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From: Dean Schneider <schneiderd>
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 12:27:01 -0600
Kate McClelland brought up some interesting points about this year's Caldecott choices, points that really apply even more broadly to the state of fiction in our postmodern world. The concern that so much of modern fiction looks to an idyllic past is one Sven Birkerts addresses in his Gutenburg Elegies and his previous book, American Energies. Speaking of adult fiction, Birkerts wonders how the best fiction writers can probe contemporary culture when so much in our lives is circumscribed by our existence in an electronic web. How do you write well about waking up to our electronic, beeping alarm clocks, walking downstairs to make coffee and microwave breakfast treats, checking the news on tv or radio or computer, driving to work with radio on or cellphone in hand, working all day in front of a computer, driving home listening to the radio, and watching tv or surfing the internet all evening. If we're adventurous, we go out to see a movie or a concert something or someone entertaining us.... I don't have his books in front of me as I write, or I'd quote Birkerts's own, better, description of this, but as Birkerts says, some writers - Robert Stone, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon - find inventive ways to capture the present, but even in adult fiction, the prevailing American genre is the realistic, retrospective look at small-town America. So, it's not surprising that much of children's and young adult literature does the same thing. Besides, if writers are to write what they knoiw, much of what they know is themselves, and much of anyone's life is in the past. Anyway, I'm not sure how apt the concern and the vague dissatisfaction are that Kate expresses over this year's Caldecott choices. The concern that a family putting a puzzle together at the end of When Sophie Gets Angry is idyllic and not realistic is unsettling to me. It is certainly true that many, many families lead over-programmed lives. Even, or maybe especially, children in the most affluent of families and schools are not always experiencing the best of
"old?shioned" family life; they are too busy running from home to school to sports and many other extracurricular "enrichment"activities and plugging into electronic diversions for the evening that they do not have time for family meals, reading aloud, playing games together. So, Kate's point is well-taken, but I want literature that portrays the virtues of family life, that does not portray family life as hopelessly outmoded.
A Child's Calendar seems to me a modern, or at least, a timeless book. Kids still love to sled and play in leaves and go to the beach and have family time and celebrations. Idyllic moments are everywhere, not just in the "idyllic" past. Sector 7 is a fun fantasy that kids love; my wife's second graders shrieked with pleasure when they saw Sector 7 come on the screen of her computer as they awaited the news from ALA. As for the Victorian flavor of the illustrations, I'm not sure that makes the book backward-looking and nostalgic. A Jules Verne, Victorian tone to the illustrations seems right to me, though I guess I could imagine some other-worldly scenario too. The Ugly Duckling is a beautifully rendered version of the classic tale. The medal book, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, is nostalgic, idyllic, and folksy in a way, yet with subtle lessons for people of all ages and times, and quite sophisticated in design and in the art of bookmaking. When I think of other picture books I especially liked this year, the same criticism could be raised. Weslandia is a backyard creation of a latter?y Robinson Crusoe, and how many kids play like that anymore? Yet, that's one of the points of the story; he's not like all the other kids! Come On, Rain! celebrates a moment of fun in the rain in the city, with parents and kids playing together. A vision of fun and neighborliness. If you put the Caldecott awards in the context of all the awards given this year, you see a big range of styles, themes, and content. The Printz awards are quite contemporary in the issues addressed and the formats of the books. If anything, young adult novels seem to display more inventiveness in addressing the worlds of contemporary teenagers than most adult novels. (See Eliza Dresang's Radical Change for more on this.) The books on Book Links magazine's "Lasting Connections" list, for example, run the gamut from historical to futuristic, folkloric to grimly realistic - all beautifully written.
Well, I meant to just write a quick response. Sorry if this got long-winded. The questions Kate raised are good ones, ones that happened to connect in my mind with things Sven Birkerts and others have written about and concerns we all have about the fate of reading in an electronic age (which I believe is the subtitle to The Gutenburg Elegies).
Dean Schneider Ensworth School 211 Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
Received on Sun 30 Jan 2000 12:27:01 PM CST
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 12:27:01 -0600
Kate McClelland brought up some interesting points about this year's Caldecott choices, points that really apply even more broadly to the state of fiction in our postmodern world. The concern that so much of modern fiction looks to an idyllic past is one Sven Birkerts addresses in his Gutenburg Elegies and his previous book, American Energies. Speaking of adult fiction, Birkerts wonders how the best fiction writers can probe contemporary culture when so much in our lives is circumscribed by our existence in an electronic web. How do you write well about waking up to our electronic, beeping alarm clocks, walking downstairs to make coffee and microwave breakfast treats, checking the news on tv or radio or computer, driving to work with radio on or cellphone in hand, working all day in front of a computer, driving home listening to the radio, and watching tv or surfing the internet all evening. If we're adventurous, we go out to see a movie or a concert something or someone entertaining us.... I don't have his books in front of me as I write, or I'd quote Birkerts's own, better, description of this, but as Birkerts says, some writers - Robert Stone, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon - find inventive ways to capture the present, but even in adult fiction, the prevailing American genre is the realistic, retrospective look at small-town America. So, it's not surprising that much of children's and young adult literature does the same thing. Besides, if writers are to write what they knoiw, much of what they know is themselves, and much of anyone's life is in the past. Anyway, I'm not sure how apt the concern and the vague dissatisfaction are that Kate expresses over this year's Caldecott choices. The concern that a family putting a puzzle together at the end of When Sophie Gets Angry is idyllic and not realistic is unsettling to me. It is certainly true that many, many families lead over-programmed lives. Even, or maybe especially, children in the most affluent of families and schools are not always experiencing the best of
"old?shioned" family life; they are too busy running from home to school to sports and many other extracurricular "enrichment"activities and plugging into electronic diversions for the evening that they do not have time for family meals, reading aloud, playing games together. So, Kate's point is well-taken, but I want literature that portrays the virtues of family life, that does not portray family life as hopelessly outmoded.
A Child's Calendar seems to me a modern, or at least, a timeless book. Kids still love to sled and play in leaves and go to the beach and have family time and celebrations. Idyllic moments are everywhere, not just in the "idyllic" past. Sector 7 is a fun fantasy that kids love; my wife's second graders shrieked with pleasure when they saw Sector 7 come on the screen of her computer as they awaited the news from ALA. As for the Victorian flavor of the illustrations, I'm not sure that makes the book backward-looking and nostalgic. A Jules Verne, Victorian tone to the illustrations seems right to me, though I guess I could imagine some other-worldly scenario too. The Ugly Duckling is a beautifully rendered version of the classic tale. The medal book, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, is nostalgic, idyllic, and folksy in a way, yet with subtle lessons for people of all ages and times, and quite sophisticated in design and in the art of bookmaking. When I think of other picture books I especially liked this year, the same criticism could be raised. Weslandia is a backyard creation of a latter?y Robinson Crusoe, and how many kids play like that anymore? Yet, that's one of the points of the story; he's not like all the other kids! Come On, Rain! celebrates a moment of fun in the rain in the city, with parents and kids playing together. A vision of fun and neighborliness. If you put the Caldecott awards in the context of all the awards given this year, you see a big range of styles, themes, and content. The Printz awards are quite contemporary in the issues addressed and the formats of the books. If anything, young adult novels seem to display more inventiveness in addressing the worlds of contemporary teenagers than most adult novels. (See Eliza Dresang's Radical Change for more on this.) The books on Book Links magazine's "Lasting Connections" list, for example, run the gamut from historical to futuristic, folkloric to grimly realistic - all beautifully written.
Well, I meant to just write a quick response. Sorry if this got long-winded. The questions Kate raised are good ones, ones that happened to connect in my mind with things Sven Birkerts and others have written about and concerns we all have about the fate of reading in an electronic age (which I believe is the subtitle to The Gutenburg Elegies).
Dean Schneider Ensworth School 211 Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
Received on Sun 30 Jan 2000 12:27:01 PM CST
