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[CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
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From: Santangelo, Michael <M.Santangelo>
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:47:20 -0400
Leonard,
In the past, were there any major influences in terms of children's literature from abroad on American children's authors, illustrators, and publishers? Especially from the non-anglophonic world? I know Anne Carroll Moore and others showed an early interest in multiculturalism and internationalism, but did it necessarily manifest itself in what was being created here?
In the realms of adult literature, American writers themselves seem to speak about and promote their overseas colleagues, but I do not find this as much among American children's authors. I remember Grace Paley writing about East German writer Christa Wolf, American feminists speaking about the French writer Annie Ernaux, or the many American writers who showed their enthusiasm about the Latin American magical realists like Borges or M?rquez. In the pages of the New York Review of Books or the New York Times Book Review, I have always read American authors writing about contemporaries from other countries and who write in other languages, yet I do not necessarily see American children's authors or illustrators doing the same in the Horn Book. To be honest, I mainly read my impressive colleagues from librarianship and academia writing in the pages of Bookbird or the USBBY newsletter.
Also, in terms of small presses that deal with imports, I was always impressed with Enchanted Lion Books, and in particular some of their picture books. The art is a different aesthetic from what we have here, and I am always fascinated by the use of language.
--Michael Santangelo
-----Original Message----- From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu [mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of leonardsma at aol.com Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 9:31 AM To: mayra.negron at gmail.com; ayg at comcast.net Cc: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
At the Bologna International Book Fair earlier this year, US publishers were selling foreign rights far more often than they were buying them. I've heard it said that one reason for this is that publishers here think there is an advantage to having the authors they publish on hand to help promote their books. The sense of the market of Barnes and Noble's buyers is most likely another major factor in publishers' decisions on this score. I also think that the nation's leaders set a tone that can have reverberations throughout the culture, and that in the last several years we've obviously seen a wholesale turning away from interest in the rest of the world. Wedo have Kane-Miller, a small publishing company that has been going now for something like thirty years, which specializes in importing picture books from around the world. But for now they're unique on the US publishing scene.
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: Mayra Negron <mayra.negron at gmail.com>
To: Annette Goldsmith <ayg at comcast.net>
Cc: leonardsma at aol.com; horning at education.wisc.edu; ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:31 pm
Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
Having just attended tonight a round table with 7 renowned Chilean (IBBY) authors who are writing (and have written)? excellent children's books, I am saddened that their work is not as known in the US. Listening to Victor Carvajal, Veronica Uribe, Alicia Morel, and others describe the books they have authored, makes me think of all the Spanish-speaking children that are missing these authors' work because the bridges from the North and South Americas are non-existent right now. How many children that can read Carvajal and his ecological stories are not doing so because the adults in their lives don't know that this literature exists? As I told Victor Carvajal tonight, our group, a Fullbright group of teachers and librarians studying Chilean literature,? is beginning to build the bridge. I hope others will join us.
Mayra, counting the hours until tomorrow, when we get to listen to 8 more authors,
Santiago, Chile
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 5:20 PM, Annette Goldsmith <ayg at comcast.net> wrote:
Leonard, could you comment on how children's book editors view
internationalism today? Jella Lepman and the generation that created IBBY
had the impetus of post-war reconstruction to build bridges of understanding
through children's books; what do you think drives the movement now? I'm
thinking in particular of books from other countries, especially those
translated into English for the U.S. market, rather than multicultural books
originating with U.S. houses.
Annette Goldsmith
Doctoral Candidate
College of Information
Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida
-----Original Message-----
From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
[mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of
leonardsma at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 4:03 PM
To: horning at education.wisc.edu; ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
?Moore was many things, and it's important to recognize all of them. I agree
that she is an easy target for satire, and also that her accomplishments
were great, not least when you consider the resistance she had to overcome
from publishers, librarian management, just about everyone... As for her
interest in what we now call multi-culturalism, yes this was important to
her. She was a realist about the fact that New York City was an
international crossroads and a magnet for immigrants and her realism
expressed itself at the library both in the collections she organized, which
included books in many languages and from many "lands," as they said in
those days, and in the staffing of the library. After World War II, NYPL was
one of the libraries to which Japan sent young women to train as children's
librarians with a view to returning home to aid in the cultural
reconstruction of their devastated homeland.
As I say in MINDERS, May Massee was another internationalist, who published
many books with foreign settings and about foreign cultures. She did so with
the stated purpose of opening American children's minds to an awareness of
the rest of the world, and she did so within a few years of America's
rejection of membership in the League of Nations, and of the Red Scare--so
it wasn't an easy position for her to be taking.
Margaret McElderry worked for Anne Carroll Moore in Rm 105, the inner
sanctum of NYPL, in the years before World War II. When McElderry returned
from military service in Office of Army Intelligence in Europe, she became
Harcourt, Brace's children's book editor, and took up the cause of
internationalism on an even grander scale. Hers was the generation that
created IBBY and the one that perhaps has believed most fervently that
children's books could make a difference in the quest of lasting world
peace. Velma Varner came on to the scene at about the same time, first at
Putnam and later at other houses, including Viking, and she too was an
internationalist. Ann Beneduce, who later founded Philomel was her protegee.
So, it's possible to trace this line of editors who a commitment to
internationalist right up to the present day.
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: Kathleen T. Horning <horning at education.wisc.edu>
To: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 3:07 pm
Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
? ?Leonard, thanks for your quick and thoughtful response. ?I can see why
Anne Carroll Moore may have been viewed as a sentimentalist and
romanticist when it cames to children's literature, and people do love ? to
talk about her eccentricities, such as her constant companion, a ? wooden
doll named Nicholas, whom she treated like a real person. But I ? do think
we also have to give credit to ACM for her understanding of the ? importance
of honoring ethnic diversity, rather than pushing for ? assimilation. She
was very well aware of all the different cultural ? identities represented
in NYC neighborhoods, and made sure that her ? children's librarians
understood and celebrated the communities they ? served. ? ?My children's
literature professor, Gertrude Herman, worked as a ? children's librarian
under ACM in the New York Public Library System, ? and I loved getting her
to tell stories about that time. She worked in a ? Czech neighborhood, and,
as a result, had to learn ev
?erything she could ? about Czech culture. She said after a few years at
NYPL, she knew more ? about the Czech people than she did about her own
cultural heritage. ? ? I've always wondered if ACM's great affinity for
cultural diversity is, ? at least in part, what led to the publication of so
many novels set in ? other countries during from the late 1920s through the
1950s. Did that ? come up at all in your research? ? ?KT ? ?Kathleen T.
Horning ?Director ?Cooperative Children's Book Center ?4290 Helen C. White
Hall ?600 N. Park St ?Madison, WI 53706 ? ?Phone: 608-263-3721 ?FAX:
608-262-4933 ? ?horning at education.wisc.edu
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ ? ? ? ?leonardsma at aol.com wrote: ?>
>From the beginnings of library service to children at the turn of the ? >
last century, public librarians emerged as the leading arbitors of ? >
quality in children's literature. Anne Carroll was certainly the best ? >
known member of the group, and quite powerful, but she wa
?s not ? > all-powerful. She had a rival just across the East Rive
r in Clara ? > Whitehill Hunt, who headed children's services at the
Brooklyn Public ? > Library system starting in 1903, which was three
years before ACM went ? > to New York Public. In fact, Moore left her
position at the Pratt ? > demonstration library when she saw that Hunt
was about to trump her in ? > Brooklyn. Moore was right to realize that
the NYPL, with its proximity ? > to publishers' offices, was the biggest
prize of all, and she seized ? > that opportunity when it came her way
and made the most of it. From ? > then on Moore was involved in
everything: the establishment of Book ? > Week and of the Newbery and
Caldecott Medals (though it was Hunt who ? > served as the first Newbery
chair), the publication of her own annual ? > lists, review work for the
Herald Tribune and the Horn Book, and less ? > formally as an advisor to
publishers. There are letters from the ? > D'Aulaires both to Moore and
Hunt thanking each of them for
?having ? > been the one librarian to inspire them to begin making
picture books. ? > They must have been a very politic pair. ?> ?>
Some publishers listened to Moore and others didn't. May Massee, a ? >
former librarian and Booklist editor when she founded Doublday's ? >
juveniles dept in the early 1920s, allied herself closely with Moore. ? >
Later when Massee moved to Viking she published Ruth Sawyer (winner of
> the Newbery for ROLLER SKATES), who was a good friend of Moore's and a
> sometime storyteller at NY Public. It certainly helped the young ? >
Robert McCloskey to win the approval of Moore that he was Sawyer's ? >
son-in-law, and that his wife was herself a children's librarian. ?>
> Louise Bechtel of Macmillan was politic but as often as not scornful
> Moore's opinions. Bechtel published Lewis Hines' photo essay MEN AT
> WORK, knowing in advance (one can assume) that Moore would dismiss the
> book as Bank
?Street-inspired here and now realism (it's a book of ? > photos t
hat follows the construction of the Empire State Building, and ? > has
since won a place as a classic of documentary photography). Ursula ? >
Nordstrom, who belonged to the next generation of editors, was more ? >
openly contemptuous of Moore. ?> ?> But Moore as I said was not the
only powerful librarian. Alice Jordan, ? > at Boston Public Library,
tutored the founder of The Horn Book in ? > children's literature when
the latter was just starting out as the ? > proprietor of a children's
bookshop built on reformist ideals. And ? > Jordan was far more
responsive to the kinds of experimental books that ? > Margaret Wise
Brown was writing than Moore was, so there was a range ? > of critical
opinon, even at the time when a few powerful voices ? > dominated the
scene. ?> ?> From the 1920s onward, progressive educators led by Bank
Street's Lucy ? > Mitchell put themselves forward as minders with a
different philosophy ? > frp, that of
?Moore, whom they viewed as a sentimentalist and Romantic ? > about
childhood. Alice Dalgliesh, who founded the Scribner juvenile ? >
department in the mid-1930s, came from Teachers College, Columbia ? >
University, which was another center of progressive education thought ? >
and practice, and so was not likely to fall into line unquestioning ? >
with Moore's pronouncements, either. ?> ?> In the 1940s the creators
of Golden Books found a way to bypass the ? > library system altogether
by publishing inexpensive books that parents ? > could buy directly at
five and dime stores, drug stores, and later ? > supermarkets. The
editors craved the respectibility that library ? > approval could confer
on a publishing enterprise, and when they had ? > the chance to persuade
a Caldecott winning artist (for instance ? > Elizabeth Orton Jones) to
work for them, they did so. But the great ? > success of Golden Books in
the middle decades of the 19
?00s is perhaps ? > the best proof of all of the limits of the lib
rarians' power as "minders." ?> ?> 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: Kathleen T. Horning
<horning at education.wisc.edu> ?> To:
ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu ?> Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:32 pm
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers ?>
> Leonard, first of all, thanks so much for being our guest for the next
two ? weeks, while we discuss your book "The Minders of the Make ? Believe."
Bouncing off the last paragraph of your response below, ? could you please
tell ? us a bit more about the "taste makers" -- who they ? were and how
they ? influenced the field? ?How much of an influence did ? they have on
the editors ? you interviewed? ? ?KT ? ?Kathleen T. Horning ?Director
Cooperative Children's ? Book Center ?4290 Helen C. White Hall
?600 N. Park St ?Madison, WI 53706 ? ? ?Phone: 608-263-3721 ?FAX:
608-262-4933 ? ?horning at education.wisc.edu
<mailto:horning at education.wisc.edu>
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ ?> ? ? ? ? leonardsma at aol.com
<mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> wrote: ?> ?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 real ?> ?> ism
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 a
?t 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
or
?ientation, a tendency that can be traced back to ? Puritan New Engla
nd 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 Boo ?> ?>
ks 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 departmen
?t 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
<mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> ? ?> ?> web www.leonardmarcus.com
<http://www.leonardmarcus.com> ?> ?> ?>
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Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:47:20 -0400
Leonard,
In the past, were there any major influences in terms of children's literature from abroad on American children's authors, illustrators, and publishers? Especially from the non-anglophonic world? I know Anne Carroll Moore and others showed an early interest in multiculturalism and internationalism, but did it necessarily manifest itself in what was being created here?
In the realms of adult literature, American writers themselves seem to speak about and promote their overseas colleagues, but I do not find this as much among American children's authors. I remember Grace Paley writing about East German writer Christa Wolf, American feminists speaking about the French writer Annie Ernaux, or the many American writers who showed their enthusiasm about the Latin American magical realists like Borges or M?rquez. In the pages of the New York Review of Books or the New York Times Book Review, I have always read American authors writing about contemporaries from other countries and who write in other languages, yet I do not necessarily see American children's authors or illustrators doing the same in the Horn Book. To be honest, I mainly read my impressive colleagues from librarianship and academia writing in the pages of Bookbird or the USBBY newsletter.
Also, in terms of small presses that deal with imports, I was always impressed with Enchanted Lion Books, and in particular some of their picture books. The art is a different aesthetic from what we have here, and I am always fascinated by the use of language.
--Michael Santangelo
-----Original Message----- From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu [mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of leonardsma at aol.com Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 9:31 AM To: mayra.negron at gmail.com; ayg at comcast.net Cc: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
At the Bologna International Book Fair earlier this year, US publishers were selling foreign rights far more often than they were buying them. I've heard it said that one reason for this is that publishers here think there is an advantage to having the authors they publish on hand to help promote their books. The sense of the market of Barnes and Noble's buyers is most likely another major factor in publishers' decisions on this score. I also think that the nation's leaders set a tone that can have reverberations throughout the culture, and that in the last several years we've obviously seen a wholesale turning away from interest in the rest of the world. Wedo have Kane-Miller, a small publishing company that has been going now for something like thirty years, which specializes in importing picture books from around the world. But for now they're unique on the US publishing scene.
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: Mayra Negron <mayra.negron at gmail.com>
To: Annette Goldsmith <ayg at comcast.net>
Cc: leonardsma at aol.com; horning at education.wisc.edu; ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:31 pm
Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
Having just attended tonight a round table with 7 renowned Chilean (IBBY) authors who are writing (and have written)? excellent children's books, I am saddened that their work is not as known in the US. Listening to Victor Carvajal, Veronica Uribe, Alicia Morel, and others describe the books they have authored, makes me think of all the Spanish-speaking children that are missing these authors' work because the bridges from the North and South Americas are non-existent right now. How many children that can read Carvajal and his ecological stories are not doing so because the adults in their lives don't know that this literature exists? As I told Victor Carvajal tonight, our group, a Fullbright group of teachers and librarians studying Chilean literature,? is beginning to build the bridge. I hope others will join us.
Mayra, counting the hours until tomorrow, when we get to listen to 8 more authors,
Santiago, Chile
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 5:20 PM, Annette Goldsmith <ayg at comcast.net> wrote:
Leonard, could you comment on how children's book editors view
internationalism today? Jella Lepman and the generation that created IBBY
had the impetus of post-war reconstruction to build bridges of understanding
through children's books; what do you think drives the movement now? I'm
thinking in particular of books from other countries, especially those
translated into English for the U.S. market, rather than multicultural books
originating with U.S. houses.
Annette Goldsmith
Doctoral Candidate
College of Information
Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida
-----Original Message-----
From: ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
[mailto:ccbc-net-bounces at ccbc.education.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of
leonardsma at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 4:03 PM
To: horning at education.wisc.edu; ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
?Moore was many things, and it's important to recognize all of them. I agree
that she is an easy target for satire, and also that her accomplishments
were great, not least when you consider the resistance she had to overcome
from publishers, librarian management, just about everyone... As for her
interest in what we now call multi-culturalism, yes this was important to
her. She was a realist about the fact that New York City was an
international crossroads and a magnet for immigrants and her realism
expressed itself at the library both in the collections she organized, which
included books in many languages and from many "lands," as they said in
those days, and in the staffing of the library. After World War II, NYPL was
one of the libraries to which Japan sent young women to train as children's
librarians with a view to returning home to aid in the cultural
reconstruction of their devastated homeland.
As I say in MINDERS, May Massee was another internationalist, who published
many books with foreign settings and about foreign cultures. She did so with
the stated purpose of opening American children's minds to an awareness of
the rest of the world, and she did so within a few years of America's
rejection of membership in the League of Nations, and of the Red Scare--so
it wasn't an easy position for her to be taking.
Margaret McElderry worked for Anne Carroll Moore in Rm 105, the inner
sanctum of NYPL, in the years before World War II. When McElderry returned
from military service in Office of Army Intelligence in Europe, she became
Harcourt, Brace's children's book editor, and took up the cause of
internationalism on an even grander scale. Hers was the generation that
created IBBY and the one that perhaps has believed most fervently that
children's books could make a difference in the quest of lasting world
peace. Velma Varner came on to the scene at about the same time, first at
Putnam and later at other houses, including Viking, and she too was an
internationalist. Ann Beneduce, who later founded Philomel was her protegee.
So, it's possible to trace this line of editors who a commitment to
internationalist right up to the present day.
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: Kathleen T. Horning <horning at education.wisc.edu>
To: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 3:07 pm
Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
? ?Leonard, thanks for your quick and thoughtful response. ?I can see why
Anne Carroll Moore may have been viewed as a sentimentalist and
romanticist when it cames to children's literature, and people do love ? to
talk about her eccentricities, such as her constant companion, a ? wooden
doll named Nicholas, whom she treated like a real person. But I ? do think
we also have to give credit to ACM for her understanding of the ? importance
of honoring ethnic diversity, rather than pushing for ? assimilation. She
was very well aware of all the different cultural ? identities represented
in NYC neighborhoods, and made sure that her ? children's librarians
understood and celebrated the communities they ? served. ? ?My children's
literature professor, Gertrude Herman, worked as a ? children's librarian
under ACM in the New York Public Library System, ? and I loved getting her
to tell stories about that time. She worked in a ? Czech neighborhood, and,
as a result, had to learn ev
?erything she could ? about Czech culture. She said after a few years at
NYPL, she knew more ? about the Czech people than she did about her own
cultural heritage. ? ? I've always wondered if ACM's great affinity for
cultural diversity is, ? at least in part, what led to the publication of so
many novels set in ? other countries during from the late 1920s through the
1950s. Did that ? come up at all in your research? ? ?KT ? ?Kathleen T.
Horning ?Director ?Cooperative Children's Book Center ?4290 Helen C. White
Hall ?600 N. Park St ?Madison, WI 53706 ? ?Phone: 608-263-3721 ?FAX:
608-262-4933 ? ?horning at education.wisc.edu
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ ? ? ? ?leonardsma at aol.com wrote: ?>
>From the beginnings of library service to children at the turn of the ? >
last century, public librarians emerged as the leading arbitors of ? >
quality in children's literature. Anne Carroll was certainly the best ? >
known member of the group, and quite powerful, but she wa
?s not ? > all-powerful. She had a rival just across the East Rive
r in Clara ? > Whitehill Hunt, who headed children's services at the
Brooklyn Public ? > Library system starting in 1903, which was three
years before ACM went ? > to New York Public. In fact, Moore left her
position at the Pratt ? > demonstration library when she saw that Hunt
was about to trump her in ? > Brooklyn. Moore was right to realize that
the NYPL, with its proximity ? > to publishers' offices, was the biggest
prize of all, and she seized ? > that opportunity when it came her way
and made the most of it. From ? > then on Moore was involved in
everything: the establishment of Book ? > Week and of the Newbery and
Caldecott Medals (though it was Hunt who ? > served as the first Newbery
chair), the publication of her own annual ? > lists, review work for the
Herald Tribune and the Horn Book, and less ? > formally as an advisor to
publishers. There are letters from the ? > D'Aulaires both to Moore and
Hunt thanking each of them for
?having ? > been the one librarian to inspire them to begin making
picture books. ? > They must have been a very politic pair. ?> ?>
Some publishers listened to Moore and others didn't. May Massee, a ? >
former librarian and Booklist editor when she founded Doublday's ? >
juveniles dept in the early 1920s, allied herself closely with Moore. ? >
Later when Massee moved to Viking she published Ruth Sawyer (winner of
> the Newbery for ROLLER SKATES), who was a good friend of Moore's and a
> sometime storyteller at NY Public. It certainly helped the young ? >
Robert McCloskey to win the approval of Moore that he was Sawyer's ? >
son-in-law, and that his wife was herself a children's librarian. ?>
> Louise Bechtel of Macmillan was politic but as often as not scornful
> Moore's opinions. Bechtel published Lewis Hines' photo essay MEN AT
> WORK, knowing in advance (one can assume) that Moore would dismiss the
> book as Bank
?Street-inspired here and now realism (it's a book of ? > photos t
hat follows the construction of the Empire State Building, and ? > has
since won a place as a classic of documentary photography). Ursula ? >
Nordstrom, who belonged to the next generation of editors, was more ? >
openly contemptuous of Moore. ?> ?> But Moore as I said was not the
only powerful librarian. Alice Jordan, ? > at Boston Public Library,
tutored the founder of The Horn Book in ? > children's literature when
the latter was just starting out as the ? > proprietor of a children's
bookshop built on reformist ideals. And ? > Jordan was far more
responsive to the kinds of experimental books that ? > Margaret Wise
Brown was writing than Moore was, so there was a range ? > of critical
opinon, even at the time when a few powerful voices ? > dominated the
scene. ?> ?> From the 1920s onward, progressive educators led by Bank
Street's Lucy ? > Mitchell put themselves forward as minders with a
different philosophy ? > frp, that of
?Moore, whom they viewed as a sentimentalist and Romantic ? > about
childhood. Alice Dalgliesh, who founded the Scribner juvenile ? >
department in the mid-1930s, came from Teachers College, Columbia ? >
University, which was another center of progressive education thought ? >
and practice, and so was not likely to fall into line unquestioning ? >
with Moore's pronouncements, either. ?> ?> In the 1940s the creators
of Golden Books found a way to bypass the ? > library system altogether
by publishing inexpensive books that parents ? > could buy directly at
five and dime stores, drug stores, and later ? > supermarkets. The
editors craved the respectibility that library ? > approval could confer
on a publishing enterprise, and when they had ? > the chance to persuade
a Caldecott winning artist (for instance ? > Elizabeth Orton Jones) to
work for them, they did so. But the great ? > success of Golden Books in
the middle decades of the 19
?00s is perhaps ? > the best proof of all of the limits of the lib
rarians' power as "minders." ?> ?> 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: Kathleen T. Horning
<horning at education.wisc.edu> ?> To:
ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu ?> Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:32 pm
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers ?>
> Leonard, first of all, thanks so much for being our guest for the next
two ? weeks, while we discuss your book "The Minders of the Make ? Believe."
Bouncing off the last paragraph of your response below, ? could you please
tell ? us a bit more about the "taste makers" -- who they ? were and how
they ? influenced the field? ?How much of an influence did ? they have on
the editors ? you interviewed? ? ?KT ? ?Kathleen T. Horning ?Director
Cooperative Children's ? Book Center ?4290 Helen C. White Hall
?600 N. Park St ?Madison, WI 53706 ? ? ?Phone: 608-263-3721 ?FAX:
608-262-4933 ? ?horning at education.wisc.edu
<mailto:horning at education.wisc.edu>
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ ?> ? ? ? ? leonardsma at aol.com
<mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> wrote: ?> ?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 real ?> ?> ism
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 a
?t 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
or
?ientation, a tendency that can be traced back to ? Puritan New Engla
nd 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 Boo ?> ?>
ks 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 departmen
?t 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
<mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> ? ?> ?> web www.leonardmarcus.com
<http://www.leonardmarcus.com> ?> ?> ?>
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Received on Fri 18 Jul 2008 09:47:20 AM CDT
