CCBC-Net Archives
[CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: leonardsma at aol.com <leonardsma>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:23:03 -0400
Well, that's a large question.
There have been many changes in subject and emotional content, format, and even genre.
Picture books and cloth and board books for the youngest ages were rare before William R. Scott, a small experimental publishing house inspired by progressive education theory, hired Margaret Wise Brown as its first editor in the late 1930s, and published books like Brown and Leonard Weisgard's NOISY BOOK and Brown and Esphyr Slobodkina's FIVE LITTLE FIREMEN. A few years later, Simon and Schuster brought out Dorothy Kunhardt's PAT THE BUNNY, and a new age category for children's books was firmly established. Think of all the more recent books--those by Eric Carle,Tana Hoban and Lois Ehlert, for instance--that have grown out of that beginning.
At Harper, Ursula Nordstrom worked across all age groups to deepen the emotional range and pyschological realism of books for young readers. Think of Brown and Hurd's THE RUNAWAY BUNNY, which may be the most rhapsodic piece of writing for young children in the entire literature; or GOODNIGHT MOON, which, as I have written elsewhere, brought together the librarians' idea that make-believe was what small children want and need with the opposing idea of the progressive educators of the time, who believed that preschoolers had a natural affinity for "here and now" stories about their own everyday reality. Brown had a great, synthetic vision -- and was able to make a place in the Great Green Room for both points of v iew. The peacefulness in GOODNIGHT MOON Is not just the sense of peace that a child facing the dark needs at the end of the day; it is also a reconciliation of the warring ideas of the "minders" of children's literature of her day.
Of course books like HARRIET THE SPY and later THE OUTSIDERS and THE CHOCOLATE WAR took the literature into other new terrain. Robert Cormier's agent the late Marilyn Marlow had a very hard time placing THE CHOCOLATE WAR. Even Ursula Nordstrom found it too disturbing, as did Viking's Velma Varner (lots of Vs there!), who had been willing to take a chance of THE OUTSIDERS. Nordstrom also passed on A WRINKLE IN TIME, but she was generally closed to fantasy; tempamentally, the genre did not appeal to her. But 25 other editors rejected L'Engle's book as well, and the ultimate success of that book was instrumental in bringing about a greater openness among American readers to fantasy literature generally. Prior to that, I think the American tradition was fundamentally realist in orientation, a tendency that can be traced back to Puritan New England and fear of the "sporting lie" that made all fiction suspect.
Louise Seaman Bechtel's essays, which are collected in a book called BOOKS IN SEARCH OF CHILDREN (which Susan Hirschman published during her tenure as head of Macmillan's Dept of Books for Boys and Girls) are well worth reading. Bechtel had one foot in the librarians' camp and the other in that of the progressive educators like Bank Street's=2 0founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell. As such she was one of the few figures who bridged the great divide in critical thinking during much of the last century about what was "good" for children to read.
Having said all this, it's also worth noting at the start that the official taste makers were responsible for relatively few of the children's books that children themselves were most enthusiastic about. When Ursula Nordstrom started in as head of Harper's department in 1940, one of the first things she did was stop at a newsstand and pick up a sampling of the latest comic books. She knew that that's what chidlren were actually reading, and she wanted to learn the secret of those critically shunned publications' great success.
Leonard S. Marcus
54 Willow Street, #2A
Brooklyn, New York 11201
tel 718 596-1897
e-mail leonardsma at aol.com
web www.leonardmarcus.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman at education.wisc.edu>
To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 9:59 am
Subject: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe
Today we will formally our topic for the second half of July on CCBC-Net: "Minders of Make-Belive: Publishing for Children in the Twentieth Century and Beyond." Children?s literature historian Leonard S. Marcus, author of the new book "Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, =2 0Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children?s Literature "(Houghton Mifflin, 2008) joins us to talk about children's publishing in the twentieth century and beyond. Where have we been and where are we going in terms of milestones and markers of change? No doubt many of us have now read the "New Yorker article about Stuart Little, "The Lion and the Mouse," by Jill Lepore (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lepore/?currentPage=2). One of the things that struck me in the article is the fact that the debate about what a children's book should be, or what is "appropriate" for children, that we see in the comments of Anne Carroll Moore, Katharine White, and even E.B. White, still exists today on various fronts, although the "answers" and perspectives have changed, at least in some ways. On the one hand, I still hear variations on the theme of the blending of fantasy and reality being too confusing for children, but generally from those who don't act ually spend a lot of time observing children with books. Today I also hear questions raised about whether a book about a serious issue is "too much" for children, although, again, those who spend time regularly sharing books with kids are not the ones I see asking those questions. It seems to me that one of the ways children's literature has come of age is the fact that those immersed in the world of children's literature today reflect the20 perspective of groundbreaking editors like Louise Seaman Bechtel, Ursula Nordstrom and others who put their faith above all in children, which is where it should lie. Leonard, I'm wondering what you can say about how the understanding of what a children's book is or can be has changed in int twentieth century, and perhaps share examples of groundbreaking books (and individuals) that helped paved the way for new understandings. Megan -- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wis consin-Madison 608/262-9503 schliesman at education.wisc.edu www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ _______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Thu 17 Jul 2008 11:23:03 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:23:03 -0400
Well, that's a large question.
There have been many changes in subject and emotional content, format, and even genre.
Picture books and cloth and board books for the youngest ages were rare before William R. Scott, a small experimental publishing house inspired by progressive education theory, hired Margaret Wise Brown as its first editor in the late 1930s, and published books like Brown and Leonard Weisgard's NOISY BOOK and Brown and Esphyr Slobodkina's FIVE LITTLE FIREMEN. A few years later, Simon and Schuster brought out Dorothy Kunhardt's PAT THE BUNNY, and a new age category for children's books was firmly established. Think of all the more recent books--those by Eric Carle,Tana Hoban and Lois Ehlert, for instance--that have grown out of that beginning.
At Harper, Ursula Nordstrom worked across all age groups to deepen the emotional range and pyschological realism of books for young readers. Think of Brown and Hurd's THE RUNAWAY BUNNY, which may be the most rhapsodic piece of writing for young children in the entire literature; or GOODNIGHT MOON, which, as I have written elsewhere, brought together the librarians' idea that make-believe was what small children want and need with the opposing idea of the progressive educators of the time, who believed that preschoolers had a natural affinity for "here and now" stories about their own everyday reality. Brown had a great, synthetic vision -- and was able to make a place in the Great Green Room for both points of v iew. The peacefulness in GOODNIGHT MOON Is not just the sense of peace that a child facing the dark needs at the end of the day; it is also a reconciliation of the warring ideas of the "minders" of children's literature of her day.
Of course books like HARRIET THE SPY and later THE OUTSIDERS and THE CHOCOLATE WAR took the literature into other new terrain. Robert Cormier's agent the late Marilyn Marlow had a very hard time placing THE CHOCOLATE WAR. Even Ursula Nordstrom found it too disturbing, as did Viking's Velma Varner (lots of Vs there!), who had been willing to take a chance of THE OUTSIDERS. Nordstrom also passed on A WRINKLE IN TIME, but she was generally closed to fantasy; tempamentally, the genre did not appeal to her. But 25 other editors rejected L'Engle's book as well, and the ultimate success of that book was instrumental in bringing about a greater openness among American readers to fantasy literature generally. Prior to that, I think the American tradition was fundamentally realist in orientation, a tendency that can be traced back to Puritan New England and fear of the "sporting lie" that made all fiction suspect.
Louise Seaman Bechtel's essays, which are collected in a book called BOOKS IN SEARCH OF CHILDREN (which Susan Hirschman published during her tenure as head of Macmillan's Dept of Books for Boys and Girls) are well worth reading. Bechtel had one foot in the librarians' camp and the other in that of the progressive educators like Bank Street's=2 0founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell. As such she was one of the few figures who bridged the great divide in critical thinking during much of the last century about what was "good" for children to read.
Having said all this, it's also worth noting at the start that the official taste makers were responsible for relatively few of the children's books that children themselves were most enthusiastic about. When Ursula Nordstrom started in as head of Harper's department in 1940, one of the first things she did was stop at a newsstand and pick up a sampling of the latest comic books. She knew that that's what chidlren were actually reading, and she wanted to learn the secret of those critically shunned publications' great success.
Leonard S. Marcus
54 Willow Street, #2A
Brooklyn, New York 11201
tel 718 596-1897
e-mail leonardsma at aol.com
web www.leonardmarcus.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman at education.wisc.edu>
To: ccbc-net, Subscribers of <ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 9:59 am
Subject: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe
Today we will formally our topic for the second half of July on CCBC-Net: "Minders of Make-Belive: Publishing for Children in the Twentieth Century and Beyond." Children?s literature historian Leonard S. Marcus, author of the new book "Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, =2 0Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children?s Literature "(Houghton Mifflin, 2008) joins us to talk about children's publishing in the twentieth century and beyond. Where have we been and where are we going in terms of milestones and markers of change? No doubt many of us have now read the "New Yorker article about Stuart Little, "The Lion and the Mouse," by Jill Lepore (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lepore/?currentPage=2). One of the things that struck me in the article is the fact that the debate about what a children's book should be, or what is "appropriate" for children, that we see in the comments of Anne Carroll Moore, Katharine White, and even E.B. White, still exists today on various fronts, although the "answers" and perspectives have changed, at least in some ways. On the one hand, I still hear variations on the theme of the blending of fantasy and reality being too confusing for children, but generally from those who don't act ually spend a lot of time observing children with books. Today I also hear questions raised about whether a book about a serious issue is "too much" for children, although, again, those who spend time regularly sharing books with kids are not the ones I see asking those questions. It seems to me that one of the ways children's literature has come of age is the fact that those immersed in the world of children's literature today reflect the20 perspective of groundbreaking editors like Louise Seaman Bechtel, Ursula Nordstrom and others who put their faith above all in children, which is where it should lie. Leonard, I'm wondering what you can say about how the understanding of what a children's book is or can be has changed in int twentieth century, and perhaps share examples of groundbreaking books (and individuals) that helped paved the way for new understandings. Megan -- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wis consin-Madison 608/262-9503 schliesman at education.wisc.edu www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ _______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Thu 17 Jul 2008 11:23:03 AM CDT
