If you’re a children’s literature lover, there’s something
really magical about seeing the original stuffed animals that inspired
“Winnie-the-Pooh” or hearing E.B. White read his masterpiece, “Charlotte’s
Web,” or finding out just why the now-classic “Goodnight Moon” was so
revolutionary in its day.
All of this
– and much, much more – can be found in a delightfully thought-provoking
exhibit now at the New York Public Library. Titled “The ABC of It: Why
Children’s Books Matter,” this exhibit of 250 artifacts was curated by Leonard
Marcus, a children’s book historian and author of numerous books on children’s
authors and illustrators. (I detailed Leonard’s unique career in an article published several months ago – one of my last columns for the now defunct
Scripps Howard News Service).
Recently,
Leonard was kind enough to host a tour for me, my husband and a couple of
friends through the exhibit, which is setting attendance records for the NYPL
and hopefully will be extended past its original closing date of March 23. The
exhibit has sparked national attention, including a review by Edward Rothstein in The New York Times; the review also included a slideshow of
exhibit highlights.
As we set
out through the exhibit, located in the 4,500-square-foot central gallery,
Leonard talked about taking on the curator’s job, and sifting through some of
the million-plus books and other artifacts owned by the NYPL.
“It was
like being in a toy shop in the best possible way – when the owner of the toy
shop wants you to touch everything,” he said.
While it
was a wonderfully fun task, curating the exhibit also was an intellectual
challenge, as Leonard pondered what he wanted the show to accomplish. As he
wrote in an essay about the exhibit for The Horn Book magazine: “A great many people form strong,
even passionate personal associations with children’s books… but without seeing
those books in broader cultural terms, as literature and art.
“My goal
would be to present children’s books in that larger context, to connect the
dots by highlighting the place of children’s literature, broadly defined, in
the arts, popular culture, and social history.”
So, exhibit
goers can see the original Winnie-the-Pooh animals are here, as well as the
parrot-head umbrella owned by “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers and a copy of
“The Secret Garden” owned by its author Frances Hodgson Burnett. But they
aren’t the main focus of the exhibit.
Instead,
the show uses these artifacts, and many others, to explore several serious
themes about children’s literature. The exhibit opens, for example, with a
fascinating look at the way children’s books have reflected the changing ideas
of childhood, from the Puritans to the Romantics to the Progressives.
Two other major themes in the exhibit delve
into the artistry that lies behind the deceptively simple form of the picture
book, and examine how children’s books have had an impact on the larger
culture.
Once he had
these themes in mind as he planned the exhibit, Leonard then began to search
for books and artifacts that could bring them to life.
“The thing
about curating is that it is storytelling in three dimensions,” Leonard told us
on the tour. “What story does something tell?”
An example:
Leonard used a 1727 edition of “The New England Primer” – which he says is the
oldest known copy of the most influential American children’s book of the 18th
and early 19th centuries -- to show the kind of stern, moral-laden
reading that the Puritans considered appropriate for children.
Walk past
the “Primer,” and there is a selection of poems from William Blake’s Song of
Innocence,” illustrated in watercolor by Blake himself. The contrast between
the way Blake and the Puritans each viewed childhood couldn’t be clearer, and
it sets the tone for the rest of this section.
Leonard
also takes exhibit-goers off on intriguing tangents, giving us a view, for
example, of “Scarlet Letter” author Nathaniel Hawthorne as a “family man” who
rejected the ideas behind the “Primer,” on which he was raised. In looking
through the NYPL’s collection, Leonard found the Hawthorne family’s Mother
Goose collection; we could see where Hawthorne’s wife marked certain rhymes
“not to be read to Uma,” their young daughter, presumably because they would
scare her.
Further on,
there’s a look at how children’s books have been used as tools to build
“national identity.” Here you’ll find a children’s book published by the
Confederacy during the Civil War and another published during China’s Cultural
Revolution.
Kids love
playing in the model of the “Great Green Room” from Margaret Wise Brown’s
iconic “Goodnight Moon.” But it serves to make a larger point for adults about
the progressive view of childhood that rose to popularity in the 1940’s, and
which saw children as collaborators in the construction of their world.
As Leonard
told us, the “Great Green Room” model “epitomizes what I wanted to
do in this exhibition. Everyone knows ‘Goodnight Moon’ but
nobody knows where it came from.”
In the
section of the exhibit about the artistry of picture books, the work of
Randolph Caldecott (for whom the Caldecott Medal is named) looms large. Viewers
also can see the work of fine artists like Faith Ringgold, who have made
picture books, and fine art by picture book creators like Wanda Gag.
In the
third major section, where the exhibit looks at the cultural impact of
children’s books, we track the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” as it moves
through the world in the hands of such disparate people as Lewis Carroll, James
Joyce and Aretha Franklin.
Exhibit-goers
also can enjoy a facsimile of Milo’s car from “The Phantom Tollbooth” (kids can
actually sit in it and pretend to drive), an imposing – and depressing – tower
listing the titles of children’s books that have been challenged, and a “secret
readers” exhibit case highlighting the debate over the literary merits of comic
books.
And all of
this is just a fraction of what you’ll see in this show. The exhibit brochure offers a valuable overview, but it’s worth coming to see it for yourself, if at
all possible.
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