CCBC-Net Archives
Tomi Ungerer
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: linnea hendrickson <lhendr>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:30:53 -0600
Only a few more days remain in which to discuss Tomi Ungerer. I hope that those of you who have been recently reading and rereading his work will jump in with your thoughts.
Several of us earlier on this list compared Anita Lobel's "No Pretty Pictures" with Ungerer's "Tomi," as memoirs of wartime childhoods. Although Ungerer's experiences were not as horrendous as Lobel's, and although his are definitely written from the perspective of an adult looking back in contrast to Lobel's closely focused child's point of view, both strike me as conveying the child's bewilderment at the course of events in a world out of control, a world supposedly run by adults who should know better, but whose actions are more like those of out-of-control children than those of responsible adults. It is interesting to ponder the very different types of art created by Lobel and Ungerer in response to the horrors of their childhood experiences.
For the most part Lobel's art reflects a safe and secure world, perhaps presenting a happy, positive picture of the good things in life, a life she longed for but didn't have in childhood, while Ungerer's reflects more of the unease and disturbed qualities of his childhood, and his outrage at injustices, idiocies, and pretensions. Is this true? Comments, anyone? Some have questioned whether Ungerer's books are suitable for children at all . Some see them as reflecting an anarchist, subversive child's view, as an antidote to sweet pretty children's stories with cuddly bunnies. while others see them as jaded, cynical, and too gross and bleak for children's sensibilities. Preston McClear earlier called Ungerer the Stanley Kubrick of children's literature. Is he?
One final remark from me. In a Nov/Dec Horn Book article on Ungerer, Selma Lanes quotes him as saying, in respone to the question of how it felt at last to be receiving the prestigious Andersen Medal, "For me, it is not an award. It is a revenge."
Please keep your comments coming!
Linnea
Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr
Received on Thu 12 Aug 1999 07:30:53 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:30:53 -0600
Only a few more days remain in which to discuss Tomi Ungerer. I hope that those of you who have been recently reading and rereading his work will jump in with your thoughts.
Several of us earlier on this list compared Anita Lobel's "No Pretty Pictures" with Ungerer's "Tomi," as memoirs of wartime childhoods. Although Ungerer's experiences were not as horrendous as Lobel's, and although his are definitely written from the perspective of an adult looking back in contrast to Lobel's closely focused child's point of view, both strike me as conveying the child's bewilderment at the course of events in a world out of control, a world supposedly run by adults who should know better, but whose actions are more like those of out-of-control children than those of responsible adults. It is interesting to ponder the very different types of art created by Lobel and Ungerer in response to the horrors of their childhood experiences.
For the most part Lobel's art reflects a safe and secure world, perhaps presenting a happy, positive picture of the good things in life, a life she longed for but didn't have in childhood, while Ungerer's reflects more of the unease and disturbed qualities of his childhood, and his outrage at injustices, idiocies, and pretensions. Is this true? Comments, anyone? Some have questioned whether Ungerer's books are suitable for children at all . Some see them as reflecting an anarchist, subversive child's view, as an antidote to sweet pretty children's stories with cuddly bunnies. while others see them as jaded, cynical, and too gross and bleak for children's sensibilities. Preston McClear earlier called Ungerer the Stanley Kubrick of children's literature. Is he?
One final remark from me. In a Nov/Dec Horn Book article on Ungerer, Selma Lanes quotes him as saying, in respone to the question of how it felt at last to be receiving the prestigious Andersen Medal, "For me, it is not an award. It is a revenge."
Please keep your comments coming!
Linnea
Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr
Received on Thu 12 Aug 1999 07:30:53 PM CDT
