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[CCBC-Net] minding our education
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From: Shelby Anne Wolf <Shelby.Wolf>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:09:56 -0600
Leonard, I'm wondering what your next project is and, if you feel comfortable, tell us a bit about it. Thanks for all you do, Shelby
On Jul 30, 2008, at 2:09 PM, leonardsma at aol.com wrote:
> I was an extremely verbal child--and a remedial reader. My reading
> teacher asked me, in second grade I think, to write her poems for
> me to read to her at our next week's sessions. I found that I
> enjoyed doing that very much. And of course because I had written
> the poems myself, they were very easy to read. So that was my
> start. As the youngest of three children, I had lots of hand me
> down books at home, including 15 or 20 Little Golden Books, but
> really all sorts of things. We had an excellent Carnegie library in
> my home town, Mount Vernon, NY, and a bookmobile that parked two
> blocks from our house. I loved going in one end and leaving, with a
> book or two in hand, by the other. As I reached the point of
> choosing books for myself I found I wanted to read history books
> and biographies (surprise, surprise). I made my parents special
> order a copy of the Young Readers' edition of John F. Kennedy's
> PROFILES IN COURAGE, because I was fascinated by Kennedy (I had
> campaigned for him
>
> the previous year at the age of ten). I began buying illustrated
> books at junk sales before I was a teenager for the sake of having
> a book at home that I considered beautiful. In fifth grade I
> belonged to a writing club, organized by our school librarian,
> which was visited one day by a local author whose last name (I
> remembered vaguely years later) could also be a first name.
> Eventually I realized that the author who had made such an
> impression was Jean George. It was so good later still to get to
> know her. The club was not a completely happy experience. The
> librarian accused me of having plagarized something that she
> thought I could not have written myself. It was lucky I had such a
> strong sense of myself, and a mother who was willing to tell the
> librarian off. At Yale I decided on my own to write about the
> history of American children's books--my idea being that early 19th
> century books might reveal something about how a new nation, formed
> on new principles, had been launc
>
> hed. My advisor was David Brion Davis, an authority on the history o
>
> f slavery and a deeply curious man; I was grateful he took on my
> project at a time when others in the much vaunted Yale history dept
> didn't see the point of studying children's books. I discovered
> Nancy Burkert's SNOW WHITE when I was I was a graduate student in
> the Iowa Writers Workshop for poetry; that was the first children's
> book I saw with art that I thought deserved to be seen in a museum.
> I found GOODNIGHT MOON while browsing in a New York book store a
> few years later. The poetry and distilled simplicity of it amazed
> me. I was looking for a big project for myself just then and
> thought that maybe I could write a biography of this poet for very
> young children.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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: Miriam Lang Budin <miriammeister at gmail.com>
>
> To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
>
> Sent: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 2:41 pm
>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] minding our education
>
>
>
>
> I, too, want to thank Leonard and the rest of the ccbc-net
> community for this fascinating discussion. Leonard has been
> magnificently generous with his time and his store of knowledge.
> We are so lucky the children's literature, publishing and
> librarianship captured his interest back in his undergraduate
> days! That makes me wonder what books might have been formative
> for you, Leonard. What did you read as a child and what was read
> to you? Who were your "minders of make-believe"? Parents?
> Teachers? Librarians? Peers? Also, in response to Hollis, I'd
> like to mention that when I was in library school (U. of Chicago,
> mid-70's) we certainly studied the history of children's
> literature and of public libraries. Maybe all that got tossed out
> as new technologies gained ascendancy and course requirements
> changed. Then, too, the speciality in children's service seemed to
> have been dropped by many library schools for quite a while. My
> impression is that it has
>
> been revived in some places. Does anyone know if that's
> true? And, in a related question, do education students
> generally study the history of education? -- Miriam Lang Budin
> Chappaqua Library, NY
> _______________________________________________ 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
Dr. Shelby A. Wolf Professor & President's Teaching Scholar
Work: Home: University of Colorado at Boulder 5579 Mesa Top Court School of Education Boulder, CO 80301 124 Education Building (303) 581-9846 Campus Box 249 (303) 246-0072 (Cell) Boulder, CO 80309-0249 shelby.wolf at Colorado.edu
(303) 492-8360
(303) 492-7090 (FAX) http://www.colorado.edu/education/faculty/shelbywolf/
Received on Thu 31 Jul 2008 07:09:56 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 06:09:56 -0600
Leonard, I'm wondering what your next project is and, if you feel comfortable, tell us a bit about it. Thanks for all you do, Shelby
On Jul 30, 2008, at 2:09 PM, leonardsma at aol.com wrote:
> I was an extremely verbal child--and a remedial reader. My reading
> teacher asked me, in second grade I think, to write her poems for
> me to read to her at our next week's sessions. I found that I
> enjoyed doing that very much. And of course because I had written
> the poems myself, they were very easy to read. So that was my
> start. As the youngest of three children, I had lots of hand me
> down books at home, including 15 or 20 Little Golden Books, but
> really all sorts of things. We had an excellent Carnegie library in
> my home town, Mount Vernon, NY, and a bookmobile that parked two
> blocks from our house. I loved going in one end and leaving, with a
> book or two in hand, by the other. As I reached the point of
> choosing books for myself I found I wanted to read history books
> and biographies (surprise, surprise). I made my parents special
> order a copy of the Young Readers' edition of John F. Kennedy's
> PROFILES IN COURAGE, because I was fascinated by Kennedy (I had
> campaigned for him
>
> the previous year at the age of ten). I began buying illustrated
> books at junk sales before I was a teenager for the sake of having
> a book at home that I considered beautiful. In fifth grade I
> belonged to a writing club, organized by our school librarian,
> which was visited one day by a local author whose last name (I
> remembered vaguely years later) could also be a first name.
> Eventually I realized that the author who had made such an
> impression was Jean George. It was so good later still to get to
> know her. The club was not a completely happy experience. The
> librarian accused me of having plagarized something that she
> thought I could not have written myself. It was lucky I had such a
> strong sense of myself, and a mother who was willing to tell the
> librarian off. At Yale I decided on my own to write about the
> history of American children's books--my idea being that early 19th
> century books might reveal something about how a new nation, formed
> on new principles, had been launc
>
> hed. My advisor was David Brion Davis, an authority on the history o
>
> f slavery and a deeply curious man; I was grateful he took on my
> project at a time when others in the much vaunted Yale history dept
> didn't see the point of studying children's books. I discovered
> Nancy Burkert's SNOW WHITE when I was I was a graduate student in
> the Iowa Writers Workshop for poetry; that was the first children's
> book I saw with art that I thought deserved to be seen in a museum.
> I found GOODNIGHT MOON while browsing in a New York book store a
> few years later. The poetry and distilled simplicity of it amazed
> me. I was looking for a big project for myself just then and
> thought that maybe I could write a biography of this poet for very
> young children.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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: Miriam Lang Budin <miriammeister at gmail.com>
>
> To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
>
> Sent: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 2:41 pm
>
> Subject: [CCBC-Net] minding our education
>
>
>
>
> I, too, want to thank Leonard and the rest of the ccbc-net
> community for this fascinating discussion. Leonard has been
> magnificently generous with his time and his store of knowledge.
> We are so lucky the children's literature, publishing and
> librarianship captured his interest back in his undergraduate
> days! That makes me wonder what books might have been formative
> for you, Leonard. What did you read as a child and what was read
> to you? Who were your "minders of make-believe"? Parents?
> Teachers? Librarians? Peers? Also, in response to Hollis, I'd
> like to mention that when I was in library school (U. of Chicago,
> mid-70's) we certainly studied the history of children's
> literature and of public libraries. Maybe all that got tossed out
> as new technologies gained ascendancy and course requirements
> changed. Then, too, the speciality in children's service seemed to
> have been dropped by many library schools for quite a while. My
> impression is that it has
>
> been revived in some places. Does anyone know if that's
> true? And, in a related question, do education students
> generally study the history of education? -- Miriam Lang Budin
> Chappaqua Library, NY
> _______________________________________________ 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
Dr. Shelby A. Wolf Professor & President's Teaching Scholar
Work: Home: University of Colorado at Boulder 5579 Mesa Top Court School of Education Boulder, CO 80301 124 Education Building (303) 581-9846 Campus Box 249 (303) 246-0072 (Cell) Boulder, CO 80309-0249 shelby.wolf at Colorado.edu
(303) 492-8360
(303) 492-7090 (FAX) http://www.colorado.edu/education/faculty/shelbywolf/
Received on Thu 31 Jul 2008 07:09:56 AM CDT
