmas ones are quite wonderful, after seeing a bunch of his books all at once, I really liked the coherence of this tale, which is not just a collection of Christmas images.

Santoro, Lucio. Journey to the moon by Lucio and Meera Santoro. New York: Little Simon, 2006. This just blew me away. How did they make these images three-dimensional? Plus, it tells a fun story of how you journey by boat, plane, rocket and finally to the moon. I wish I could have given it to my nephew when he was younger!

This is only a fraction of the collection that I had so much fun exploring. I urge all of you to go out and look at the pop-up books in bookstores and libraries. It's clearly a golden age for pop-up book design and illustration today. I'm just amazed at what they are like today. I certainly don't remember pop-ups from my childhood being like this!

March Carnival of Children's Literature

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:38:00 +0000

Welcome to the March 29, 2009 edition of carnival of children's literature. Since it's March, we start off with Irish-themed posts.

Lynn presents St. Patrick's Day books for children posted at Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile, saying, "This is my first time submitting to a carnival; hopefully I'm doing it right. If not, let me know." These look like fun books to share with your child. Thanks Lynn!

Nymeth presents The King of Ireland's Son by Padraic Colum posted at things mean a lot, saying, "Hi Jenny! This is my first time participating in the Carnival of children's literature. This was the only post I had appropriate to the theme, but it's an older post. If that's not ok just let me know! Thanks for hosting." I love this book and I'm delighted Nymeth chose to share this post! It's wonderful for reading by yourself, or reading aloud to a child.

Here's a wonderful discovery. Candace Ryan presents ReJoyce in Children's Literature: James Joyce's Kid's Book posted at
Book, Booker, Bookest, saying, "A little-known fact about James Joyce, the Irish icon of literary iconoclasm-- he has a kid's book to his credit." I certainly didn't know about this book. It's always fascinating to find a children's book by a writer known for other genres, who writes one for his or her children or grandchildren. Some of my favorite books have come from such writers.

P.L. Frederick shares his artwork Mr. Green Jeans posted at Small and Big, saying, "A bit of humor for you..." This is a funny image of St. Patrick as an ecologically correct green guy. Hope it makes you smile too.

The author and illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba presents Coloring Page Tuesday - Leprechaun '09 posted at dulemba.com. How appropriate for St. Patrick's Day, and do see what he has in his pot instead of gold!

Lee Wind presents Good News For Gays and Leprechauns! posted at I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read?, saying, "I thought my vlog on everything "The Gays" and "The Irish" have in common, from my blog on Gay (GLBTQ) Teen Books, Culture and Politics, would be a fun entry to include in the carnival!" Thanks for sharing this very funny vlog with us Lee.

Here's a number of posts themed green, as in nature, science and animals for us to enjoy and learn from. Nancy Muller presents Essential Gardening Books for Kids posted at Recession Depression Therapy, saying, "Inspire your little ones, while they gain science, reading, math, and life skills. If you are trying to work green into a theme, it doesn't get any greener." Yes, and kids love to be outside, so teaching them to garden is great!

Tasha Saecker shares Kids Lit - Earth Day posted at Kids Lit. This book looks like a good way to explain Earth Day to your child.

All the way from Australia, Susan Stephenson, shares A Talent for Quiet posted at The Book Chook, saying, "Wonderful new book from a talented writer and artist!" This book looks full of gorgeous images of nature along with a sweet story of the developing relationship between a stepfather and child.

I'm delighted that Pam Coughlan chose to share with us The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau posted at MotherReader, saying, "I'm sorry, but I guess I wasn't in an Irish mood this month. I do love this nonfiction picture book that I reviewed and would appreciate the chance to get more people to know about it." I actually got to see some of the original artwork for the book at Fuse #8's January Children's Literary Cafe, and it was fabulous. Do go read this review, then look at the book in your local library or bookstore!

How appropriate to share a book about Charles Darwin to celebrate nature! Charlotte presents What Darwin Saw: the Journey that Changed the World posted at Charlotte's Library.

From Virginia, Tricia Stohr-Hunt presents Best Science Books of 2009 - Other Worthy Titles posted at The Miss Rumphius Effect, saying, "Well, it's not green, but there are green books in it. This is my "best science books of 2009" list. I tried to fill in the gaps that I thought the NSTA list missed." This is a fascinating list, and definitely appropriate for this carnival.

Becky Laney shares Duck! Rabbit! posted at Young Readers. The hysterical book trailer shown here is not to be missed.

Kate Coombs presents Three Bird Books for Spring posted at Book Aunt. These books look wonderful and I'm particularly delighted to find older as well as new books.

Melissa Wiley shares with us a book about a girl who loves nature and finds solace in it from a heart-breaking life, Only Opal: The Diary of a Young Girl at Here in the Bonny Glen.

Gregory K. informs us about his fabulous poetry project, Announcing 30 Poets/30 Days! posted at GottaBook, saying, "It's not green, so I hadn't subbed anything. But there will be earth day/spring related poems, so that's close. Plus I'm just so excited!" I'm excited too. Anything that promotes poetry is wonderful. Plus, so much poetry is full of nature and green imagery!

Hoorah for promoting reading aloud! Jen Robinson informs us about Public Information Campaign for Read-Aloud: Follow-up posted at Jen Robinson's Book Page.

Tracey shares Favorite Five Board Books posted at Girls to Grow. I made mental notes as I read this post. I never know what to give new mothers. Board books are mysterious to me and any recommendations are deeply appreciated.

Juliet Lane shares her experience watching Horton Hears A Who! posted at Bring Me Some Popcorn. Now I have to go rent a video of this movie. This sounds much better than I had expected.

Nicole B. presents The Wednesday Witch, by Ruth Chew posted at Linus's Blanket. I still have all my Ruth Chews, including this book and I agree, it's a fun book. Why are her books out-of-print? Thanks for sharing this one with us, Nicole.

Sarah shares Chapter Book Fun posted at In Need Of Chocolate. I love this piece about reading aloud to children, and some of the books she mentions were my childhood favorites.

Anastasia Suen presents 5 Great Books About Superheroes posted at 5 Great Books, saying, "Dress up is extra fun when you pretend you are a superhero!" I grew up on comics and I remember playing pretend superheroes. These look like fun books!

Stick 'em up! Sonja Cole enthuses about Books About Heists posted at Bookwink. Sonja's love for these books comes through her vlog presentation. Enjoy listening.

I love lists of books that I can go dig out and read. Susan Taylor Brown shares her lists of Memorable Mothers and Fathers in Children's Literature at Susan Writes. I'll have to think of other books for her to add to the list. Anyone want to send her recommendations too?

Here's a fun-sounding YA book about characters from plays who have their own lives. Becky Laney dishes the scoop about Eyes Like Stars posted at Becky's Book Reviews. I can't wait until July to read it!

Off to Africa, for another YA book that sounds fascinating and heart-breaking. Terry Doherty presents Burn My Heart posted at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, saying, "It's not green...but the Irish will completely understand the idea of not being able to control their own destiny!

Oh, I wish I could have met and heard these YA authors that Crissa-Jean Chappell reports on at the NYC Teen Author Festival posted at total constant order.

Here's a fun interview with Alice Pope, editor of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market generously shared by Tina Nichols Coury at Tales from the Rushmore Kid.

Lynn Hazen describes a wonderful class, Beyond Websites: Facebook, Blogs & Twitter, Oh My! that she and Susan Taylor Brown just taught to children's book authors, bloggers and librarians who want to promote themselves on Web 2.0. It's full of great links and information. Do not miss their Social Media Adventure Map! Lynn's blog is The Imaginary Blog.

Eva Mitnick shares a fabulous post about the sense of wonder that children can experience through books Summoned by Sayers posted at Book Addiction.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
Carnival of Children's Literature
using the carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on the
blog carnival index page.
The May Carnival's host is Tarie at Into the Wardrobe and the deadline is May 31st.

Technorati tags:

carnival of children's literature, blog carnival.

A Treasured Bookstore Says Adieu

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Whenever I go to New York City, I try to fit in quick trips to two of the world's greatest bookstores, Books of Wonder and Librairie de France. I was in NYC early in January, and since I was going to the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street for their Children's Literary Cafe, I stopped by Librairie de France in Rockefeller Center. To my shock they had signs up announcing sales because they are due to close for good in September 2009. Their long-term lease is up and the rent is to go so high that they've decided to close. Librairie de France is Rockefeller Center's last remaining original tenant. It has been there since 1935! According to one of the articles I located, this bookstore, originally founded in 1928, was a home for French expatriates and French publishing during World War II when France was occupied by the Nazis. It was among the very first bookstores to sell the first edition of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). Yes, that children's classic was first published in New York, not in Paris, in 1943, in both English and French. Saint-Exupéry was living here in exile when he wrote it. Hmm, is that why the Little Prince is so melancholy?

It's always had a nice selection of French and Spanish children's books, along with mystery, science-fiction, and romance novels in both languages, that I would pick up in order to practice my reading skills. There was always a huge selection in the basement of scholarly books that I never really looked it. Now, all of these older books are on sale. Many of them were published by the store's imprint, "Éditions de la Maison Française". As a rare book librarian, I can state that the prices are well below what they are worth. The new books are not on sale, understandably so, since the costs of shipping books from France to the US are ridiculous.

However, I picked up three nice books:

Cauwe, Lucie. Ponti Foulbazar. Paris: L'École des Loisirs, 2006. This is a children's biography of the very popular and prolific French children's book author and illustrator, Claude Ponti. I had never heard of him before but he appears to be enormously popular in France and has received a lot of awards. The above book is already out of print, and I feel lucky to have a copy.

When Jean Marie Gustave Le Clézio won the Nobel Prize for Literature in November 2008, my favorite listserv, Child_lit, was abuzz. Le Clézio has published several children's books as well as adult novels. People were asking if anyone had read the books, which do not appear to have been translated into English. Naturally Librairie de France had a number of his books in stock, and I selected two to buy: Voyage au Pays des Arbres and Pawana.

I loved Voyage au pays des arbres (Voyage to the Country of the Trees), which is a beautifully illustrated and lyrical book for perhaps middle-grade readers. I couldn't get into Pawana, which is a homage to Moby Dick. It feels more like a young adult book. I hope that if Voyage is translated into English, the lovely illustrations by Henri Galeron are republished with it. Unfortunately, illustrations are very rarely retained for foreign editions. New illustrations are instead commissioned. Don't ask me why!

The Claude Ponti biography made me wish I could see some of his books, and on February 7th, I went to the Center for Teaching through Children's Books (CTCB) at National-Louis University in Chicago for their annual ALA Booklist Editors' Book Revue. I always love hearing people talk with great enthusiasm about children's books. Afterwards, I gave a friend a walkthrough of the Center's wonderful library of multicultural and international children's books. They had on display many of the books that had received awards in 2008, along with a wonderful selection of books by the authors and illustrators that have been nominated for the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award. To my delight, Claude Ponti has been nominated for the illustrator award by the French section of IBBY, thus there was a display of books, including the biography I had just bought, and books such as L'Album d'Adèle and the hysterical Le Non.

L’Album d’Adèle was Ponti's very first children's book, compiled originally for his baby daughter Adèle. It is wordless and full of images of all kinds of toys, everyday objects and fluffy ducklings, that would enchant any child. Le Non is about how two of Ponti's popular duckling characters, Tromboline and Foulbazar encounter a physical object shaped as Non (No). They kick it around, crawl through it and it just gets bigger and more impressive. A very funny way of showing how children run up against the word no all the time and go down in defeat.

Interestingly, a look at the bibliography in the back of the biography shows that only two of Ponti's books have been translated into English. Some of his books have been translated into multiple languages, but the majority have not been translated. His books are apparently all still in print and available through Amazon.fr or your local foreign language bookstore might have some of them in stock or be able to order them from France. Please go out and patronize your local foreign language bookstore. They are treasures and should not be allowed to vanish. Here in Chicago we have Europa Books, on Clark Street, just off Chicago Avenue, a block or so from the Chicago Avenue stop on the Red line. It's a subsidiary of the legendary Schoenhof's Foreign Books in Cambridge, MA. And yes, I've visited that store too. I invite my readers to share their favorite foreign language bookstores too.

The world of international children's books is a wonderful one, and exploring French, Spanish, Italian, German and other books in a foreign language bookstore, can open new worlds for both adults and children. It can be very hard to find such books in your local library unless you live in a city like Chicago, or have access to an university collection such as at the CTCB or the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Librairie de France will apparently continue on the Internet, and other bookstores may also emigrate to the Internet, but there's nothing like browsing through physical books to really get a sense of them and whether they are right for you or your child.

Middle-Grade Historical Fiction Set in Asia

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:17:00 +0000

My nephew and niece are avid readers, principally of fantasy novels. Recently they read Linda Sue Park's historical novel set in 12th-century Korea, The Single Shard and adored it. My nephew raved about it on the phone to his father. So my brother asked me as the family "book expert" to find other great historical fiction set in Asia that he could give to his 14-year-old son and 12-year-old niece to encourage their interest in history. We are both historians and, of course, want to share our passion with them. (That doesn't mean we don't approve of their love of fantasy. We love fantasy too).

I posted my query to Child_Lit, a wonderful listserv that I belong to, composed of children's book writers and illustrators, editors, agents, college professors, librarians of all stripes, children's literature bloggers and reviewers and anyone else interested in children's literature.

I got a lot of replies, and was interested to note that most of the recommendations were basically for books set in Japan and China. I posted another query asking for books about the rest of Asia. That led me to an interesting chat with Tarie Sabido, a children's literature blogger from the Philippines. I'm sorry to note that no books depicting the Philippines are on the final list. Tarie did suggest some of the other Asian books. After considerable discussion on Child_Lit, Daphne Lee, a children's literature blogger from Malaysia, wrote an article ruefully noting that Malaysian writers were not writing children's books. She also posted the article on her blog with a list of some of the books that had been recommended on Child_Lit. Bibliobibuli, a Malaysian blogger friend of hers pointed out that some children's books had recently been written by Malaysian writers. A common conclusion was that Asian writers tend to focus on adult novels and to disdain writing children's fiction. Hopefully as these countries' literatures develop, this attitude will change. I expect my blogger friends will do their best to encourage such development.

Indian-American authors and bloggers Sandhya Nankani and Pooja Makhijani recommended to me more books on the Indian subcontinent. Another children's book writer noted that Australia is also part of Asia and recommended some books included on the final list, though I hesitated to dig for more Australian books. There are even some books on the Near East. Linda Sue Park herself recommended another of her own books as well as Geraldine McCaughrean's The Kite Rider.

The list grew and grew, and it includes fantasy set in historical periods, as well as young adult books that are probably too old for my nephew and niece but by this time people were requesting copies of the final list, so I kept everything on it save for current fiction recommendations. A few days ago I sent out an announcement that I had finished the list and people could ask me for copies. So far I've gotten about 30 requests, and one of my friends asked me to blog it or put it up on Facebook.

Well, I suppose since some of the books on the list are older books, it might fit within the historical aspect of this blog. I was surprised to note that I had some of the books myself from my childhood.

Historical fiction for children is why I love history. I read and reread books such as Jean Lee Latham's Carry on, Mr. Bowditch! as a young child. Even today I know a great deal about European and American history because of those books. I know very little about Asian history because I had few books on Asia. It seemed an alien part of the world so I never felt drawn to dig into the history. Thus I believe it is very, very important to provide books set in that part of the world for today's children. There are increasing numbers of books set in contemporary Asia, but proportionally fewer books set in historical periods. This list has a strong bias towards books set in China and Japan. Interestingly, a lot of the books set in China are juvenile memoirs of 20th-century China. While that is historically important, I rather wonder if they are not oversaturating the market? As for the books set in Japan, I think publishers must regard samurais as romantic and the equivalent of knights in medieval Europe. There's so much else that could be written about! I found only old books on certain parts of Asia, yet I am quite certain that there are interesting stories lurking about in the histories of all these Asian countries.

The concern my fellow bloggers showed about native Asian writers not writing their own countries' stories is important. Having grown up in these countries and immersed in their history, they can tell their stories perhaps with more ease than those writers who have to immerse themselves in the history and culture of the country and bring other perspectives to their writing. Now I do not want to say that a foreigner cannot convey a country's history and culture. There are many fabulous books out there written by people who are not part of the country and culture described in their books. However, I do think that people need both native and non-native writers' perspectives. People do agree with that. That is after all why the International Board on Books for Youth (IBBY) exists. It was set up after World War II to encourage international children's literature, and the development of indigeneous children's literature worldwide. It also encourages translation of these books. I hope that there are or will be in the future historical children's novels that are waiting to be translated and shared with us.

Here's the final list. It is not a comprehensive list. I am sure my readers will be able to add other books from their memories. While many of the books should be available in your local library or through interlibrary loan, quite a few of my international correspondents do not have access to libraries that include these books. So I include links to Amazon, either in the title or the image, when the books are still in print and to foreign booksellers when the books are not on Amazon. For those that are not in print, I recommend you search for them at http://www.vialibri.net. I also want to point out that I've only read a few of these books myself so I can't say how great they are. I've put in brackets whether they are YA, whether they are fantasy, what country and time period they are set in, and if they are out-of-print, they do not have a cover image. That cover image is linked to Amazon, and yes, I am an Amazon Associate, but you can obtain the books anywhere. You are not being asked to buy them. I wanted to be able to use the cover images and admittedly get a little money for my labors (smile).

Deepa Agarwal
Caravan to Tibet (late 19th-century India and Tibet)

Lloyd Alexander
The Iron Ring (ancient India, fantasy)

Andrews, Roy Chapman
Quest in the Desert (1930s China and Mongolia, archeological expedition, out-of-print). I have this book in my collection and it's a great story. Andrews himself was an archeologist and the book is drawn from his own experiences.

Shirley Arora
What Then, Raman? (1950s India, out-of-print)

Tracy Barrett
Anna of Byzantium (1080 A.D., Middle East)

Rhoda Blumberg
Shipwrecked!: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy (1843 Japan and America)

Ruskin Bond
Angry River (1990s India)

Binya’s Blue Umbrella (1990s India)

Malcolm Bosse
Deep Dream of the Rain Forest (WWI Borneo)

The Examination (YA, 16th-century China)

Ordinary Magic (originally published as Ganesh, 1980s India and America)
Tusk and Stone (7th-century India)

Pearl S. Buck
The Big Wave (printed in 1948 and still in print, Japan)

Christopher Cheng
The Melting Pot: The Diary of Edward Chek Chee, Sydney, 1903-1904 (1900s Australia)
New Gold Mountain: The Diary of Shu Cheong (1861 China and Australia)
Seams of Gold (Gold Rush Australia)

Denis Clark
Golden Island (161 BCE Sri Lanka, now Ceylon, orig. pub. in 1939 and repub. in 1948). I have the 1948 paperback, which is very fragile. I read and reread it as a child.

Ying Chang Compestine
Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party (YA novel about the Chinese Cultural Revolution)

Li Cunxin
Mao’s Last Dancer: Young Reader’s Edition (memoir)

Kara Dalkey
Little Sister (medieval Japan)
Heavenward Path (medieval Japan, sequel to Little Sister)
The Nightingale (retelling of Andersen’s tale set in medieval Japan). I have this book and it's another favorite.

Meindert De Jong
House of Sixty Fathers (WWII China)

Shashi Deshpande
The Narayanpur Incident (1942 India)

Peter Dickinson
Tulku (1900, China and Tibet)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Conch Bearer (fantasy, India; 1st in trilogy)

The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming (fantasy, India; 2nd in trilogy)

Shadowland (fantasy, India; 3rd in trilogy; pub. March 2009)

Neela: Victory Song (1939 India)

Mary Finn
Anila’s Journey (YA, 19th-century India)

Sid Fleischman
The White Elephant (old Siam [Thailand])

Susan Fletcher

Alphabet of Dreams (1 BC/1 AD, Persia and Palestine)

Shadow Spinner (story of the telling of 1001 Nights, ancient Persia)

Jean Fritz
Homesick (memoir of her childhood in China, 1915-1928). I have this book which is beautifully written.

Sherry Garland
Song of the Buffalo Boy (YA, 1994 Vietnam)

Jamila Gavin

The Blood Stone (17th-century India)

Wheel of Surya (India, 1947) [trilogy]
The Eye of the Horse (India, 1948) [trilogy]
The Track of the Wind (India, 1951) [trilogy]

Jon and Rumer Godden
Two Under the Indian Sun (memoir of the sisters' childhood in 1910s India)

Rumer Godden
Premlata and the Festival of Lights (mid-20th-century India)
The River (1920s India)
The Valiant Chatti-Maker (ancient India)

K.M. Grant
Blood Red Horse (Holy Land during the Crusades)

Subhadra Sen Gupta
Kartik's War (mystery set in 2nd century BC India)
Kartik and the Lost Gold (sequel to above)
Waiting for Tansen (stories set in Mughal India)

Theodore Acland Harper
His Excellency and Peter (Siberia after the Russo-Japanese War of 1905; printed in 1930 and the background is based on the author's own experiences as a mining engineer in Siberia during that period)

Erik Christian Haugaard

The Samurai’s Tale (16th-century Japan)

The Boy and the Samurai (16th-century Japan)

The Revenge of the Forty-Seven Samurai (18th-century Japan)

Lian Hearn

Across the Nightingale Floor (Feudal Japan fantasies; Tales of the Otori series)

Grass for His Pillow

Brilliance of the Moon

The Harsh Cry of the Heron

Heaven’s Net is Wide (prequel)

Minfong Ho

Rice Without Rain (1970s Thailand)

Sing to the Dawn (1960s Thailand)

The Stone Goddess (YA, 1960s Cambodia and America)

The Clay Marble (1970s Cambodia)

Sheri Holman
Sondok: Princess of the Moon and Stars, Korea, A.D. 595

Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler

The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (series set in 18th-century Japan)

The Demon in the Teahouse

In Darkness, Death

The Sword that Cut the Burning Grass

A Samurai Never Fears Death

Seven Paths to Death

Ji-Li Jiang
Red-Scarf Girl (memoir of the Cultural Revolution)

Loveleen Kacker
The Bastar Rebellion (1910 India)

Rudyard Kipling
Kim (19th-century India). This book was a childhood favorite of my grandmother, my mother, and myself.

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window (memoir set in WWII Tokyo)

Kathryn Lasky

Jahanara: Princess of Princesses, India, 1627

Kazunomiya: Prisoner of Heaven, Japan, 1858

Moying Li
Snow Falling in Spring (memoir of the Cultural Revolution)

Shirley Lim
Princess Shawl (Present-day Malacca and Singapore, and time travel to other parts of the region's history, principally to the 15th century)

Alison Lloyd
Year of the Tiger (Han China)

Geraldine McCaughrean

The Kite Rider (13th-century China)

Tamburlaine’s Elephants (14th-century India)

Ruth Manley
The Plum-Rain Scroll (fantasy trilogy set in ancient Japan)
The Dragon Stone
The Peony Lantern
http://home.netspeed.com.au/reguli/PLUMRAIN.htm

F.N. Monjo
The Porcelain Pagoda (YA, a young girl's voyage from New York to Macao, China in 1822-1823)

Fritz Muhlenweg
Big Tiger and Christian (early 20th-century Mongolia and China, out of print)

Dhan Gopal Mukerji
The Chief of the Herd (1929)

Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon (early 20th-century India)

Ghond, the Hunter (1928)
Hari, the Jungle Lad (1924)
Hindu Fables for Little Children (1929)

Kari the Elephant (1922, repub. 2008)

The Master Monkey (1932)
Rama, the Hero of India (1930)
[most are out-of-print]

Lensey Namioka
Phantom of Tiger Mountain (Sung-Dynasty China)
The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils (16th-century Japan, 1st in the Zenta and Matsuzo series)
White Serpent Castle (16th-century Japan, 2nd in series)
Valley of the Broken Cherry Trees (16th-century Japan, 3rd in series)
Village of the Vampire Cat (16th-century Japan, 4th in series)

Island of Ogres (16th-century Japan, 5th in series)

The Coming of the Bear (16th-century Japan, 6th in series)

Den of the White Fox (16th-century Japan, 7th in series)

Ties that Bind, Ties that Break (1911 China)

An Ocean Apart, a World Away (1921 China and America, sequel to Ties)

Shenaaz Nanji
Child of Dandelions (1972 Uganda, about the exiling of Indian Ugandans)

Donna Jo Napoli

Beast (Beauty and the Beast retelling, ancient Persia)

Bound (Chinese Cinderella tale, Ming Dynasty China)

National Museum of Australia
Making Tracks series (historical fiction by various writers inspired by artifacts at the museum)

Anne E. Neuberger
The Girl-Son (early 20th-century Korea, fictionalized biography)

Huynh Quang Nhuong
The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam (memoir of childhood in Vietnam)

Linda Sue Park

The Kite Fighters (15th-century Korea)

When My Name Was Keoko (WWII) [has alternating 1st-person chapters from a brother and sister]

Katherine Paterson

Sign of the Chrysanthemum (medieval Japan)

Of Nightingales that Weep (medieval Japan)

The Master Puppeteer (18th-century Japan)

Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom (Taiping Rebellion in 1850s China)

William Pène du Bois
The Twenty-One Balloons (fantastical, India and Krakatoa, printed 1947 and still in print)

Mitali Perkins
Secret Keeper (YA, 1970s India)

Kashmira Sheth
Keeping Corner (YA, WWI India)

Natsume Soseki
Botchan (memoir, Japan, 1906, readable by both children and adults; 1992 English translation by Alan Turney; also a 2005 English translation by Joel Cohn [image shown])

Jeff Stone

Tiger (Five Ancestors series, book 1, kung-fu fantasy in 1650 China) [The series has been criticized for being not historical enough]

Monkey (book 2)

Snake (book 3)

Crane (book 4)

Eagle (book 5)

Mouse (book 6)

Padma Venkatraman
Climbing the Stairs (YA, WWII India)

Yoko Kawashima Watkins

So Far from the Bamboo Grove (post-WWII Korea and Japan)

My Brother, My Sister, and I (sequel)
[there have been protests about teaching these in the schools. They are fictionalized autobiographies which apparently play about with history]

Ellen Emerson White
Kaiulani: The People’s Princess, Hawaii, 1887

Carole Wilkinson (fantasies set in Han China)
Dragonkeeper
Garden of the Purple Dragon
Dragon Moon
Dragon Dawn (prequel)

Diane Lee Wilson
I Rode a Horse of Milk-White Jade (14th-century Mongolia)

Laurence Yep

Dragon of the Lost Sea (fantasy, China, 1st in series)

Dragon Steel (fantasy, China, 2nd in series)
Dragon Cauldron (fantasy, China, 3rd in series)
Dragon War (fantasy, China, 4th in series)
Lady of Ch’iao Kuo: Warrior of the South, Southern China, A.D. 531

Rainbow People (Chinese folktales, for ages 9-12)

The Serpent’s Children: 1849 (China and America)

Spring Pearl: The Last Flower (China, 1857)
[his other books seem to be mostly set in America]

Chun Yu
Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (juvenile memoir)

Guo Yue
Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing (memoir of the Cultural Revolution for 3rd-5th grade)

Another Lost Treasure Found: My Mother’s First Public Speech in 1972

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:46:00 +0000

To put this speech in context, the reader should know that I was born deaf in January of 1965. People told my mother I would never learn to talk or anything. My mother would not listen to these naysayers. By the time of this speech in the summer of 1972 at the biannual convention of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, I was speaking, reading, and attending a private Montessori school.

I do want to point out that today deaf children grow up with high-powered hearing aids and cochlear implants and develop hearing, speech, and language skills very rapidly compared to the children of my generation. We depended on lipreading and primitive hearing aids. We were basically visual children and lipreading was the most important skill to learn as babies. It took many years of intensive speech therapy for me to learn to speak clearly and understandably. My speech has continued to improve over the years, especially since my cochlear implants in 1991 and 2007. Today I frequently recognize words, phrases, sentences, without looking at the speaker, due to the vast improvement in my hearing and ability to process what I hear. Children today grow up functionally hearing or only mildly hearing-impaired due to their cochlear implants. I’m quite frankly jealous of today’s children.

I believe this speech can be of interest today for its description of what it takes to educate a handicapped child, the time, love, and enlistment of the community involved. The importance of teaching language and being aware of a child’s need for play and interaction. For those of us who wonder what this is doing on a blog about children’s books, I point out that the speech also talks about making personalized picture books for the young child of their day-to-day experiences as a way of teaching reading. If I locate those books, I will post images at a later time.

So, imagine my beautiful young mother speaking before a crowd of parents of deaf children, educators of deaf children, and adult deaf people:

My remarks this afternoon can be summed up in three main points. First: as parents we are told that we must talk as much as possible to our hearing-impaired children. I’d like to look at the other side, at the silences in between.

Second, I want to discuss the rest of the child, not just the handicap we are so familiar with. What are his strengths? How can we help him learn through strength?

Finally I’d like to say something about help for parents, about borrowing people.

When we first find that our child is deaf and we ask “Will he ever be able to speak?”, what is it that we really mean? I don’t think we mean just a simple labelling of objects and utilitarian needs. I think we all regard speech as more basic to our human nature, as self-expression.

There are two parts to this broader definition of speech, the first is self. Our children must have a strong concept of themselves, their unique identity, their value in the world in order to want to say anything. A great portion of our thought and effort as parents goes into helping our deaf children achieve self-respect.

The second part of the definition is expression. A child with a good feeling about himself and his world will want to express that to someone. So there must be someone there to receive what he has to express. Long before he can express himself in words, he will be giving of himself in smiles, and the little objects he brings us, and the little games he invents to play with us and alone.

Piaget said that Play was the language of a child - and as parents of a young hearing-impaired child we really have to learn to understand and receive that language, we have to be observers and acceptors.

Somehow, because of our uncertainties and the desire to help, we can see ourselves as having to talk, talk, talk all the time. We are Lord and Lady Bountiful who have such a rich heritage of language to give to our child, to pour into him. We can really swamp him with language, and it is very difficult for anyone to always be on the receiving end.

For a normal child language development is a give and take sort of situation, and we must create that kind of sharing experience for our hearing-impaired child.

As an example, suppose you have 30 minutes or so to be with your child after breakfast when the older children have gone off to school and before you get busy with the work of the day - what do you do? Do you bring out special games and materials, fix your child with a beady eye, hold up a toy near your mouth and prepare to talk constantly for 30 minutes? I don’t think so. I think when you get more relaxed you find that if you talk more than 10 minutes out of the thirty, that’s a lot.

What you are doing is sitting on the floor by your child while he plays. By your presence you are communicating: “I love you, I want to be with you, I like what you are doing and would rather share this time with you than dash off and clean the house, or whatever”. And you wait, watching him, for that moment when he has completed what he wanted to do and he turns and looks at you. When his eyes meet yours, you hold them with a smile. First a smile, and then as eye contact develops into longer and longer periods, you have a chance to add a word or two to your smile.

It doesn’t matter which words. There are no special lists of 100 first words for a deaf child to learn. If we have shared experiences with our children, if we have been “receivers” and “observers” the appropriate words come easily. If he loves to build with blocks, then the words are block and build. It would be silly to try to play and talk about balls when he is not interested.

What we are doing, through body language, is communicating our joy and pleasure in our child. We have entered into the game, passively, receptively - and now maybe he will be ready to enter our game - with the same materials, but with words, too.

How do we teach a young child? Not by talking, but by doing. Young children learn by imitation. If we want our children to be good lipreaders, to develop good eye contact and a long attention span for language, to be patient and accept frustration and not give up, to accept willingly all the special teaching necessary for so many years, then we have to be the model. We have to learn to watch first, before we can expect our children to watch. We have to be patient and attentive to our child’s activities if we want him to develop perseverance and concentration.

As we give him ourselves as a model, as we struggle to develop the skills that he must develop, we learn to respect him and help him respect himself.

So it gets back to that concept of self and how we help our child develop faith in himself.

First of all, we have to know our child and take a good look at just what sort of person he is.

One of the unique things about a hearing-impaired child is that he is many children rolled into one. Because of the many different effects of the handicap on the various aspects of development - social, emotional, physical, intellectual - a “typical” 4 year old deaf child may range in abilities from 18 months to 6 years on a normal developmental scale.

Many disputes between parent and deaf child come because we misread where our child is developmentally in one particular area. Because we know him to be immature in language and social responses, we may deny him the opportunity to act more maturely and independently in an area in which he is competent. We frustrate his natural abilities and needs and his good self-concept.

On the other hand, knowing him to be mature in one area, we expect too much of him in another, putting on the pressure and ensuring that he will fail and lose self confidence.

Let us look at this “stereotyped” 4 year old deaf child more closely. His most immature area would be his language abilities. Like an 18 month old he may have a small spoken vocabulary of under 100 words, and a larger “receptive” or “lipread” vocabulary. In language-learning situations he might be struggling with the terms “put it in the box” and “take it out of the box”. A normal 18 month old is actively learning with his entire body, actually putting things in and out of boxes at the same time that he is learning the verbal expressions for his actions. The whole process is exciting and stimulating for him.

Our hypothetical deaf 18 month old is equally excited by the motor activities of putting in and taking out, but he cannot learn the words for his activity. Instead, he forms a non-verbal image in his mind. Years later, when his language training has come to the point of teaching him the verbal concept, he is no longer interested. His intellectual abilities, his desire for challenging situations, all have matured beyond the 18 month level.

Because language learning for a very young deaf child is not an organic part of his total life experience, it is always remedial and often dull.

Our child is no longer vitally interested in the concepts being presented. Teachers and parents have to use every trick and technique, brightly colored games, loads of individual attention and love, to make language learning palatable. It is absolutely necessary, the largest portion of every day is spent on this remedial learning. But we must remember that it is not food for growth of a good self image.

Physically, this 4 year old deaf child will probably behave at a 4 year old level - unless there are other handicaps. He will enjoy the same games, the same explorations of his body in space. We must not be so concerned with language training that we cut back on opportunities for physical growth. Here he can be successful. Many of us try to find extra help for our child in his area - Park District or “Y” programs in gymnastics, swimming, dancing, etc. Remember that large freely moving group activities may be more difficult for our child because he may get bumped and buffeted as he cannot hear the children running up from behind him and may not get out of the way in time.

Emotionally, a 4 year old deaf child will probably already be retarded - and might be functioning at a 3 year old level. He will miss the tone of our voice which conveys our emotions, he will miss the quick interpersonal communication of emotions unless we devote time and thought into helping him become aware of his own feeling and those of others.

But in at least one area he will be in advance of his actual age - in visual perception he may be the equal of a normal hearing 6 year old. Our deaf children live by their eyes and they train them very early to perceive many details. My daughter, Jenny, while running down the hall to greet her father, noticed that he had bought a new watch band that day. I wouldn’t have noticed for a week.

This is the area of greatest curiosity, of quickest learning and intellectual excitement for a deaf child. In learning visually he can learn through success, through areas of strength, not areas of weakness.

The question is not what our children perceive, but what interpretation they place on what they perceive, what conclusions they draw. And that depends on their total experience and knowledge of the world.

Having just discussed such a stereotyped view of a “typical” deaf child, I want to emphasize that each child is different, in each the combination of handicap, home environment, training, overall health and intelligence and many other factors lead to a unique individual. Only parents are in the position to truly observe and know their own child in all his diversity. It is the parents’ responsibility to make sure the total program, the total environment for their child will help him develop at ability level in each area. If the school program concentrates almost entirely in the language area, then at home we must provide the balance.

In the verbal area our child is immature and dependent on us and our face. We must help him be independent and successful in many other areas. Can our 3 year old dress himself? Do we provide simple clothes so that he can? Do we have low hooks in the closet and low shelves in his room so that he can get what he wants and put it away by himself? Can our 6 year old go into a store and buy a loaf of bread by himself? Can our 8 year old cook dinner for the family?

How do we help our child satisfy his curiosity about the world, his hunger to understand what he sees happening around him? It is an article of faith for me that a hearing-impaired child can learn as much about the world through his eyes as a normal child can through his ears. It just takes more thought and planning on the parent’s part.

We must look at our small shared vocabulary as the chapter headings and be prepared to provide a whole chapter of information through visual means - through pictures and pantomime. Later on, as our child’s language grows by leaps and bounds, we can look at that shared language as not only the chapter heading, but also the summary paragraph under the title - 5 or 6 long explanatory sentences. But we will still need to provide all the detail of the full chapter through visual means.

For example, think of taking a normal hearing 3 year old to the zoo. We would talk a great deal,, about why he has to wear his jacket because it is chilly, about staying close to us so he won’t get lost, about the names of the different animals as we look at them, perhaps even reading to him the offical descriptions. We would tell him why we cannot feed some of the animals and why we can feed others. And after a long, tiring day with its good and bad moments duly commented on, when we put him to bed at night we might tell a bedtime story about the adventures of the day and relive the experience together.

For our hearing-impaired 3 year old there are some differences. We may be teaching him words like zoo and bear for the first time. With prior preparation he may understand “We are going to the zoo”, “We will feed the bears”, and a few organizational comments like “Put on your jacket”, “Stop”, “Wait”, “No”, “Hold my hand”, “Don’t run”, etc.

We must communicate the rest visually. So we take our polaroid camera with us and take lots of pictures of everything we see. After we’ve been doing this regularly for a while and our child can recognize that not only is the photograph a representation of reality, but our quick stick figure drawings are also reality, then we can take fewer pictures since it does get a bit expensive. I like a polaroid because you have the picture immediately, while you still see the event instead of 3-4 days later when it has been forgotten.

As our child looks at the photograph and back at the real situation, we have helped him zero in his attention on important details. We have helped him organize his own observations. And we have communicated our ideas and observations, since we are taking pictures of what otherwise we would be talking about and describing in words.

So we take pictures of the bears begging for marshmallows, the elephant sloshing water on its back, the children eating cotton candy, little sister crying when she loses her balloon, and many more.

When we get home we make a book, filling in the story with stick figure pictures, helping our child learn to sequence his observations, to think visually of before and after, cause and effect. And we write a few words under each picture - some of them from our shared vocabulary and some new. And then we act it out. Our child gets behind the rungs of a chair and begs for the imaginary marshmallows we throw, and we pretend to be our child happily eating cotton candy, and our child pretends to be Daddy when he is tired and little sister crying when the balloon sailed into the sky. Through the pantomime game we help our child become aware of his own feelings and those of others. Facial expressions are hard to catch in a photograph, but in pantomime we can exaggerate and make the feelings clear.

We can communicate to a hearing-impaired child anything we could communicate to a normal hearing child of the same age. We have to think clearly what it is we want to convey and then think how to do it. But it takes a lot of time and effort.

It is very hard to find enough time. We all have many other commitments - particularly to other children in the family who, no matter how old they are and how understanding, cannot help but feel left out and jealous of the quality of attention and concern we give our deaf child. So we have to find time to give our other children their turn alone with us.

There are just not enough hours in a day for all that could be done, and that is a great burden on parents, I think that after you sit down and figure out what the demands are and what resources you have - physically and emotionally as well as financially, then you have to go out and get help - you have to borrow people.

I don’t know any other word for it - you want to borrow their interest and their help.

The first group to go to is the 10 to 14 year old age group. It is a very compassionate age, very creative and very energetic. They have a great desire to be useful, and you need them. You will have to explain that you want them to play with your child and you will have to teach them how. How to develop eye-contact, to always look into your child’s eyes, and how to play: babbling games with a baby, or ball games with simple words to a toddler, or card and board games with structured language for an older child. Once they get the hang of it they will be more imaginative than you. So look for neighbors’ children or see if you can get your child “adopted” by a local Girl or Boy Scout Troop. Then someone your child will enjoy can come over after school for 40 minutes or so and give you free time to be with another child, or start dinner, or just go to your room and close the door and have the time for yourself.

Senior citizens’ groups are another area to investigate. There are many people who have no grandchildren near and would enjoy the chance to rock a young child and sing and read to him. Again, you would have to tell them specifically what you need - someone to play with language with your child - and show them how.

You can go to your church and minister and explain what you need: time off for you and a chance for your child to broaden his experiences in lipreading and language.

You can borrow normal children, for example - a baby who is just learning to repeat sounds and words for your older deaf child to “teach”. His mother will then return the babysitting favor and give you the rest you need. Children the same age as yours are very good to borrow, not only for your child, but for you to see what normal is and realize how much we demand from our deaf children that we would never dream of expecting from a normal child. We ask more and they give us more and we should be appreciative.

In a way you borrow the interest of your neighbors and your community. It all starts when someone comes up and says “Oh, what a pity about your child, what a tragedy.” If you fall apart on the spot that doesn’t help anyone. You have to find that steel in your soul to say “Well, it happened. And he is in a wonderful training program where he is learning to lipread and speak and eventually he will have as fine and full a life as anyone.” The surprised response is “How can they teach so young a child to lipread?” and then you have to start to tell him how. A little this time, a little more the next time. A day comes when the salesgirl stops you and says “You know when Johnny came in yesterday to shop for you, I really understood what he said, he’s making wonderful progress, isn’t he?” And you know that the interest you borrowed has been repaid.

So, in exchange for your interest this afternoon, I’ve asked you to go out and both a borrower and a lender be - borrow people and loan your interest in the cause of deaf education. I’ve asked you to think of yourself as a receiver as well as a giver of language, and above all, to look at your child with fresh eyes, cleared of all the negative “He can nots”, ready to help him develop as quickly and as fully as possible in each different area of his very complex Self.

Joanne G. Schwartzberg

A Childhood Treasure Expanded and the Trail of Three Interesting Women

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 03:16:00 +0000

One of the books that I adored as a child and still treasure in my collection is an old Scholastic paperback reprint from the 1970s of Marian Cockrell's Shadow Castle (New York: Whittlesey House, 1945). This magical tale of a little girl, who while playing in the woods near her home, follows a cute little dog through the woods into a mysterious and scary tunnel, and finds a castle in a shadowy green valley, still enchants me. My paperback copy was even printed in green ink as were the delicious illustrations.

Lucy, the little girl, meets a nice young man, Michael who takes her into the castle and shows her a room where there are shadows on the wall of people who live elsewhere and tells her tales about these people. I won't spoil the plot for those of you who have not yet read this wonderful book.

Recently I thought to try to find out something on the Internet about this book and to my surprise I found it had been reprinted with 6 additional chapters by Marian Cockrell's daughter, Amanda Cockrell, who is herself a novelist and the director of the Graduate Programs in Children's Literature at Hollins University. I happily ordered a copy immediately and when it arrived, devoured it. The six chapters added two tales about some of those shadow people, but the book is great in either version.

I decided it would make a fun post about the two editions and hunted through the Internet, biographical databases and historical newspapers to try to dig up information on Marian Cockrell and Olive Bailey, the illustrator. The information I found is scattered and was difficult to find...

Marian Brown Cockrell was born 1909 in Birmingham, Alabama, lived for many years in California and died in 1999 in Roanoke, Virginia at age 90. She wrote short stories for magazines such as Liberty Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, and Collier's in the 1930s and 1940s, six novels, and one children's book. Then I discovered she was also a screenwriter for movies and tv shows from the 1930s to the 1980s, including the tv series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Batman. Her husband Frank Cockrell was also a screenwriter from the 1930s to the 1970s and even directed a couple of episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Aha, I thought. Here's why she didn't write more. More money in the movies. Sigh....

Still that wasn't enough for a good post, was it? Courageously, I sent an email to Amanda Cockrell via her website, explaining that I was a fan of Shadow Castle and was putting together a blog post about it and her mother. Could she possibly answer some questions? To my astonishment she promptly replied!

The first question she answered was why the book had come back into print with six additional chapters. With her permission I am quoting our emails:

AC: The book came back into print oddly. What happened was that her original publisher forgot to renew the copyright in time and the book went into the public domain. Mama was furious, but a literary lawyer said there was nothing she could do. She couldn't get the copyright back and couldn't sue the publisher since she couldn't prove she had been damaged-- no one wanted to reprint it anyway. About ten years later, a publisher called Buccaneer Books (appropriately) who specializes in reprinting stuff that's gone out of copyright, reprinted it, and of course Mama didn't get a nickel for it. Then the lawyer said that now she could theoretically sue but the statue of limitations had passed. Arrgh! But at about that time the Authors Guild began their backinprint.com program, through which authors could re-issue their own out of print books. So we took the extra chapters (these had been cut because the book was too long when it was originally published) and copyrighted those, then issued the new edition. Buccaneer can still reprint the old version but they can't reprint the new chapters, so we hope we are pulling the rug out from under them. Anyway, that's the tale.

I've heard tales of problems with copyright before but that really made me go ouch, espcially since I remembered that I had bought that edition years before so as to have a hardback copy to supplement my old paperback copy. Oh dear!

I promptly sent back another email asking some questions:

JS: I didn't remember the frontispiece illustration and one or two of the illustrations in the new chapters. Do I assume they were cut too? Was Olive Bailey a friend of Marian Cockrell or an illustrator assigned by the publisher?

AC: All the illustrations in the new edition are from the original. I couldn't find out how to get in touch with Olive Bailey or her estate, but I had the copyright office do a copyright check, and the copyright on the illustrations and the cover had not been renewed either (as I suspected since Buccaneer used most of the interior illustrations) so we could use them, since I own the original of the cover, which Olive Bailey gave to my mother. They didn't know each other. The publisher assigned the illustrator. It was interesting, adding the extra chapters. Since each chapter starts with an illustrated letter, we had to make the new ones start with letters we already had. I had to tweak the first sentences of most of them. Fortunately we had some essential letters, like T for "The" and M for "Mika" and W for "When." I also had to add a few sentences here and there to introduce the two new storylines, since they had been cut from the original and the rest revised to take out all mention of them. They had been cut because publisher thought the book was too long, and also that these two stories were too scary.

[They aren't scary to my modern eyes!]

JS: Since your mother lived in Virginia in later years, I wondered if Shadow Castle might actually be set in Virginia rather than Alabama where she was born. Something about the description of the forest and mountain makes me think of the western part of the state...

AC: I think she was thinking of Alabama. She grew up there and didn't move to Virginia until she was in her 80s, long after she wrote Shadow Castle.

JS: Did your mother tell you stories about whether Lucy went back to the enchanted valley and what she saw there? I always wondered what happened next!

AC: She started a couple of sequels, but never felt that she really was on the right track.

JS: I found through searching for biographical material on your mother that she also wrote tv and movie scripts and 6 adult novels. I would like to know why she didn't write more children's books. Was this a set of stories she told you as a child that she turned into a book?

AC: She did write another children's book but could never get it published (not a Shadow Castle sequel). She told me those stories as a child, and read me Shadow Castle, but it was published before I was born.

[I want to read that book. I hope Amanda gets it published someday!]

JS: Would you mind sharing memories of this book and of your mother? Since your father also wrote movie scripts you grew up in a very literary family. I wondered if, since there was more money in the movies, your mother focused on scriptwriting rather than novels? I'm thinking about checking out her novels through interlibrary loan. Which would you particularly recommend?

AC: She liked writing novels better, but TV did pay better, as you suggest. My favorites of her books are The Revolt of Sarah Perkins and Yesterday's Madness (that one will seem very dated, though. It came out in the 40s. The heroine breaks off her engagement with her fiancé and then discovers she is pregnant by him after just being talked into going to bed with him once. She marries a childhood friend as a way to keep the baby. The Saturday Evening Post turned it down as a serial because it was too "lurid."

JS: I would like to know more about the Author's Guild's Backinprint.com program too. How many authors have used it and how many children's books have been reprinted through it? I had trouble searching iUniverse for just the Author's Guild books.

AC: I don't know how many, but a lot. Try going to the Author's Guild site and click on backinprint.com under "Resources" on the right. That should take you to just the backinprint.com books. [There are 1448 books listed, and there are some interesting looking children's book reprints among them].

This interview sparked more questions in my mind and I went off to dig some more. One of my passions is genealogy so I know how to find people. I began to dig harder on Olive Bailey. I had already found that she illustrated two other books, Arthur Ageton's Mary Jo and Little Liu (New York: Whittlesey House, 1945) and Isabel Manning Hewson's The Land of the Lost (New York: Whittlesey House, 1945) [see the cover image above]. So in 1945 she was working for Whittlesey House, which was a division of McGraw-Hill. While I was looking for covers and information on these books, I came across a mention of her as a cartoonist! It turns out that The Land of the Lost was a popular children's radio show from 1943 to 1948 and I found a detailed discussion of the show and its spinoffs, particularly the comic series Olive Bailey illustrated at Scott Shaw's Oddball Comics. The creator of the show was Isabel Manning Hewson and I dug further and found an Isabel Manning Hewson tribute page with photos and short biographies of her and Olive Bailey (scroll down to see them). Olive Bailey's biography stated that she was married to Arno Scheiding. Aha! Any genealogist knows that when you can't find a woman, you must look for her married name. It turned out that Olive Bailey Scheiding (1904-1994) lived most of her life in Darien, Connecticut with her husband, industrial designer, Arno Scheiding. After the 1940s she seems to have quit illustration and focused on painting. The Bridgeport Post (CT) has various articles on group shows that included her work. Arno Scheiding's 1975 New York Times obituary named no children, only his wife, and an unnamed brother and sister. Olive Scheiding died in Manatee county, Florida, and I have been unable to locate her heirs other than a bank (trustee)... Sigh. I had hoped to find another friendly correspondent to tell me more about her...

For those who would like to see more of her comic artwork after examining the illustrations at Oddball Comics, rather than spending money on collectible comics or original art (both have been sold in the past at auction), I would recommend hunting down a copy of Trina Robbins' A Century of Women Cartoonists (1993) at AtomicAvenue.com

It's been expanded and rewritten as

So who is the third interesting woman I mentioned? Isabel Manning Hewson, of course! According to her biography she was a pioneer woman radio commentator and developed, narrated and presumably produced The Land of the Lost. You can hear six episodes from this radio program here. You click on the radio shows link and then on the mp3 files which seem to work. Here's a Library of Congress discussion of the prominence of women in early radio which mentions Hewson.

I even found another copyright "ouch" item:

Isabel Manning Hewson Kirkland vs NBC
USDC, E.D. Penn (12-17-1976) ¤ 425 F.Supp. 1111
In 1933, Kirkland originated a story called “Land of the Lost” which became a radio program broadcast from 1943 to 1948. Children listeners formed “Land of the Lost” clubs, but the last disbanded by January 1954.

NBC started a new children’s television program called Land of the Lost (unrelated but for the title) in September 1974. Kirkland thought her rights to the title had been infringed. The Judge ruled that “a copyright in literary material does not secure any right in title itself”. Any secondary meaning attained by the title had been abandoned by her doing nothing for more than 20 years since the last commercial use by Kirkland. There was no “likelihood of confusion” between the programs of NBC and Kirkland. Whatever her previous success, “her extended non-use has resulted in a loss of rights to the title”.

Aha! Kirkland, another married name to track down...

Much Later: Ooof. She was the hardest of all. Newspaper databases like NewspaperArchive.com and Ancestry.com with its historical newspapers, and through my university, Proquest's historical newspaper databases, such as the New York Times and Chicago Tribune archives, don't have that much actual information about her. There are plenty of references to her radio broadcasts from Philadelphia in the 1930s and 1940s but not much personal information. I finally figured out some genealogical information that I think would be boring to go into. Isabel Manning Hewson Kirkland (1898-1980) may have gone into radio broadcasting because she was a divorced woman, looking to support herself. She seems to have had a very successful career. [I found a 1946 article that refers to her as a beautiful, blonde childless divorcee, while talking about her successful children's radio show, which made me go ouch at the period biases implicit in such a description]. In 1948, when The Land of the Lost went off the air, she seems to have ceased any radio work. I think she remarried at this point to Frederic R. Kirkland, and chose to retire.

To pull everything back towards Shadow Castle, I would like to point out that all the female characters in Shadow Castle are strong girls and women who do things and have adventures. Even Gloria flings things at her ugly suitor and fights like hell before being rescued by Mika. And what about adventurous little Lucy, fairy godmother Flumpdoria, and Meira who becomes best friends with a dragon? Legions of young girls seem to have responded to that. Amazon.com is full of rave reviews of this book by people who remember it from their childhoods, and are excited to have found it again!

So, Shadow Castle led me to explore the lives of three interesting women who had successful careers [despite the mythology that few women had successful careers before the 1960s]. This long and winding trail has led me to explore the history of radio, comics, publishing, genealogy, and to fun posts by people who share my love of this book. Every time I research a book or author, I end up finding such great stories and people!

The Power of Presidential Biographies

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:23:00 +0000

There has been a flood of biographies of presidential candidates this year. The president elected on November 4th, 2008, will undoubtedly have many more biographies written about him in the future, whether or not he is a "great" president. The times are such that if he deals effectively with them he will probably be acclaimed as one of the greatest presidents the U.S. ever had. If he is the person I will be voting for, I think many of my historical heroes will be cheering from Heaven (smile).

In any case, presidential biographies taught me to love reading and many other children have also experienced similar fascination with history and biography. We have generally gone on to believe firmly in the importance of voting. There are many articles right now about how children are participating in mock elections and watching the current election with fascination. For the sake of all our children, do go vote, no matter who you vote for.

This is my story of the power of presidential biographies:

I can't remember a time when I didn't read. My family tells the story of how I became an enthusiastic reader as follows:

On my seventh birthday, January 10th, 1972, I came home from school and proclaimed that Richard Nixon was the greatest president ever. Apparently my teacher had been praising Nixon to her class. She had been talking about Nixon's upcoming visit to China. The class had even written a letter to Nixon and he had replied with a signed book. This was before Watergate of course.

My parents, life-long Democrats, were very upset to hear me praising Nixon. My father said there were many many much greater presidents. I said who?, and he started listing them all in order from George Washington on down. When he got tangled up with Grover Cleveland, et al, he took me down to the local library and we came back with a bag of children's presidential biographies. I sat down and read all of those books then went back for more. By the end of that school year, the teacher, who had been complaining I wasn't reading on my own enough, was complaining I was reading too much!

I did some exploring and found two familiar covers that are shown above. I don't remember the stories in the books, but I remember those covers and the stepping lion symbol, for the series: Step-Up Books.

This bookdealer's website has covers and scans of some of the pages of books in the Step-Up series and they look very familiar.

I went on to read other biographies and historical fiction, and one author that I really loved was Genevieve Foster. She wrote and illustrated George Washington's World (New York: Scribner's, 1941) and Abraham Lincoln's World (New York: Scribner's, 1946) as well as quite a few other books. These two books won Newbery honor medals in 1942 and 1946 respectively. What was magical about these books for me was that they not only began with images of the main characters' childhoods but talked about historical events worldwide, setting their lives into historical perspective and telling me about fascinating people and events happening at the same time around the world. I collected any of Foster's books I could lay my hands on, and since I've discovered I don't have them all, may collect the rest! While digging for information for this post, I found that five are in print at Beautiful Feet Books, although the two I name here have been changed and expanded by Genevieve Foster's daughter Jeanne Foster. They are apparently very popular with homeschool families.

I would go on to read many more biographies and works of historical fiction and ended up a historian, genealogist, and rare book librarian, all through the power of these books.

So, on Tuesday morning, I will go stand in line to vote, and I hope all of you that read my blog will go to vote. If you live outside of the U.S., please vote in your own elections!

See Chasing Ray's Blog the Vote for many great posts on the importance of voting!

Another Lost Treasure and Thoughts about Dinosaurs

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:37:00 +0000

I've been going through boxes and shelves of books lately, trying to clear books out so we have room to move in our house full of books. I came across a book inscribed to my brother from my Uncle Wally, Aunt Celia, and cousins John, Kate and Elsbeth, Xmas, 1967 (sadly, Elsbeth died of a brain tumor at age 6 in April 1968). The book looked fun and I put it aside to save for my brother. When I mentioned it to him, he was blown away. I had found one of his lost treasures of childhood. That book was The Great Bone Hunt, by Margaret Cooper (New York: Macmillan, 1967).

He prodded me to retrieve it from the bottom of a pile and happily settled down to read it. Afterwards he rather ruefully admitted that the story had gotten mixed up in his memory. He remembered it as a story about the discovery of dinosaur bones in the 19th century in England, and thought it had an illustration of a dinner at the Crystal Palace in 1851 in the midst of a dinosaur skeleton. Nooo. The book is actually the story of the discovery and reconstruction of mammoth skeletons by Charles Willson Peale in America in 1801. The illustrations by Harold Goodwin are delightful. There is even an author's note at the end that reproduces Peale's painting of the excavation of the skeletons. I read the book myself that night with great pleasure though I did not remember it from our childhood. My brother was the one who adored dinosaurs and science in general. I was the poet, dreamer, and writer in the family. Funnily enough, we both ended up as historians...

When he told me about his mixing up the story of the Great Bone Hunt, I immediately recalled hearing of a book about the dinosaur skeletons and reconstructions at the Crystal Palace of 1851. That was Barbara Kerley's The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, illustrated by Brian Selznick (Scholastic, 2001). Perhaps he read it to his children and thus the story got mixed up with his childhood memory? It even includes illustrations of the dinner party in a skeleton. Here's an article about the history behind the book. The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia holds an 1872 scrapbook album by Hawkins, which includes a formal invitation to that dinner and an illustration of it.

The passing down of passions is interesting. My father, born in 1933, was fascinated with dinosaurs as a young boy, and managed to pass that passion on to my brother, who passed it along to his son and daughter. Everytime they visit Chicago, we go off to the Field Museum to see Sue and other dinosaurs. They adore museums so we visit every big exhibit that is open during their visits.

I wish I could share with them a recent discovery sometime soon. This summer at the Children's Literature Association Conference in Normal, Illinois, the illustrator Eric Rohmann gave a talk in ISU's library. He was wonderful. If any of you have a chance to hear him talk, run, do not walk, to hear him! He talked about illustrating and the talks he gives to school children. He drew on a whiteboard, in response to suggestions from the audience. At one point he drew what looked like a pig sinking into quicksand and I said so. He laughed and drew additional curves to make that clearer. After his talk, there was a long, long line to buy his books for him to sign. When I got to the front, all that was left was a paperback copy of Time Flies (a Caldecott honor book in 1994). He drew a quick sketch on the title page of a dinosaur head poking out of quicksand and signed it for me. I'm not ever giving that book away but keeping it forever. However I will show it to my nephew and niece when they come to visit. They are too old for me to send them copies of the book, though...

When I settled down to pore over it that night in my hotel room, I was astonished to find that the very first page showed a bird flying through the Field Museum's huge main hall into the prehistoric past. The illustrations echoed the old dinosaur murals of my childhood visits to the museum, and wasn't that Sue herself, alive and well?

Alexander Key: A Forgotten Author?

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:24:00 +0000

Among the many books from my childhood that I have kept and treasured all these years are books by Alexander Key, such as The Forgotten Door, Escape to Witch Mountain, Return From Witch Mountain and The Sword of Aradel. I also have fond memories of the Witch Mountain movies. While Key often shows children fleeing villains and in danger, there is always a happy ending with children returning home and winning out over their enemies. He also portrayed children with ESP and from other worlds. The underlying message of these books I think was that the future belonged to the children and that if adults listened to children, the world would be a better place. Any child would like the idea they could make a difference (smile).

Recently, I rather promised Jen Robinson that I would do a post on Alexander Key, after finding we both fondly remembered his book, The Forgotten Door. I started digging for information on him in order to shape my post. To my surprise, no one seems to have written any scholarly articles or dissertations about Key and his work. He has a biographical entry in Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers, 3rd edition (1991) and Contemporary Authors Online (2008).

His papers are at the fabulous de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. Because he lived in North Carolina for years and set a number of his books there, the University of North Carolina collected information about some of his books in their literary scrapbook collection. One of my favorite library school professors, Kate McDowell wrote an appreciation of him for the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books.

The fan website Thru the Forgotten Door gives a pretty fair biography of Key. Warning, a lot of the links at that website do not work but it does have some interesting information. As a native Chicagoan, I was astounded to find that Key lived in Chicago. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and later taught at the Studio School of Art, also in Chicago. He started out as an illustrator and I decided to put together as full a bibliography as possible since neither the fan website nor the official biographies list all of Key's own books or those he illustrated. I used the public version of WorldCat and ViaLibri to locate books and images of book covers. My question was how he managed to support himself with the relatively few books he was credited with having written. Now that I've put together this detailed bibliography (see below) and learned that he also wrote and illustrated for various magazines, I suspect he kept extremely busy and that there are other books he illustrated that have not yet been identified.

He wrote and illustrated books set in Florida, where he grew up and returned to live for many years, and in North Carolina, where he later moved, and in Alabama, where he also lived at one time. He had a strong sense of region and nature, as shown by the illustrations and covers I have found. One of the biographies mentions that he also painted professionally and that his work was in private collections. I have been unable to find visual images of his paintings (wistful sigh). I really love his illustrations and may track down copies of these books for my collection. I wonder why, post 1967, he did not illustrate any more books that I have discovered? I would have liked to see his illustrations for the Witch Mountain books, for example.

Exploring the Internet has shown me that many people share my love for Alexander Key's books and enjoyed the movies based on his books. There were even translations to other languages of some of his books and many went into multiple editions. Another Witch Mountain movie, Race to Witch Mountain is scheduled to be released March of 2009. I hope it will provoke a revival of interest in Alexander Key.

For that matter, why doesn't some academic scholar do a paper or book on Key? The materials are out there as I have tried to indicate, and he had a very interesting career as an illustrator and author. The de Grummond Collection just posted announcements of fellowships available for research in their collections, which include Key's papers.

The bibliography is organized, first by books he illustrated, and then by books he wrote, all listed under year of publication so you can get a sense of how his career developed. Having lived in Chicago for some years, it is understandable that his earliest publishers were Chicago publishers and he seems to have maintained ties to the Chicago publishing community.

Books illustrated by him:

1925:

Baker, Rannie Belle. In the light of myth; selections from the world’s myths, compiled and interpreted by Rannie B. Baker...Art selection by Ruth C. Stebbins. Illustrations by Alexander Key. Chicago & New York: Row, Peterson & Company, 1925. Reportedly the first book he ever illustrated, at the age of 19, although since he was born in 1904, perhaps the book's publication was delayed? Supposedly he was paid $900 for the illustrations.

Clark, Bertha. Stories of Belle River. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1925.

Edson, Andrew Wheatley. Working Together. By Andrew W. Edson and Mary E. Laing. Chicago, etc.: Benj. H. Sanborn, 1925. The front cover and frontispiece are by Alexander Key. This children's reader was reprinted in 1927 and 1931 and maybe later.

Lyback, Johanna R. M. Indian legends. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1925.

1927:

Browne, George Waldo. Indian nights: famous Indian legends, retold by G. Waldo Browne. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: Noble and Noble, 1927.

Chalmers, Eleanor M. Talks about our country. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago [etc.]: B.H. Sanborn & Co., 1927.

Freeman, Frank Nugent. Child-story readers [Second reader], by F. N. Freeman, G. E. Storm [& others]. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons, 1927. Reprinted under the title: Magic stories.

1928:

Andersen, Hans Christian. The real princess. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Joliet, Ill.: P.F. Volland, 1928. Retells the stories of the Princess and the pea and the Steadfast tin soldier.

Clark, Bertha. Belle River friends in wings and feathers. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1928. A scanned version is available online at the Rosetta Project.

Clark, Bertha. Work and play on Belle River farm. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1928.

Smith, Laura Rountree. Circus animals in Funland. Illustrated by Mae H. Scannell, Olive Lofts, and Constance Enslow. Chicago: Albert A. Whitman & Co., 1928. The cover illustration is by Alexander Key.

1929:

Pettee, Florence M. Blunder’s mystery companions. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co., 1929. Illustrator named as Alexander Key.

Sabin, Elbridge Hosmer. Dollie’s big dream: or the magical man of mirth. Cover drawing by Alexander Key. Chicago: Albert Whitman & Co., 1929.

1930:

Browne, George Waldo. Real legends of New England, by G. Waldo Browne. Illustrations by Alexander Key. Chicago: A. Whitman & Co., 1930.

1931:

The book of dragons. Selected and edited by O. Muiriel Fuller. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: R.M. McBride, 1931. Reprinted by Dover in 2001 (that cover is shown here).

1932:

Manning, Clarence Augustus. Marko, the king’s son, hero of the Serbs. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: R.M. McBride, 1932. A scanned version is available online. To my surprise, I have a copy of this book that I picked up years ago without realizing that the illustrator was Alexander Key!

1934:

Nolan, Jeannette Covert. The young Douglas. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: R.M. McBride, 1934.

1936:

Barrows, Marjorie. The child life mystery-adventure book, by Marjorie Barrows and Frances Cavanah. Illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli and Alexander Key. New York: Rand McNally, 1936.

1937:

Moderow, Gertrude. Six great stories, edited by Gertrude Moderow, Mary Yost Sandrus, Josephine Mitchell [and] Ernest C. Noyes. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago [etc.]: Scott, Foresman, 1937. Contents: Treasure island, by R.L. Stevenson.--The legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving.--Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving..--Shakespeare’s As you like it, by Charles and Mary Lamb.--Gareth and Lynette, by Alfred Tennyson.--The golden touch, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Story parade: a collection of modern stories for boys and girls, by noted authors, Mabel Leigh Hunt, Wilfrid S. Bronson, Charles J. Finger...and others. Introduction by Elizabeth Coatsworth. Illustrations by Frank Dobias, Alexander Key, Lois Lenski...and other contemporary artists. Philadelphia [etc.]: The John C. Winston Company, 1937.

1938:

Blackmore, Richard Doddridge. Lorna Doone. Adapted by Rachel Jordan, A.O. Berglund [and] Carleton Washburne. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago [etc.]: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1938. Adapted for a juvenile audience.

Matschat, Cecile Hulse. Suwannee river: strange green land, by Cecile Hulse Matschat. Illustrated by Alexander Key. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1938.

Stratton, Clarence. When Washington danced: a tale of the American Revolution, by Clarence Stratton. Adapted by Gertrude Moderow. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Chicago: Scott-Foresman, 1938.

1949:

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Adapted by Gertrude Moderow, Josephine Mitchell, [and] Ernest C. Noyes. Illustrated by Alexander Key and Ernie King. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1949.

1953:

Judson, Clara Ingram. Sun Yat-Sen, by Clara Ingram Judson. Illustrations by Alexander Key. Frances Cavanah, director of biographies. Evanston, Ill.: Roe, Peterson, 1953.

1954:

Blackford, Charles Minor. Deep treasure, a story of the Greek sponge fishers of Florida. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Winston, 1954.

Campbell, Sam. Loony Coon: antics of a rollicking raccoon, by Sam Campbell. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1954.

Matschat, Cecile Hulse. Ladd of the big swamp: a story of the Okefenokee settlement. Illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Winston, 1954.

1962:

Helm, Thomas. Monsters of the deep. Illustrated with photos., and with drawings, by Alexander Key. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1962.

1963:

Lyback, Johanna R. M. Indian legends of eastern America. Color illustrations and map ornamentation by Dick West. Other illustrations by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1963.

Lyback, Johanna R. M. Indian legends of the great West. Color illustrations and map ornamentation by Dick West. Other illustrations by Alexander Key. Chicago: Lyons and Carnahan, 1963.

Books by Alexander Key:

1930:

Key, Alexander. The red eagle: being the adventurous tale of two young flyers. Story & pictures by Alexander Key. New York: P.F. Volland, 1930. Reprinted in 1930 and 1935 by the Wise-Parslow Company, New York.

1936:

Key, Alexander. Liberty or death: the narrative of William Dunbar, partisan. Presented in story and picture, by Alexander Key. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1936.

1938:

Parents’ Institute (New York, N.Y.). Best stories for boys and girls: pages of stories selected by the editors of “The Parents’ Magazine.” New York: Parents’ Institute, 1938. Includes the story: “Caroliny trail, by Alexander Key” from the magazine, Story Parade, which had been recently published.

1939:

Argosy, v. 295, no. 2. New York: Frank A. Munsey, December 2, 1939. Contains a story by Alexander Key: “Black Bayou--short novelet”, Stranger, don’t fear the whisper of the ’Glades tonight. Morning will bring the sun, and a girl’s song, and the promise of a safe Destiny, p. 72. Apparently some other issues of Argosy during the 1930s contained other stories by him.

1941:

Key, Alexander. With Daniel Boone on the Caroliny trail. Written and illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia [etc.]: The John C. Winston Company, 1941.

1945:

Key, Alexander. Boys will be boys: very easy pantomimes and entertainments for boys, by Alexander Key. Franklin, Ohio: Eldridge Entertainment House, 1945.

1949:

Key, Alexander. The wrath and the wind, a novel. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1949. An adult novel. Translated into Spanish in 1950 as La ira y el viento. I posted here the Popular Library paperback cover because it's such a cheesy one!

1950:

Key, Alexander. Island light. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950. An adult novel.

1952:

Key, Alexander. Island of escape. Toronto, Ontario: Harlequin Books, 1952. Harlequin book 237. Not clear if this is a romance or adult novel. In the early years Harlequin published non-romances as well.

1957:

Key, Alexander. Cherokee boy. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957. Translated into Swedish in 1958 as Den hemliga dalen.

1963:

Key, Alexander. Sprockets, a little robot. Written and illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963. Translated into Spanish in 1967 as El robotito.

1964:

Key, Alexander. Rivets and sprockets. Written and illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964. Translated into Spanish in 1967 as Vuelven los robotitos.

1965:

Key, Alexander. The forgotten door. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965. Published by Scholastic in paperback in the same year and still in print. Translated into Chinese in 1973 as Qi yi de men and into German in 1975 as Die Tür zu einer anderen Welt. It was made into a 1966 tv series with 7 episodes.

1966:

Key, Alexander. Bolts, a robot dog. Written and illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966.

1967:

Key, Alexander. The mystery of the sassafras chair. Illustrated by Louis Segal. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967.

1968:

Key, Alexander. Escape to Witch Mountain. Illustrated by Leon B. Wisdom, Jr. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968. Translated into German in 1977 as Die Kinder vom anderen Stern. It was adapted as a Walt Disney Productions film in 1975.

1969:

Key, Alexander. The golden enemy. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969.

1970:

Key, Alexander. The incredible tide. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970.

1971:

Key, Alexander. Flight to the lonesome place. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971.

1972:

Key, Alexander. The strange white doves; true mysteries of nature. Written and illustrated by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972.

1973:

Key, Alexander. The preposterous adventures of Swimmer. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973.

1975:

Key, Alexander. The magic meadow. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.

1976:

Key, Alexander. Jagger, the dog from elsewhere. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976.

1977:

Key, Alexander. The sword of Aradel. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977.

1978:

Key, Alexander. Chill factor. New York: Doubleday, 1978. A Crime Club edition.

Key, Alexander. Return from Witch Mountain, by Alexander Key based upon Walt Disney Productions’ motion picture. Screenplay written by Malcolm Marmorstein, based upon characters created by Alexander Key. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978. The 1979 London edition claims this was actually written by Martin Mellet. The book was written as a companion to the Walt Disney Productions film which was released in 1978. See the entry on Wikipedia.

1979:

Key, Alexander. The case of the vanishing boy. New York: Pocket Books, 1979. This appears to only have been printed in a paperback edition.

Play adaptations:

Falls, Gregory A. The forgotten door, adapted for stage by Gregory A. Falls from the book by Alexander Key. New Orleans, La.: Anchorage Press, 1982.

Movie adaptations:

Mirai shōnen Konan, gensaku, Aregusandā Kei, enshutsu, Miyazaki Hayao. Tōkyō: Tokuma Shoten, 1997. A anime-style book adaptation of Miyazaki’s anime tv series which was based on Key's The Incredible Tide. Information on the anime tv series can be found here.

September Carnival of Children's Literature

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:33:00 +0000

Welcome to the September 21, 2008 edition of the Carnival of Children's Literature.

Ta da! Welcome one and all to my blog and to this month's roundup of wonderful blog posts!

I'm delighted to find reviews of two of my favorite childhood books. How wonderful to find others love these books too!

Charlotte presents Timeslip Tuesday: The Ghosts, by Antonia Barber posted at Charlotte's Library.

Jen Robinson presents The Forgotten Door: Alexander Key posted at Jen Robinson's Book Page.

The following books sound like fun! Does anyone else remember them?

Eva Mitnick presents That Brute Family - Russell and Lillian Hoban's all-too-real creation posted at Book Addiction.

Here's a review of a book from the 1940s:

Stacy Dillon presents The Bells of Bleecker Street posted at Booktopia.

Becky Laney shares two classic books that are still in print at Becky's Book Reviews of Beezus and Ramona and Young Readers: A Beatrix Potter Treasury.

Nancy Arruda presents a treasure trove of Recycled Books posted at Bees Knees Reads that she found at book sales. I'm wistfully envious. I'd love to have copies of those books in my own collection.

Daniel Kretschmer presents changing images of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland posted at Alice's Adventures in Art at vince's ear, saying, "We all know and love the literature of Alice's Adventure's In Wonderland. Let's not neglect the hundreds of wonderful illustrators who brought Alice to life."

Here's a review of the first Madeline book in 50 years!

Megan Germano presents Madeline and the Cats of Rome by John Bemelmans Marciano posted at Read, Read, Read. I have a copy of Marciano's biography of his grandfather, Ludwig Bemelmans sitting on my to-be-read pile, Bemelmans: The Life and Art of Madeline's Creator (1999). At some point I may post about it and other books I'm reading...

A delightful musical piece is shared with us by:

Alkelda the Gleeful at Song of the Week: Let's Play in the Forest posted at Saints and Spinners. She said, "I posted a video of the song "Let's Play in the Forest (while the wolf is not around)", which is used in the book of the same title by Claudia Rueda."

I recently had this next book in my hands because the author gave the book to my library which has a great geography collection. I enjoyed it and recommend it too!

Peter Jones presents Children Read and Learn: New Book Does Both posted at Great New Books that Are a Must Read.

It's Hispanic Heritage Month and several blogs join the celebration:

Tarie presents Author Interview: Diana Rodriguez Wallach posted at Into the Wardrobe.

Aline Pereira presents Hispanic Heritage Month 2008 posted at PaperTigers Blog.

Sonja Cole presents South America Video Booktalk posted at Bookwink, saying, "In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, this video booktalk shot in Ecuador talks about the book Lost Treasure of the Inca."

Here's a review of a book set in Thailand:

Janet Brown presents The Tiger’s Choice: Talking About The Happiness of Kati posted at PaperTigers Blog.

Jennifer Bogart presents Book Review: The Rabbit and the Snowman by Sally O. Lee posted at Quiverfull Family, saying, "This is a review of a self-published, children's picture book."

Sarah presents Picture Books for Fall posted at In Need Of Chocolate.

Sam presents Best Children's Books. Best Kids' Books. Good Story Books and Picture Books for Children posted at Surfer Sam and Friends, saying, "The best children’s books delight, inspire, and teach. You open the world to a child when you read together. Here are good story books and picture books for children. Do you remember these favorites?

Crissa-Jean Chappell presents total constant order - I'm in the Miami Herald! posted at Crissa, saying, "Check out this Miami Herald interview and mini documentary video on my blog...in which I talk about turning the nervous energy from OCD into writing and positive energy...and a behind the scenes glimpse into my young adult novel, Total Constant Order."

Some of my young cousins have a severe peanut allergy so I was intrigued to find there were books that show children with this allergy:
Jennifer O. presents Comments From the Peanut Free Gallery: Children's Books posted at Comments From the Peanut Free Gallery.

I adore this library mouse!
Elizabeth O. Dulemba presents Coloring Page Tuesday - Library Mouse posted at dulemba.com

Here's a great roundup of reading nooks in schoolrooms around the country. I have fond memories of some favorite book nooks and chairs but none were this colorful!
Franki presents TRADING (our favorite) SPACES Round-Up posted at A Year of Reading.

Sometimes we forget children's book writers can be political animals too! Check this out:
Jonathan Calder presents Children's writers and their politics posted at Liberal England, and he says, "Hello from England".

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
Carnival of Children's Literature which will be held October 26, 2008 at The Well-Read Child using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

carnival of children's literature, blog carnival.

Fan-Girl Time: Sherwood Smith

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:28:00 +0000

There are a few authors whose blogs, websites, and other resources I check regularly for posts by the authors, commentary by readers and information on upcoming books. They are: Patricia Briggs, Nalini Singh, Robin D. Owens, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Linnea Sinclair, and Lois McMaster Bujold. I even belong to listservs for some authors. I note however that the only two children's or YA authors that I religiously follow are Diana Wynne Jones and Sherwood Smith.

I fell in love with Sherwood Smith recently. Years ago I bought and read her Wren books, and I enjoyed them. Then a year or so ago I stumbled across Crown Duel. It is a two book in one reprint of Crown Duel and Court Duel, with some corrections and revisions. I have to admit here that when I pick up the duology to reread, I reread Court Duel. The first book doesn't pull me in but the courtship dance between Meliara and Shevraeth in the second book always draws this eternal romantic back in. This is a YA set in a world with tree people and some magic, but the focus is politics and political intrigue, rebellion, war, and the victory of good people. At some point I found out Sherwood Smith had a website and some stories up on that website. In her bibliography she listed more books, including Inda, an adult fantasy set in the same world, Sartorias-deles, as Crown Duel, only centuries earlier. Off I went to the book store. I gobbled up that book then began buying and downloading all available Sherwood Smith books I could get my hands on.

As a historian, what enchants me about these books is the sense of history and place. She has been writing stories set in this world since she was eight years old, i.e. for nearly 50 years and the depth and richness of her knowledge of this world and its thousands of years of history gleams throughout her books. She contributes regular comments, hints and stories about her characters and world to the Athanarel board. The stories are found in archived posts here (warning: you will have to join LiveJournal and Athanarel in order to read them, but they are worth it!). Sherwood Smith's fans have put together a Wiki for her world, Sartorias-deles, that is well-worth exploring though full of spoilers.

For years she has not found much of a market for her work but suddenly this year are available in the bookstores, the adult fantasy books The Fox and King's Shield, sequels to Inda. The fourth and last book is due out next year from DAW, Treason's Shore. Available online from Samhain Publishing are YA books, Once a Princess and Twice a Prince. They are available as ebooks and will be out in paper next year. I generally do not read ebooks but for Sherwood Smith, I went and downloaded them. Just out in print, also from Samhain, is The Trouble With Kings. Another press, Norilana Books has published A Posse of Princesses, which is set in the world of the Wren books (note to self, need to find my copies!) and A Stranger to Command in hardback. Other books are available from Norilana or through Internet booksellers. A full bibliography is here.

Now, for a newcomer to Sherwood Smith, I think I would recommend reading Crown Duel first then its prequel A Stranger to Command. Both are wonderful stories with very real characters with thoughts, emotions and reactions to complicated life situations in the midst of political events all around them. And yes, the main characters are teenagers and very realistic teenagers at that. Even the Inda books center around teenagers. Sherwood Smith understands people at all stages of life and conveys their thoughts, emotions and reactions believably. Add to this an incredibly complex world with villains, heroes, ordinary people, all of whom might be good or bad at different times and have their reasons for what they do to other people. Oh, just go pick up one of her books and start reading!

The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves and Other Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:51:00 +0000

My father who collects poetry books and records poetry readings throughout Chicago recently gave me some children's poetry books. One of them was Gwendolyn Brooks' The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves or What You Are You Are (Chicago: Third World Press, 1974). It's a first edition, third printing. The collector in me was thrilled. I sat down to read the book and fell in love with both the illustrations and the poem. It's a wonderful poem to read aloud. I found a page where you can listen to Ms. Brooks reading it aloud. You need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, which gives the text of the poem and click on the audio to hear her read the poem. Incidentally the page promotes the wonderful book by Elise Paschen, Poetry Speaks to Children (SourceBooks, 2005). It's available from the publisher here and has a CD with 73 poets reading their own poetry.

Now, I've been reading books about the history of African-American children's literature and have others on my enormous to-be-read pile, but had not heard of this book. The books which I've been reading and thoroughly recommend are: Michelle H. Martin's Brown Gold: Milestones of African American Children's Picture Books 1845-2002 (New York: Routledge, 2002; and Rudine Sims Bishop's Free Within Ourselves: The Development of African-American Children's Literature (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007).

They are both highly readable and available for purchase or for recommendation to your local library for purchase here and here. The Bishop book is also available in hardback from Greenwood.

Both books only mention Gwendolyn Brooks' first book for children, Bronzeville Boys and Girls (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956). It is a collection of poetry about children living in Bronzeville, which is a historic black neighborhood in Chicago that is currently being revitalized. It was a very early children's book by a African-American author for a major publisher. However, the publisher chose the illustrator Ronni Solbert who illustrated it with pictures of white children. Her papers are at the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota and it might be interesting to look at the original art someday. Here is the cover for the 1956 book. No African-American children. It may be one of the reasons why Brooks later chose to publish only with independent African-American and multicultural publishing houses.

Next to it is the cover for the new edition of Bronzeville Boys and Girls (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). This time it is illustrated with images of African-American children by the well-known African-American illustrator and author Faith Ringgold. It's buried somewhere in my to-be-read pile or I'd say more about the book. What interests me is that while both Martin and Bishop point to this book as significant in the history of African-American children's literature, they do not mention the other two children's books Brooks wrote. I rather suspect it is because they were published with independent publishers and scarce in the libraries where they did their research. The second children's book Brooks wrote was Aloneness (Detroit: Broadside Press, 1971). It is still available from the press here.

I couldn't track down very much information about this book but may order it from the press since my curiosity has been sparked. Digging about for information on The Tiger Wore White Gloves, I found a discussion of it in D.H. Melhem's Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry & The Heroic Voice on GoogleBooks in a partial view. It stated that the book was dedicated to Brooks' children Henry and Nora Blakely. This led me to check the Chicago Tribune's historical archives through my free university access. They can also be searched at the newspaper's website and articles downloaded for a small fee. I found an article by Robert Wolf, "A poet and her daughter keep an eye on 'The Tiger'" (July 18, 1986), p. N_A4. Nora Blakely founded a children's theater company, Chocolate Chips Theatre Company, and wrote a play based on her mother's poem. That company still exists and was performing that play during its 25th season (2007-2008). I wish I could see the play someday.

In the article Blakely explained the genesis of the poem: "The poem was originally written about me. When I was a kid I went out in a Halloween costume one year dressed as a tiger, and I came back in and put on white gloves, 'cause I didn't think that the costume was enough, and I wanted to do something else with it. And after my mother got up off the floor from laughing, she wrote a poem about it. And several years later I wrote a musical based around the poem."

The book is about how a tiger wanted to be different and bought white gloves to wear, but the ridicule of the other jungle animals persuaded him to reluctantly discard them. One can either view it as a sad submission to group conformity or as a protest against African-Americans putting on symbols of whiteness. I wonder if the complexity of possible interpretations may be why scholars have not discussed this book. Are they uncomfortable with it? Brooks apparently felt the book was about improving children's self-esteem, telling them it was okay to be who they were and Blakely's play is also about how the tiger improves his self-esteem.

It's a beautiful and fun book and it is still available from the publisher here. I urge anyone who reads this blog post to go find a copy and discover this unknown treasure of African-American children's literature.

For more information on Gwendolyn Brooks see the Poetry Foundation's entry on her. Her papers are not in Chicago but rather at the University of California Berkeley. This article has a wonderful photograph of a very young Brooks. There's also a very detailed finding aid for the papers.

Moribito and Other Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:25:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to score an ARC of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, a book coming out in June 2008 from Arthur A. Levine Books, a division of Scholastic (thank you, Cheryl Klein). It bowled me over. It's a great story, not just for the fast-paced plot, but for the very human characters. Balsa, the heroine, is a bodyguard and is hired to protect the young prince Chagum, who is carrying a mysterious and mystical egg within his body, from assassins sent by his own father, the Mikado. This novel by Nahoko Uehashi was published in Japan in 1996 and sparked a 10-book series which has been translated into various languages. There's a Manga series and an Anime tv series in Japan as well. Now it comes to America and I hope it will be equally popular here. I love Balsa and Chagum and want to hear more of their stories.

Thinking about historical children's literature connections, what stands out for me is that this is a book from Japan that is poised to become a bestseller here. I confess I haven't followed Japanese Manga or recent translations of Japanese children's books, though I think I have at least one on my to-be-read pile somewhere. Then I remembered back to my childhood and my battered paperback copy of I.G. Edmonds' The Case of the Marble Monster and Other Stories (New York: Scholastic Books, 1966) and still in print through Scholastic as of 2000. I loved those stories about the historical Judge Ooka.

While Googling, I found that Judge Ooka also inspired a children's book series by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, the Samurai Detective series. Here's a nice interview with the Hooblers on the series. Now I will have to go find a copy of the first book, The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (New York: Penguin Putnam, 1999) and still in print.

Japanese history and folktales inspired these American authors, and thinking back takes me to the late 19th century and the Japanese Fairy Tale series printed by Kobunsha in Japan, where Japanese fairy tales and legends were adapted for English travelers and for sale abroad. They were beautiful books. This blog has wonderful images from the books and links to other sites. For the collectors among you, I refer you to this comprehensive site. At least one book is beautifully readable at the Internet Archive, My Lord Bag-o'-Rice. Indeed other books from the series are also at the Internet Archive. These tales, told and printed in Japan, then translated into English and other languages and sold abroad presaged today's influx of Manga and Japanese children's books translated into English.

Turning back towards Moribito, what makes it so remarkable is that it not only draws on Japanese myth and folklore, albeit in New Yogo, a land inspired by medieval Japan, but it also showcases a woman warrior who is loving and caring yet a fierce and capable protector. It takes traditional tales, focused on male warriors and instead of inserting a female warrior who might as well be a male in disguise into the pattern of the tale, shows the reader a believable woman with thoughts and emotions that are definitely female yet strong. I love Balsa! I love the fight for right and justice that echoes Judge Ooka and other Japanese folk tales. More, more please! Dear Arthur A. Levine, do translate and publish the remaining 9 books of this series!

An additional note: Nahoko Uehashi, the author is an anthropology professor at a Japanese university and specializes in indigenous people. I remember Japan has its own indigenous people, the Ainu. This echoes the Yakoo of New Yogo who have intermarried with the Yogoese but whose traditions and magic weavers provide part of the solution to Chagum's situation in Moribito. I wonder how many other cues and hints I am missing in this book due to my ignorance of Japanese history and culture?

Finding Lost Treasures of Childhood

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:43:00 +0000

I was talking to a friend the other day about books we treasured from our childhoods. We have saved the books we loved but sometimes books get lost over the years or in my friend's case, during her frequent military moves. I told her she could find them through Internet booksellers. She said, really?! She had never apparently used Internet booksellers so I thought I would tell the story of one treasure I thought I would never find again. You can see its picture above.

I loved my copy of Cinderella and held on to it for a long time but at some point during my childhood it disappeared. It may have gotten given to my Montessori school library as many of my not-so-valued children's books did. I just don't know. I remembered it was a very large, thin book with the title Cinderella and that the cover had a green background with a golden coach and Cinderella in a golden gown. I loved the illustrations which showed gorgeous 18th-century clothes. I have never seen another Cinderella version that appeared as beautiful to me and I did look hoping to find "my" Cinderella. But without remembering the author or illustrator, I was stuck.

Last summer, 30-some years after losing my copy, I took a class on fairy tales online through Rutgers University with Monica Edinger and Roxanne Hsu Feldman aka fairrosa. I told the story of my lost book in a class post and Monica told me that there was a detailed Cinderella bibliography available through Rochester. She recommended that I search it. Off I hurried to search the bibliography and checked their General Collections list. I used the find function on the tool bar and searched for golden, hoping to find a mention of a Cinderella in a golden gown. I had noticed over the years that she is almost never shown in a golden gown so I thought that might help my search. I used the find function to search by golden and after finding various golden shoes and fish, I finally found this entry:

Andreas, Evelyn. Cinderella: An Old Favorite with New Pictures. Illustrated by Ruth Ives. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1954.

[The narrative follows Robert Samber’s English adaptation of Perrault. The illustrations use 18th-century settings and dress; the fairy is a young, attractive blonde, as is Cinder-wench. Her ballgown is golden yellow, trimmed with pink roses. Her wedding gown is white, and the flowers adorning the aisle of the church are pink roses. The kingdom rejoices in their salons, while the honeymooners sit in a garden at a table situated on an oriental carpet beneath a white cloth drapery that serves as a sort of tent.]

This sounded like my childhood memory of the illustrations. Off I went to the Internet used booksellers' search engines. I chose to check Abebooks first, much as I dislike it, because you sometimes see cover images by the booksellers' listings. There were a couple of images of the cover and it looked enough like my childhood memory that I ordered a cheap copy of the book. When it arrived a week later I opened it up and yes, those were the illustrations I remembered! The story is still as beautiful and satisfying as my childhood memory had recalled.

Luckily I had specifically ordered a large-format copy because according to WorldCat, this Cinderella was reprinted by Wonder Books in a smaller-format edition (21 cm.) with fewer pages up to 1977. It appears to be only the Grosset & Dunlap copies that are folio size (31 cm.) with the complete set of illustrations.

So my advice to all of you is to search the following Internet book search engines for your lost treasures: AddAll Used, ViaLibri, or eBay Books, though eBay is frustrating to use. I have not figured out why they don't have an advanced search form where you can search by author and title. Don't forget to limit the search engines to search by price, ascending so that you find the cheapest copies listed first. Some of the Internet prices are crazy, in my opinion anyway.

If you are having trouble finding your lost book through Internet booksellers, check WorldCat through their free portal on the web. Since I'm a librarian I can use the regular WorldCat, which searches all libraries, not just the ones accessible through the free portal. If your book was published in another country, check that country's national library catalog. Even now there are books that don't appear in WorldCat but may appear in other library catalogs that are not yet a part of WorldCat.

If you are stuck and don't have enough information for a search like I did, find out if there is a bibliography of the subject, the author, or the illustrator that may contain your elusive title. You can post queries about lost treasures to listservs for children's librarians or to an interesting resource at the bookseller, Loganberry Books, Book Stumpers, where for a small fee you can post your query. I enjoy reading their queries and archives when I have the time. There are a lot of people hunting for treasure out there!

Note: Apparently Ruth Ives illustrated other fairy tales and children's books during the 1950s and 1960s. I may try to get hold of these other books to see her illustrations. Neither WorldCat or ArchiveGrid list papers of Evelyn Andreas or Ruth Ives which makes me sad. So many children's book authors and illustrators are forgotten today and I don't think judging by this book that these two deserve to be!

Second note: I may post future posts on other lost and found treasures. Let me know if you want me to do that.

In Praise of Vachel Lindsay

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:15:00 +0000

I grew up in a house full of books, and the living room had a wall of bookcases filled with poetry. My father loves poetry and he is the world's best reciter of poetry. When he was young he studied debating and he listened to many poets and trained himself to use his voice to convey the music and rhythm of poetry that I wish all of you could hear. One of his favorite poets is Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) and to hear my father recite The Congo or The Kallyope Yell is to be entranced.

I firmly believe that the best way to teach children to love and appreciate poetry is to surround them with poetry in their homes and schools. But also it is very important to read poetry with rhythm, inflection and love. If you just present poetry to children on the page, you rob them of the whole aural dimension of poetry. Remember poetry started as an oral art where poets declaimed their poetry and it was passed down in memory for many generations before being written down. Think of the Norse and Icelandic Sagas or the Iliad and the Odyssey or the Biblical Psalms. These are all examples of oral poetry that were eventually written down. Songs themselves are poetry full of the music of words and rhythm.

Vachel Lindsay often appears in children's poetry anthologies. There is one collection of his children's poetry: Springfield Town is Butterfly Town, and Other Poems for Children (Kent State University Press, 1969). I recommend you find a copy through your local library or through Internet booksellers. Here are some of the poems he wrote for children and I want to share one:

The Mysterious Cat

I saw a proud, mysterious cat,
I saw a proud, mysterious cat
Too proud to catch a mouse or rat-
Mew, mew, mew.

But catnip she would eat, and purr,
But catnip she would eat, and purr.
And goldfish she did much prefer-
Mew, mew, mew.

I saw a cat-was but a dream,
I saw a cat-was but a dream.
Who scorned the slave that brought her
Cream-
Mew, mew, mew.

Unless the slave were dressed in style,
Unless the slave were dressed in style.

And knelt before her all the while-
Mew, mew, mew.

Did you ever hear of a thing like that?
Did you ever hear of a thing like that?
Did you ever hear of a thing like that?
Oh, what a proud mysterious cat.
Oh, what a proud mysterious cat.
Oh, what a proud mysterious cat.
Mew. . .mew. . . mew.

I can't resist posting a portion of one of my favorites:

The Kallyope Yell

[Loudly and rapidly with a leader, College yell fashion]

I

Proud men
Eternally
Go about,
Slander me,
Call me the "Calliope."
Sizz . . . . .
Fizz . . . . .
II

I am the Gutter Dream,
Tune-maker, born of steam,
Tooting joy, tooting hope.
I am the Kallyope,
Car called the Kallyope.
Willy willy willy wah hoo !
See the flags: snow-white tent,
See the bear and elephant,
See the monkey jump the rope,
Listen to the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope!
Soul of the rhinoceros
And the hippopotamus
(Listen to the lion roar!)
Jaguar, cockatoot,
Loons, owls,
Hoot, Hoot.
Listen to the lion roar,
Listen to the lion roar,
Listen to the lion R-O-A-R!
Hear the leopard cry for gore,
Willy willy willy wah hoo !
Hail the bloody Indian band,
Hail, all hail the popcorn stand,
Hail to Barnum's picture there,
People's idol everywhere,
Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop !
Music of the mob am I,
Circus day's tremendous cry: --
I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope!
Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot,
Willy willy willy wah hoo !
Sizz, fizz . . . . .

I love the Willy willy willy wah hoo/sizz fizz lines which convey the hiss and whistle of the circus calliope that announced the arrival of the circus into town. Today's children will never hear a true circus calliope but the rhythm and excitement of this wonderful poem give a very visual and oral image of the old-time traveling circus.

PennSound offers downloads of readings by Vachel Lindsay himself of six of his poems. Lindsay wandered about the United States, reading and performing his poems, which were specifically crafted to be read aloud. Check LibriVox for downloadable audio files of four of his poems read by other readers and contrast the reading styles.

Enjoy then go find a group of children and share some of these wonderful poems with them!

Note: I do not quote The Congo here though I love the rhythm and sound of it because it is very controversial then and now. UIUC has a page that provides further information about Lindsay and this poem. It would make a good poem for a high school class learning about issues of racism and the early twentieth century. With preparation on the background, the students might really love hearing the poem.

Second note: If you live in or near Chicago, come to the Mercury Cafe, 1505 W. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, on Friday, April 18th, 2008, from 7-9 pm, to hear my father and two other local poets read their own poetry!

Also, go enjoy other Poetry Friday posts at The Well-Read Child.

Time to plunge in and start writing my posts

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:46:00 +0000

Well, I think I better start posting if I want to have a blog. Clearly I am not going to be able to make myself write something awesome for a first post. What I do want to do on this blog is to share some of my passions in the field of children's literature. One of the things I love about Google is its alert system. Via Google Alerts I am notified of articles and blogs that discuss children's literature. Sometimes I just need to share the wonderful articles I discover, so I will do regular posts providing links to these articles.

I love articles that discuss authors and illustrators and give information about how they create their books. They give me insight into the incredible creativity of these folks.

Here are some links to recent articles:

Here's an article from EADT, which is an online newspaper for Suffolk and Essex, about the British author and illustrator Helen Oxenbury. It includes personal stuff about her family and her childhood in Ipswich and Felixstowe. For more information on Oxenbury, with an amazingly long list of her books, see this link.

Here's an online interview with Lois Lowry, where she discusses her books and particularly her new book, The Willoughbys.

Here's an interview with Jeanne Birdsall, author of The Penderwicks at the Orange County Register.

Full confession. I have yet to read either book but the buzz is certainly making me curious about them!

Tracy van Straaten sent me a Newsweek interview from last month with Meg Cabot, discussing her new series for tweens, the Allie Finkle series. Sounds fun. I never got into her Princess Diaries but I love her Mediator series and the 1-800-Where-Are-You? series. I also adore Avalon High which transplants the King Arthur story to a modern high school. It's now being continued as a Manga series and the first volume: Avalon High: Coronation is not bad, though I prefer the original Avalon High book. For more information on Meg Cabot and her books, see her website.

Here's another Newsweek article, an interview with Blue Balliett on her latest book, The Calder Game. She's my hometown author but I have yet to read her books, shame on me! She does make the book sound intriguing and I love mysteries. Hmmm.

The Guardian, an UK newspaper often has very interesting articles on children's books. Here's one on Maurice Sendak. Reminds me that I have sitting on my desk the book, The Art of Maurice Sendak, that I need to read and return to the library. I love ILL (interlibrary loan) where I can get all kinds of wonderful books about children's books! A subject for another post there....

I really enjoyed this article by Alison Lurie. It describes recent books based on the folk tale of Rapunzel. I've read one, Golden, by Cameron Dokey. It was an interesting take on Rapunzel but I prefer her retelling of Cinderella, Before Midnight, and of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty Sleep. I have to go find the book by Sara Lewis Holmes, Letters from Rapunzel, since I met Sara last October at the Kidlitosphere conference and I enjoy her blog.

Oh, here's a bit of children's book history in Publisher's Weekly which discusses an event I knew nothing about, the 1974 Macmillan Massacre. This caused the demise of Macmillan's children's book publishing section and led to the start-up of Greenwillow among others, which has published some of my favorite children's books. This article reminded me of a book I read last year by Jacalyn Eddy, Bookwomen: Creating an Empire in Children's Book Publishing, 1919-1939. It's fascinating and I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. Here's the publisher's description.

I better stop now but I hope people like these links.

My Photo

noreply@blogger.com (Jenny Schwartzberg) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 05:06:00 +0000