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From: McClelland, Kate <mcclelland>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 13:11:53 -0500
Like many former library school students, I will long remember the standard assignment to "revisit" the award and honor books in light of the social, political and cultural context of the time in which they were written/ illustrated. This led to many exciting paths of discovery as I learned to appreciate books that seemed, at first glance, more ordinary than they really were. (Udry's A TREE IS NICE is an example.) I wondered what the library and information specialist student of 2075 (when I devoutly hope there will still be children's specialists) would observe from looking at the books honored at the turning of this century. I HASTEN to acknowledge that this has NOTHING to do with the criteria which the hard-working committees use to evaluate. This is much more of an intellectual exercise. As I "live with" this year's Caldecott Medal and Honor books in preparation for a professional presentation of them, I am struck by one thing. It seems to me that these books represent a palpable yearning for an idyllic past.
From the iconic family farm of our cherished memory, to the folkloric depiction of the Polish shtetl, to the two-parent home where there is time for family puzzle-making, to a fantasy world where "The Cloud Dispatch Center" and its employees look very Victorian (in the manner of Jules Verne), our collective nostalgia for the past seems to be powerfully summoned. Varied styles from folk art to painterly to surrealistic are effectively used to invoke these time-honored worlds. There are subtle hints of the American present to be sure, in an interracial, interfaith family and in a child who manages her own anger with her own inner resources. But there is barely a hint of electricity (literal not creative) in these illustrations, let alone connection with the life of the real end-of-the-the Twentieth?ntury child. The student of 2075 will be interested... I predict. Will he wonder that we were looking back? "Timelessness" has its
own virtues, to be sure, but count me vaguely disappointed. Kate McClelland mcclelland at perrot.greenwich.lib.ct.us P.S. Add to my concerns... the absence of any Source Note which librarians prize so highly in JOSEPH.
Received on Fri 28 Jan 2000 12:11:53 PM CST
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 13:11:53 -0500
Like many former library school students, I will long remember the standard assignment to "revisit" the award and honor books in light of the social, political and cultural context of the time in which they were written/ illustrated. This led to many exciting paths of discovery as I learned to appreciate books that seemed, at first glance, more ordinary than they really were. (Udry's A TREE IS NICE is an example.) I wondered what the library and information specialist student of 2075 (when I devoutly hope there will still be children's specialists) would observe from looking at the books honored at the turning of this century. I HASTEN to acknowledge that this has NOTHING to do with the criteria which the hard-working committees use to evaluate. This is much more of an intellectual exercise. As I "live with" this year's Caldecott Medal and Honor books in preparation for a professional presentation of them, I am struck by one thing. It seems to me that these books represent a palpable yearning for an idyllic past.
From the iconic family farm of our cherished memory, to the folkloric depiction of the Polish shtetl, to the two-parent home where there is time for family puzzle-making, to a fantasy world where "The Cloud Dispatch Center" and its employees look very Victorian (in the manner of Jules Verne), our collective nostalgia for the past seems to be powerfully summoned. Varied styles from folk art to painterly to surrealistic are effectively used to invoke these time-honored worlds. There are subtle hints of the American present to be sure, in an interracial, interfaith family and in a child who manages her own anger with her own inner resources. But there is barely a hint of electricity (literal not creative) in these illustrations, let alone connection with the life of the real end-of-the-the Twentieth?ntury child. The student of 2075 will be interested... I predict. Will he wonder that we were looking back? "Timelessness" has its
own virtues, to be sure, but count me vaguely disappointed. Kate McClelland mcclelland at perrot.greenwich.lib.ct.us P.S. Add to my concerns... the absence of any Source Note which librarians prize so highly in JOSEPH.
Received on Fri 28 Jan 2000 12:11:53 PM CST
