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[CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Outsider Minders
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:25:53 -0500
Thank you, Leonard, for remarking about Langston Hughes who contributed to the FIRST BOOK OF series.
I assume that your book includes considerable commentary about other NYPL "minders" such as Augusta Baker and Barbara Rollock. Do you have some backstage anecdotes about them, i.e., material not in your book? And what about Charlemae Rollins whose distinguished career in the Chicago Public Library led - among other outcomes - to the publication of her "Christmas Gif' " (most recently reissued with artwork by Ashley Bryan)? The ALA Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) annually offers a program named after Charlemae Rollins, a significant
"minder" on my personal list of saints.
Cordially, Ginny
leonardsma at aol.com wrote:
> Yes, I have written about this in MINDERS. Another writer the Council
> championed was Mildred D. Taylor. And it was Council founder Franklin
> Folsom who earlier in his career pressured Franklin Watts to hire
> Langston Hughes as a contributing writer for the FIRST BOOK OF series
> launched by Wats in the 1950s, and which made it onto the shelves of
> school libraries around the country.
>
> 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: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse at wisc.edu>
> To: leonardsma at aol.com; ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> Sent: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:10 am
> Subject: Minders of Make-Believe: Outsider Minders
>
> Leonard, will you please expand upon your remarks on July 21 (below)
> by adding what you discovered about the influence of the Council on
> Interracial Books for Children during the 1960s-1980s in particular?
> It seems to me that Brad Chambers, the Council and its publications
> exerted considerable influence as "outsider minders," which is the
> term I've coined for this aspect of the "Minders..." topic. Personally
> I learned so much20from each CIBC newsletter and publication, not that
> I always agreed, but there was always something new to think about
> regarding race, ethnicity, gender, exclusion, inclusion, etc. The
> CIBC's influence was critical to the beginnings of many careers; for
> example, writers such as Walter Dean Myers and artists such as Pat
> Cummings won CIBC visibility, and - as the saying goes - the rest is
> history. Perhaps this is all covered in your book, but since I'm
> waiting in a virtual line for a reserved public library copy, it'll be
> quite a while before I can settle down with it in my hands to read it
> carefully and use its index.
>
> Thank you for making time to respond so promptly and in such depth
> including unpublished anecdotes within this conversation. I recall the
> lively CCBC-Net conversation during the summer of 1998 shortly after
> your "Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom" was published.
> CCBC-Net participants might want to check that book out of your
> libraries, too, as well as checking the CCBC-Net archives to read
> those commentaries. Leonard, you continue to give us well-documented
> information about which to talk, think and reflect. (And thank you,
> Norma Jean, for commissioning "Minders..." some years ago!!)
>
> Cordially,
> Ginny
>
> Ginny Moore Kruse, Director Emeritus
> Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
> gmkruse at wisc.edu <mailto:gmkruse at wisc.e%20%20du> 608.238.9225
> 1708 Regent St., Madison, WI 53726-4118
>
> leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> wrote:
> > I think there have been waves of interest in presenting a
> multi-racial picture of American society in children's books, and it
> has taken a long time for a large enough constituency and market to
> form for the books of that kind to make it in the market place. In the
> years just after World War II (at the end of which Truman belatedly
> integrated the US military), Elisabeth Hamilton, who headed the
> children's bk department at Morrow, published a few books of this
> kind--picture books by Jerold Beim and a nonfiction history of the
> "American Negro" by Hildegarde Swift. Hamilton felt strongly that such
> books were important but she could not sustain them. Not enough
> libraries and schools, presumably, were interested in buying them.
> Then came the 1960s wave, and the Caldecott Medal to Erza Jack Keats
> must have been taken by many as a validation of the goal of
> integrating the literature, but the fact that the book was the work of
> a white person became a point of controversy with Nancy Larrick and
> others, and I heard John Steptoe say at a public event toward the end
> of his life that he had often felt like the token black illustrator in
> the field. Then there were the ups and downs of the 1980s, and I heard
> Jerry Pinkney say recently that he feels we're in more of an ebb
> period again now. So this has been a nd continues to be a struggle.
> >
> > Leonard S. Marcus
> >
> > 54 Willow Street, #2A
> >
> > Brooklyn, New York 11201
> >
> >
> > tel 718 596-1897
> >
> > e-mai
> > l leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com>
> >
> > web www.leonardmarcus.com <http://www.leonardmarcus.com>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > From: Fern Kory <fkory at eiu.edu <mailto:fkory at eiu.edu>>
> >
> > To: leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com>
> >
> > Cc: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> <mailto:ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> >
> > Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 4:23 pm
> >
> > Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
> >
> >
> >
> > > leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> wrote: The Reys
> were German Jews who fled Nazi-occupied Paris, and were politically
> progressive; perhaps their political views found oblique expression in
> their books through the irreverent spirit of George their hero and the
> mess age it sent children about deference to authority. I just read
> Margret Rey's picture book Spotty (Harper & Brothers 1945),
> illustrated by H.A. Rey, which is much less subtly
> political/ideological, from the very first page, in the vein of
> post-war American anti-racist (v internationalist) rhetoric, which is
> perhaps why it was re-issued in the 1970s and 1990s (by Houghton
> Mifflin, the publisher of the Curious George books, not by
> HarperCollins for some reason). In that way it seems very American,
> which is interesting since Margret Rey was a relative newcomer in
> 1945. It thus came out the same year as Jesse Jackson's Call Me
> Charley, a Harper book about racism by an African American writer
> introduced to Ursula Nordstrom by Margret Rey (Dear Genius xxxii).
> >
> > >
> > On a related note...
> >
> > I am really interested in the relationships of Afric
> > an American authors and their white editors during the mid twentieth
> century (Jesse Jackson is the focus of my research--as you know,
> Leonard!). And I was struck by your quotation of the fictionalized
> retrospective reflections of a white editor-ess after reading "The All
> White World of Children's Books":
> >
> > > ?She began to try to find Black authors and artists; she also
> began, painfully, to examine herself and her WASPish-ness. Why were
> there no Black authors on the Dolphin list? Did good Black writers not
> exist, or was she not recognizing them because they wrote in an idiom
> she did not understand and appreciate? Should she publish a book that
> seemed to her poorly written just because the author was Black? Maybe
> it was well written by other than middle-class, white standards? And
> if this were the case, how would she know? How indeed?" [Ann Durrell
> (from a 1982 Hornbook article) qtd. in Minders 237]
> >
> > > > Presumably, before 1965 most editors were less or, at least,
> differently self-conscious about the authority they wielded over works
> by writers of color. Do you have any anecdotes or impressions to add
> to those already in Dear Genius and Minders? Nordstrom's rocky
> relationship with John Steptoe is intriguing, as is Massee's with
> Ellen Tarry. ~ Fern > -- Fern Kory Professor of English Eastern
> Illinois Universit
> > y > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CCBC-Net mailing list
> > CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
> <mailto: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
> > =2 0
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Famous, the Infamous, the Lame - in your browser. Get the TMZ
> Toolbar Now
> <http://toolbar.aol.com/tmz/download.html?NCID=aolcmp00050000000014>!
Received on Thu 24 Jul 2008 07:25:53 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:25:53 -0500
Thank you, Leonard, for remarking about Langston Hughes who contributed to the FIRST BOOK OF series.
I assume that your book includes considerable commentary about other NYPL "minders" such as Augusta Baker and Barbara Rollock. Do you have some backstage anecdotes about them, i.e., material not in your book? And what about Charlemae Rollins whose distinguished career in the Chicago Public Library led - among other outcomes - to the publication of her "Christmas Gif' " (most recently reissued with artwork by Ashley Bryan)? The ALA Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) annually offers a program named after Charlemae Rollins, a significant
"minder" on my personal list of saints.
Cordially, Ginny
leonardsma at aol.com wrote:
> Yes, I have written about this in MINDERS. Another writer the Council
> championed was Mildred D. Taylor. And it was Council founder Franklin
> Folsom who earlier in his career pressured Franklin Watts to hire
> Langston Hughes as a contributing writer for the FIRST BOOK OF series
> launched by Wats in the 1950s, and which made it onto the shelves of
> school libraries around the country.
>
> 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: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse at wisc.edu>
> To: leonardsma at aol.com; ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> Sent: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:10 am
> Subject: Minders of Make-Believe: Outsider Minders
>
> Leonard, will you please expand upon your remarks on July 21 (below)
> by adding what you discovered about the influence of the Council on
> Interracial Books for Children during the 1960s-1980s in particular?
> It seems to me that Brad Chambers, the Council and its publications
> exerted considerable influence as "outsider minders," which is the
> term I've coined for this aspect of the "Minders..." topic. Personally
> I learned so much20from each CIBC newsletter and publication, not that
> I always agreed, but there was always something new to think about
> regarding race, ethnicity, gender, exclusion, inclusion, etc. The
> CIBC's influence was critical to the beginnings of many careers; for
> example, writers such as Walter Dean Myers and artists such as Pat
> Cummings won CIBC visibility, and - as the saying goes - the rest is
> history. Perhaps this is all covered in your book, but since I'm
> waiting in a virtual line for a reserved public library copy, it'll be
> quite a while before I can settle down with it in my hands to read it
> carefully and use its index.
>
> Thank you for making time to respond so promptly and in such depth
> including unpublished anecdotes within this conversation. I recall the
> lively CCBC-Net conversation during the summer of 1998 shortly after
> your "Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom" was published.
> CCBC-Net participants might want to check that book out of your
> libraries, too, as well as checking the CCBC-Net archives to read
> those commentaries. Leonard, you continue to give us well-documented
> information about which to talk, think and reflect. (And thank you,
> Norma Jean, for commissioning "Minders..." some years ago!!)
>
> Cordially,
> Ginny
>
> Ginny Moore Kruse, Director Emeritus
> Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
> gmkruse at wisc.edu <mailto:gmkruse at wisc.e%20%20du> 608.238.9225
> 1708 Regent St., Madison, WI 53726-4118
>
> leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> wrote:
> > I think there have been waves of interest in presenting a
> multi-racial picture of American society in children's books, and it
> has taken a long time for a large enough constituency and market to
> form for the books of that kind to make it in the market place. In the
> years just after World War II (at the end of which Truman belatedly
> integrated the US military), Elisabeth Hamilton, who headed the
> children's bk department at Morrow, published a few books of this
> kind--picture books by Jerold Beim and a nonfiction history of the
> "American Negro" by Hildegarde Swift. Hamilton felt strongly that such
> books were important but she could not sustain them. Not enough
> libraries and schools, presumably, were interested in buying them.
> Then came the 1960s wave, and the Caldecott Medal to Erza Jack Keats
> must have been taken by many as a validation of the goal of
> integrating the literature, but the fact that the book was the work of
> a white person became a point of controversy with Nancy Larrick and
> others, and I heard John Steptoe say at a public event toward the end
> of his life that he had often felt like the token black illustrator in
> the field. Then there were the ups and downs of the 1980s, and I heard
> Jerry Pinkney say recently that he feels we're in more of an ebb
> period again now. So this has been a nd continues to be a struggle.
> >
> > Leonard S. Marcus
> >
> > 54 Willow Street, #2A
> >
> > Brooklyn, New York 11201
> >
> >
> > tel 718 596-1897
> >
> > e-mai
> > l leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com>
> >
> > web www.leonardmarcus.com <http://www.leonardmarcus.com>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > From: Fern Kory <fkory at eiu.edu <mailto:fkory at eiu.edu>>
> >
> > To: leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com>
> >
> > Cc: ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu
> <mailto:ccbc-net at lists.education.wisc.edu>
> >
> > Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 4:23 pm
> >
> > Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Minders of Make-Believe: Taste Makers
> >
> >
> >
> > > leonardsma at aol.com <mailto:leonardsma at aol.com> wrote: The Reys
> were German Jews who fled Nazi-occupied Paris, and were politically
> progressive; perhaps their political views found oblique expression in
> their books through the irreverent spirit of George their hero and the
> mess age it sent children about deference to authority. I just read
> Margret Rey's picture book Spotty (Harper & Brothers 1945),
> illustrated by H.A. Rey, which is much less subtly
> political/ideological, from the very first page, in the vein of
> post-war American anti-racist (v internationalist) rhetoric, which is
> perhaps why it was re-issued in the 1970s and 1990s (by Houghton
> Mifflin, the publisher of the Curious George books, not by
> HarperCollins for some reason). In that way it seems very American,
> which is interesting since Margret Rey was a relative newcomer in
> 1945. It thus came out the same year as Jesse Jackson's Call Me
> Charley, a Harper book about racism by an African American writer
> introduced to Ursula Nordstrom by Margret Rey (Dear Genius xxxii).
> >
> > >
> > On a related note...
> >
> > I am really interested in the relationships of Afric
> > an American authors and their white editors during the mid twentieth
> century (Jesse Jackson is the focus of my research--as you know,
> Leonard!). And I was struck by your quotation of the fictionalized
> retrospective reflections of a white editor-ess after reading "The All
> White World of Children's Books":
> >
> > > ?She began to try to find Black authors and artists; she also
> began, painfully, to examine herself and her WASPish-ness. Why were
> there no Black authors on the Dolphin list? Did good Black writers not
> exist, or was she not recognizing them because they wrote in an idiom
> she did not understand and appreciate? Should she publish a book that
> seemed to her poorly written just because the author was Black? Maybe
> it was well written by other than middle-class, white standards? And
> if this were the case, how would she know? How indeed?" [Ann Durrell
> (from a 1982 Hornbook article) qtd. in Minders 237]
> >
> > > > Presumably, before 1965 most editors were less or, at least,
> differently self-conscious about the authority they wielded over works
> by writers of color. Do you have any anecdotes or impressions to add
> to those already in Dear Genius and Minders? Nordstrom's rocky
> relationship with John Steptoe is intriguing, as is Massee's with
> Ellen Tarry. ~ Fern > -- Fern Kory Professor of English Eastern
> Illinois Universit
> > y > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CCBC-Net mailing list
> > CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
> <mailto: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
> > =2 0
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Famous, the Infamous, the Lame - in your browser. Get the TMZ
> Toolbar Now
> <http://toolbar.aol.com/tmz/download.html?NCID=aolcmp00050000000014>!
Received on Thu 24 Jul 2008 07:25:53 PM CDT
