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[CCBC-Net] Nostalgia in children's books
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From: Carla K <carlak_56>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:10:26 -0800 (PST)
Last week, my husband and I had dinner with his thesis adviser and his wife, whom we hadn't seen in at least 20 years. Kathleen and I always used to talk about children's books, and we still do. She told me that her 10 year old grandson's favorite book, after Harry Potter, was Elizabeth Enright's THE SATURDAYS. Being nuts about Enright myself, especially the Melendy and the Gone-Away books, I was thrilled that a 10 year old boy was enjoying THE SATURDAYS. Kathleen and I soon realized that the world of the Melendy children, which was very familiar to the two of us, was a foreign and exciting one for her grandson (who lives two doors away from his grandparents, near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.) He would not be allowed to wander alone around the Lakes for a day, and he certainly wouldn't be able to do that in New York City (my 9 year old niece, who lives there, is walked a block to her school bus pickup every morning, and is met at the bus every afternoon. But she and
her schoolmates are avid players of jacks, and right now they're all reading collections of Peanuts comic strips from my childhood.)
I thought about that when I heard the NPR story that others have mentioned. I walked all over my Milwaukee neighborhood from the time I was 7--of course, we knew all of ourneighbors, and had several relatives living nearby--and I spent a good portion of my summers near a lake in nearby farm country, walking through fields and making up stories. The many baby-boomer children on our block, and my siblings and cousins in the country, played ball, jumped rope, and made up many games on our own. It's odd to think that this kind of a world could be as magical as Hogwarts, but obviously it is to at least one child. The Enright books are available again, perhaps riding that wave of nostalgia.
On a note related again to the NPR, 20-some years ago my brother was working in Beijing, and I visited him there. He lived in the China Daily Newspaper compound, and he pointed out that on pleasant evenings, people sat outside, telling riddles and stories, and children played together, making up games, turning bricks and stones into imaginary cars and airplanes. I told him I bet that kind of charming sociability would become more rare as more people had access to television (I didn't even think about computers or the Internet back then!) and I'm sure that it has. I know that Beijing today is very different from the city I saw in 1985. I wonder if children there, too, are living more structured lives, with less time just to play.
I'm ordering new copies of the Enright books. Let's see how well I can push nostalgia in my branch.
Carla
Carla Kozak"Librarian by Day, Catwoman by Night (Gone to the Dogs)"
--------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
Received on Sat 23 Feb 2008 07:10:26 PM CST
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:10:26 -0800 (PST)
Last week, my husband and I had dinner with his thesis adviser and his wife, whom we hadn't seen in at least 20 years. Kathleen and I always used to talk about children's books, and we still do. She told me that her 10 year old grandson's favorite book, after Harry Potter, was Elizabeth Enright's THE SATURDAYS. Being nuts about Enright myself, especially the Melendy and the Gone-Away books, I was thrilled that a 10 year old boy was enjoying THE SATURDAYS. Kathleen and I soon realized that the world of the Melendy children, which was very familiar to the two of us, was a foreign and exciting one for her grandson (who lives two doors away from his grandparents, near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.) He would not be allowed to wander alone around the Lakes for a day, and he certainly wouldn't be able to do that in New York City (my 9 year old niece, who lives there, is walked a block to her school bus pickup every morning, and is met at the bus every afternoon. But she and
her schoolmates are avid players of jacks, and right now they're all reading collections of Peanuts comic strips from my childhood.)
I thought about that when I heard the NPR story that others have mentioned. I walked all over my Milwaukee neighborhood from the time I was 7--of course, we knew all of ourneighbors, and had several relatives living nearby--and I spent a good portion of my summers near a lake in nearby farm country, walking through fields and making up stories. The many baby-boomer children on our block, and my siblings and cousins in the country, played ball, jumped rope, and made up many games on our own. It's odd to think that this kind of a world could be as magical as Hogwarts, but obviously it is to at least one child. The Enright books are available again, perhaps riding that wave of nostalgia.
On a note related again to the NPR, 20-some years ago my brother was working in Beijing, and I visited him there. He lived in the China Daily Newspaper compound, and he pointed out that on pleasant evenings, people sat outside, telling riddles and stories, and children played together, making up games, turning bricks and stones into imaginary cars and airplanes. I told him I bet that kind of charming sociability would become more rare as more people had access to television (I didn't even think about computers or the Internet back then!) and I'm sure that it has. I know that Beijing today is very different from the city I saw in 1985. I wonder if children there, too, are living more structured lives, with less time just to play.
I'm ordering new copies of the Enright books. Let's see how well I can push nostalgia in my branch.
Carla
Carla Kozak"Librarian by Day, Catwoman by Night (Gone to the Dogs)"
--------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
Received on Sat 23 Feb 2008 07:10:26 PM CST
