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7868. Macnas - 10/6/2005 10:55:17 AM I have to admit, I am one for finding books which I read as a child and giving them to my kids.
Beatrix Potter, with her funny and vivid stories, does not seem to be welcome in school any more.
My favourite is Squirrel Nutkin, life, death, mutilation and a hint of paganism.
I also found Enid Blytons "The 3 golliwogs" but decided against giving them that to read. Both my children have black friends, something I, and 99.9% of my generation never had. Personally, I never made a connection between the characters in Blytons books with real people, and like many others just enjoyed the stories. However, looking at it now, and seeing how my children would of course make a connection, it isn't suitable anymore. 7869. ScottLoar - 10/6/2005 2:46:30 PM I never thought to give my daughter Little Black Sambo or recite some of the cruder rhymes I grew up with, but when she reached that age of discriminate understanding of literature I nudged certain works towards her. One was To Kill a Mockingbird, later Chidiock Tichborne's Elegy, Ted Hughe's Hawk Roosting, poems by Li Po. I'm still doing so, and she's nudging books to me and poems as well, understandably those of Silvia Plaith.
Most recently my wife and I visited The Art Institute of Chicago's exhibit "Toulouse Lautrec and Montmarte" which thrilled me to no end. I urged this on my daughter who came back with the same enthusiasm and the same comment on his paintings, "you see exactly as did Lautrec, there's no distance between what he saw and what you see".
I was so very, very pleased we shared the same mind. 7870. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 3:15:28 PM Little Black Sambo is widely beloved. It's funny, too, that people the story was about an African kid. There are no tigers in Africa. The kid is Indian. The author's a Brit. The kid's a wog, not a Negro.
There have been some recastings, one of them with illustrations by the renowned black illustrator Jerry Pinkney.
7871. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 3:20:59 PM Mac,
You'd have no trouble finding Beatrix Potter here. There's some store that seems to specialize in ceramics with images of Beatrix Potter characters on it. I too remember Squirrel Nutkin.
All,
I know someone who has been asked for advice on the construction of a children's book library, for reference by publishing folks in the business. They were looking for especially beloved children's books. Have any?
(For reasons that I don't entirely understand this request does not include the Seuss books and similar "easy readers" like PD Eastman's Go Dog Go or, a favorite of mine, A Fly Went By) 7872. Macnas - 10/6/2005 3:41:13 PM Jay,
I meant that Beatrix Potter's works do not appear anymore in school libraries, or none that I can see at any rate. The general availability of her books, and indeed the long lasting industry in recreating the outstanding artwork in her stories as figurines (spelling?) is still as strong here as it ever was.
And on the books for the childrens library, do you mean they are actually looking for donations of suitable books, or advice on what would be suitable? 7873. ScottLoar - 10/6/2005 3:41:26 PM Such subtleties about Little Black Sambo escaped me, my classmates, my teacher during my first year of primary school in the segregated American South, but thanks for setting me right 50 years after the fact. Even at a tender age I'd knowledge of the Brothers Grimm and understood fairy tales took license with the truth, so it wouldn't have troubled me to hear of tigers in Africa anymore than the tiger turning into butter and Sambo eating what we all ate - pancakes. 7874. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 3:57:02 PM Escaped me too, in New England. It's funny, though. Helen Bannerman wrote a story about an Indian boy, read by contemporaries as a story about an Indian boy. 75 years later, kids and their parents were reading the same story with the same illustrations, but they read about an African boy. Now it is still about an African boy, and effectively banned--to the point where the book is effectively gone in its original incarnation.
Now as a depiction of an Indian boy, it is no doubt just as racist. The changes in its perception are nonetheless interesting.
7875. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 4:08:07 PM And on the books for the childrens library, do you mean they are actually looking for donations of suitable books, or advice on what would be suitable?
No, they are trying to create a point of reference--what were the truly great, truly memorable books in people's lives. Like Scott's (and my) vivid memory of Little Black Sambo. Or, in my case, a book that turns out to be called The Biggest Bear.
Thinking about it was very interesting for me, because it turned out that my childhood favorites were frequently those read aloud on a children's television show, Captain Kangaroo. For those reading along books like
Michael Mulligan and His Steamshovel
Make Way for Ducklings
Stone Soup
The Five Chinese Brothers
and a great story about taxi cabs ("The PURPLE ONE!!!") that I cannot remember the title of.
What's also interesting is that those favorite books were almost always recipients of the annual ALA award to the best picture book of the year, the Caldicott. Whether the award affected the Captain's and my parent's choices, or whether the quality shone through, I couldn't say.
7876. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 4:10:15 PM Oh, and my elitist sniff about ceramics was not meant to disparage the outstanding artwork in her stories . I quite agree. 7877. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 4:36:48 PM My favorites as a young boy were Stephen Meader's and Howard Pease's adventure books. 7878. Macnas - 10/6/2005 4:43:25 PM Conan Doyle's tales of mystery, adventure, the camp, horror, the ring and so on.
(I bought the collected works, in one big old hard back. Still a good read.)
Any Paddington Bear Book. 7879. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 4:47:30 PM I have the complete Sherlock Holmes, in two volumes. Still great stuff.
7880. Macnas - 10/6/2005 4:53:36 PM I have another big book of Holmes, printed as they appeared in the Strand. 7881. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 4:54:31 PM Yeah, I read just about all of the Sherlock Holmes stories as well as all of Edgar Alan Poe's great stuff, including his poetry. I have fond memories of Rafael Sabatini's great sea adventure tales--"Captain Blood," "Sea Hawk" and a couple of others. 7882. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 4:57:59 PM And when he was around twelve Cap'n Dirty read Van de Velde's "Encyclopedia of Sexual Knowledge" cover to cover. He discovered the volume in a dusty box in the basement of his cousin's house. 7883. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 5:01:34 PM But these folks are looking for picture books. Not that this isn't interesting. I read Black Beauty at least a dozen times, and was a big fan of Jackon Scholz's baseball books.
A book that was read to us that I've never seen since was Uncle Wiggly about a rabbit and a collection of other animal characters. It must have been a series of some sort. 7884. Macnas - 10/6/2005 5:08:13 PM Wonkers
Why am I not surprised? 7885. Macnas - 10/6/2005 5:09:09 PM Picture books, hmmm, tough one. Good old Peter and Jane... 7886. Ms. No - 10/6/2005 6:04:57 PM Okay, books with good pictures. I was another huge Captain Kangaroo fan but oddly enough the books Jay listed are the exact ones I remember, as well. There must have been others --- the show was on for a long time --- but I just can't remember them.
A Boy, A Dog and A Frog - Mercer Mayer (whole series)
The Giant Jam Sandwich - John Vernon Lord
Millicent the Monster - Mary Lystad
The King Who Rained - Fred Gwynne (pictoral homonyms)
Mog The Forgetful Cat - Judith Kerr
How Fletcher was Hatched - Wende Devlin
Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Tiki Tiki Tembo - Arlene Mosel
Timothy the Tiger(Terror?)- I can't find this book at Amazon, but I've got a copy at home so I'll fill in the blanks later.
7887. jayackroyd - 10/6/2005 6:09:27 PM Do you remember the taxi cab book? It's driven me crazy for years.
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