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Shirley Hughes
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From: lhendr at unm.edu <lhendr>
Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 09:47:54 -0600 (MDT)
On Thu, 27 May 1999, Allison Williams wrote:
This comment distresses and puzzles me. I suspect the primary audience for the Alfie and Annie Rose books is preschoolers and their parents. I discovered these books when my children were very small and they were favorites -- maybe more mine than my children's, though. We had experienced situations almost exactly like those in "Alfie Gets in First" and in "David and Dog" ("Dogger"). Especially with "Dogger" I thought Shirley Hughes must have been window-peeping at our house, she captured so exactly the experience of a child's missing toy totally disrupting an entire household.
I'm not sure what is particularly British about these books -- is it the neighbors dropping in for a cup of tea and the friendliness with the milkman and the postman? Surely there are still some neighborhoods and families in the U.S. where there are moms at home at least part of the time and these things are familiar? Maybe not in an affluent U.S. suburban neighborhood -- but surely not everyone lives in those? Maybe others can speak to finding their own lives in these books?
I must say that "Alfie Gets in First" took on added resonance for me after living in England for six months with a baby, in neighborhoods much like Hughes depicts, making the rounds to the baker, butcher, grocer, and fishmonger each day with baby in pram, and then juggling groceries, baby, and fumbling for keys and struggling up steps and through heavy doors in relays, trying not to drop, lose or lock in or out either keys or packages or baby. But, then life was not much different, say in New York City, although I had no baby then. Maybe there are not many families with children who live car-less daily lives, and if there are, do they read Shirley Hughes? And identify?
It has occurred to me that Shirley Hughes is to preschoolers what Beverly Cleary is to young school children. They both have the ability to capture with love and humor the nuances of ordinary daily life for young children and their families. Yet, one is so British and the other so American. Don't they both transcend their cultures and achieve something universal? And doesn't the humor, and even underlying pathos in the books speak as much to, if not more to adults than to children?
Linnea
Linnea Hendrickson Albuquerque, New Mexico Children's Literature: A Guide to the Criticism (1987) at: http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr Lhendr at unm.edu
Received on Fri 28 May 1999 10:47:54 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 09:47:54 -0600 (MDT)
On Thu, 27 May 1999, Allison Williams wrote:
This comment distresses and puzzles me. I suspect the primary audience for the Alfie and Annie Rose books is preschoolers and their parents. I discovered these books when my children were very small and they were favorites -- maybe more mine than my children's, though. We had experienced situations almost exactly like those in "Alfie Gets in First" and in "David and Dog" ("Dogger"). Especially with "Dogger" I thought Shirley Hughes must have been window-peeping at our house, she captured so exactly the experience of a child's missing toy totally disrupting an entire household.
I'm not sure what is particularly British about these books -- is it the neighbors dropping in for a cup of tea and the friendliness with the milkman and the postman? Surely there are still some neighborhoods and families in the U.S. where there are moms at home at least part of the time and these things are familiar? Maybe not in an affluent U.S. suburban neighborhood -- but surely not everyone lives in those? Maybe others can speak to finding their own lives in these books?
I must say that "Alfie Gets in First" took on added resonance for me after living in England for six months with a baby, in neighborhoods much like Hughes depicts, making the rounds to the baker, butcher, grocer, and fishmonger each day with baby in pram, and then juggling groceries, baby, and fumbling for keys and struggling up steps and through heavy doors in relays, trying not to drop, lose or lock in or out either keys or packages or baby. But, then life was not much different, say in New York City, although I had no baby then. Maybe there are not many families with children who live car-less daily lives, and if there are, do they read Shirley Hughes? And identify?
It has occurred to me that Shirley Hughes is to preschoolers what Beverly Cleary is to young school children. They both have the ability to capture with love and humor the nuances of ordinary daily life for young children and their families. Yet, one is so British and the other so American. Don't they both transcend their cultures and achieve something universal? And doesn't the humor, and even underlying pathos in the books speak as much to, if not more to adults than to children?
Linnea
Linnea Hendrickson Albuquerque, New Mexico Children's Literature: A Guide to the Criticism (1987) at: http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr Lhendr at unm.edu
Received on Fri 28 May 1999 10:47:54 AM CDT
