CCBC-Net Archives
Nancy Larrick
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Connie Rockman <connie.rock>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 12:48:06 -0500
Nancy Larrick was truly one of the great advocates of children's literature of the 20th century. Today's (Sunday's) New York Times has a glowing tribute to her life in the Obituary section. Nearly 20 years ago, in 1985 I invited her to Stamford, CT, to deliver the inaugural Jeanne Rinehart lecture, a now annual program at the Ferguson Library designed to raise awareness of children's literature in that community.
Nancy's lecture was so inspiring about early childhood reading that the Friends group of the library immediately established a Books for Babies initiative that continues to this day, providing board books for every baby born in Stamford hospitals.
See Nancy's wonderful autobiographical feature in the Eighth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators (H. W. Wilson, 2000) to get a sense of the extent of her unique contribution to the field. Here's a sample of her enthusiasm for her work when compiling poetry anthologies:
"At about this time [the mid60s] I was asked to compile an anthology of ?easy-to-read? poetry for second and third graders. I enlisted help from children in a neighborhood school. What poems could they read? Which poems did they like? What should go into ?our book??
The children were wonderful: very outspoken, and very sure of their judgment. Invariably the poems they rejected were ?too sweet,? as they put it. They preferred poems about the here and now (trucks, planes, city traffic) and about the rugged and wild -- ?not covered over with the beautiful,? as one boy put it.
?And what should be the title?? I asked: ?The Easy-to-Read Poetry Book which teachers and publisher had suggested?? No way! One boy explained, ?If you do that, you?ll have to put it in very small type.? So, with the children?s approval, it was called Piper, Pipe That Song Again."
At the time Nancy wrote that piece, when she was in her late 80's, she was busy chairing a Friends of the Library committee to raise $3 million for books in the public library in Winchester, VA - the library that nurtured her own childhood reading.
Connie Rockman Editor, Eighth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators
Received on Sun 21 Nov 2004 11:48:06 AM CST
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 12:48:06 -0500
Nancy Larrick was truly one of the great advocates of children's literature of the 20th century. Today's (Sunday's) New York Times has a glowing tribute to her life in the Obituary section. Nearly 20 years ago, in 1985 I invited her to Stamford, CT, to deliver the inaugural Jeanne Rinehart lecture, a now annual program at the Ferguson Library designed to raise awareness of children's literature in that community.
Nancy's lecture was so inspiring about early childhood reading that the Friends group of the library immediately established a Books for Babies initiative that continues to this day, providing board books for every baby born in Stamford hospitals.
See Nancy's wonderful autobiographical feature in the Eighth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators (H. W. Wilson, 2000) to get a sense of the extent of her unique contribution to the field. Here's a sample of her enthusiasm for her work when compiling poetry anthologies:
"At about this time [the mid60s] I was asked to compile an anthology of ?easy-to-read? poetry for second and third graders. I enlisted help from children in a neighborhood school. What poems could they read? Which poems did they like? What should go into ?our book??
The children were wonderful: very outspoken, and very sure of their judgment. Invariably the poems they rejected were ?too sweet,? as they put it. They preferred poems about the here and now (trucks, planes, city traffic) and about the rugged and wild -- ?not covered over with the beautiful,? as one boy put it.
?And what should be the title?? I asked: ?The Easy-to-Read Poetry Book which teachers and publisher had suggested?? No way! One boy explained, ?If you do that, you?ll have to put it in very small type.? So, with the children?s approval, it was called Piper, Pipe That Song Again."
At the time Nancy wrote that piece, when she was in her late 80's, she was busy chairing a Friends of the Library committee to raise $3 million for books in the public library in Winchester, VA - the library that nurtured her own childhood reading.
Connie Rockman Editor, Eighth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators
Received on Sun 21 Nov 2004 11:48:06 AM CST
