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Over the years, I've written about children's books that were revised.

A few days ago I compiled links about revised books (some are mine and some are from others who work in children's literature) and inserted them in my post about A Fine Dessert. Today, I'm putting them on a stand-alone page. If you know of other changes, do let me know. This set of links will eventually appear at Teaching for Change.

We are rarely told why these books were changed, and we're rarely told when the change itself is made.  Some changes are no-change, really, because the ideology of the book (writer?) is still there, beneath the words that get changed. Some changes--like the ones in picture books--are significant. All of them are, nonetheless, important to know about.

• Apr 21, 2009. They Were Strong and Good for 1940 by Peter Sieruta at Collecting Children's Books
• Nov 1, 2009. Edit(s) to 1935 edition of Little House on the Prairie by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
• Sep 19, 2010. Censoring Ideology (about Doctor Dolittle) by Philip Nel at Nine Kinds of Pie
• Sep 22, 2010. Social Change and Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Everby Lisa Wade at Sociological Images
• Jan 10, 2011. Changing "Injun" to "Indian" in Tom Sawyer by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
• Apr 3, 2013. Joan Walsh Anglund's The Brave Cowboy by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
• Jan 5, 2014: Travers (author of Mary Poppins): "I Lived with the Indians..." by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
• Oct 1, 2015: Big News about Hoffman's Amazing Grace by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature
• Nov 20, 2015. A Beloved Classic: 95% Less Offensive by Elizabeth Bird at School Library Journal
• Nov 11, 2015. Ladybug Girl in Headdress? Gone! by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature 
• Nov 13, 2015. Revisions to The Case for Loving by Debbie Reese at American Indians in Children's Literature

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• It’s funny how you can start something and never see how that thing might be used in the future.  When I created the Top 100 Picture Books Poll and the Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll back in the day, I figured they could be useful books insofar as they take the pulse of those books that mean the most to readers today.  Bookshare Communications recently alerted me to the fact that in conjunction with SLJ they had adapted the Picture Books list to a format that included image descriptions for the visually impaired.  Why do this?  They explain it this way:

“Imagine for a moment, however, that you can’t see the illustrations, nor can anyone describe them for you. Your reading and listening experience would certainly be incomplete. The Bookshare team decided to remedy this shortfall so young members could visualize the wild rumpus in Where the Wild Things Are and all the food devoured by The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In 2014, we embarked on a special project to create a collection of classic picture books containing original illustrations with complete image descriptions.”

I’m so pleased to have been a part of this, if only in the sense that I helped put together the list from my readers’ responses.  Thanks to Benetech for the heads up.

• Though it could easily have devolved into a Buzzfeed list, the Dave Gilson thoughts on Richard Scarry’s odd attitudes towards his pig characters and their predilections for bacon and ham is well worth reading.  Says he, “The separate-and-unequal logic is also reflected in the unspoken taboos that surround meat eating in Busytown. People can only eat animals, and only animals can become meat. In other words, the Kenny Bear’s pigs will become bacon, but Mr. Pig will not. He can walk past the butcher’s counter secure in the knowledge that he won’t suddenly be stuffed into an oven with an apple in his mouth. He’s a person, and people don’t eat people.”  Thanks to Phil Nel for the link.

• That Roxanne Feldman.  You know her?  If not, you should.  A librarian with the Dalton School in NYC, Roxanne is a longtime child_lit listserv member, a blogger at Fairrosa, and an all around smart cookie.  Recently she’s had a spate of good blog posts, but the one I’ll be directing your attention to today is the piece Can We Talk of Solutions? Regarding Diversifying Children’s Literature.  A bit of fresh air, that piece.

• The Bologna Book Fair is in New York City?  Nope, but this might be the next best thing.  Publishers Weekly and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair are pairing together for a Global Kids Connect Conference on December 2nd.  From a publishing standpoint, this is very enticing.  Thanks to Deborah Topolski for the link.

• You know who I love?  Marjorie Ingall.  You know why I love her?  Because she writes articles like That book about a Jewish Motorcycle Racing Teen Shapeshifter on a Mission to Kill Hitler that remind you what good writing truly is.  Hat tip, lady.

• Credit Travis Jonker.  I think he’s inadvertently the reason this happened at all.  Not too long ago the Kansas City Public Library and the Toronto Public Library got into an all time spine poetry slapdown Twitter feud . . . in a nice way.  You see, apparently The Kansas City Royals were playing The Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series and the libraries started tweeting spine poetry at one another.  Here’s an example:

You can read two different articles (and see a LOT of smack downs) here and here.  Thanks to Jill Skwerski for the link.

• Things That I Know: (1) That there is a Children’s Book Guild of Washington D.C. (and they are lovely folks). (2) That there is an author by the name of Tonya Bolden (and she’s a lovely personage).

• Things That I Did Not Know:  The Children’s Book Build of Washington D.C. is giving to Tonya Bolden their annual nonfiction award.  They have a nonfiction award?  Annually?  Best news I’ve heard all day.

• Daily Image:

When I was pregnant with my two children I found myself inexplicably drawn to the films Alien and Aliens (which I suppose beats wanting to watch Rosemary’s Baby, but still…).  With these films fresh in my mind, I cannot help but think that this book (which you really can buy) is going to be the hit of the holiday season.  A picture book we can all get behind.

Thanks to Stephanie Whelan for the link!

 

 

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I'll be visiting the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota next week. The visit will be all-too-brief, I see, as I go through the extensive list of materials they hold!

For example, I was browsing the finding aid for the Richard Scarry materials. Many of his picture books include characters wearing feathered headdresses and fringed buckskin. Those images have been removed/replaced from later editions of the books. I'd love to find letters between people who made the decision(s) to do that! So, I perused the Finding Aid hoping I'd see a file with letters. I didn't, but I did see something else.

One title in the Finding Aid caught my eye: Tinker and Tanker Out West. I didn't recognize the title. Do you?

I did some poking around on the Internet and found a blog post I may return to later. Some of its content is rather intriguing. For now, let's stick with Scarry's book. The author of the post, Kris Saknussemm, owns a copy of the book and loaded this page to his post:



From what that page indicates, Tinker and Tanker arrive at an Indian village where they meet Indians (buffaloes). They're a papoose and a squaw. Are they out west at that point in the story? Why are they dressing up that way?

Those two words originate with Native peoples of the northeast (squaw has been so badly used that it is now widely seen as a slur). I can't recall Scarry using them in other books, but seeing them here dovetails with his stereotypical images of Native people. I'm thinking I'll put that image on my Foul Among the Good page. It is one of the few times that I've seen a character dress up as a female.

Now--off to see if I can find a copy of the book. It was published in 1961 by Doubleday. According to WorldCat, it is in 139 libraries. Yikes!

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Stephanie Graegin spent her childhood drawing and collecting fauna. These days, she lives in Brooklyn, is still drawing, and has managed to keep her animal collection down to one orange cat.

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• There was a time, oh children of mine, when the ALA Media Awards would be announced and the morning after the announcement the winners of the Caldecott and Newbery Awards would be whisked away to New York City to speak on NBC.  Then Snooki came and ruined everything (this is the abbreviated version, but it’s not too far off).  So we’re none too pleased with NBC these days.  Al Roker’s Book Club aside (and it looks like it hasn’t updated since Halloween) there’s not a lot going on at that channel.  But then they go and post the Latinas for Latino Lit: “Remarkable” Children’s Books of 2014 piece (selected by Viviana Hurtado and Monica Olivera) and much is forgiven.  Just one question about the list, though . . . no Viva Frida?

• What is the state of children’s nonfiction in the UK today?  For our answer we turn to my favorite British blog Playing By the Book which reveals revelation after revelation in the piece Do We Care About Children’s Non-Fiction?  Apparently informational books don’t get reviewed all that often in the U.K.  Do the British value nonfiction then?  Definitely fascinating reading.

• “I mean, seriously, can you think of one popular show/movie that actually tries to portray Muslims accurately instead of as a confining stereotype?”  The excellent Summer writes on her blog Miss Fictional’s World of YA the piece I Am Not Oppressed.  In particular she’s not particularly pleased with how Muslim women are depicted on the bulk of our book jackets (to say nothing of the content inside).

• Hm.  So Entertainment Weekly just released a list of 50 Books Every Kid Should Read.  Interesting, yes?  And the choices are fascinating.  They made an effort to do the classics and then work in some contemporary titles.  What they chose is telling.  Little Willow presents the list and leads the discussion as well.

• Um . . .

Okaaaaay. So that’s what Evangeline Lilly wore to her children’s book signing at Barnes & Noble.  Clearly this is the outfit children’s authors should all be wearing now.  Those of you hankering to wear your picnic blanket as a skirt now finally have an excuse to do so.  Thanks to Jules for the link.

• I think roughly 500 people sent me the Richard Scarry’s Busy Town in the 21st Century link, to which I say to each and every last one of you – THANK YOU!!  Good old Tom the Dancing Bug.

• Oh!  How useful!  PW recently published a rather lovely assessment of Children’s and YA Writing M.F.A. Programs around the country.  Apparently they already covered Simmons in a previous post.

• And now, the best news of the week.  My love for the author Frances Hardinge knows no bounds.  Honestly, I do believe that The Lost Conspiracy may be my favorite children’s book published in the last 10 years.  It’s a serious contender in any case.  So you can imagine how distraught I was when it became clear that Harper Collins would no longer be publishing her books in the U.S.  I watched miserably as the U.K. published A Face Like Glass and Cuckoo Song (read the Book Smugglers review of the latter) overseas.  Heck, I actually shelled out money and bought the darn books myself (and you know how I feel about spending money).  Then, yesterday, a miracle.  I was paging through the Spring 2015 Abrams catalog and there she was.  Frances.  And Cuckoo Song, it said, would be published in May with what may well be the creepiest cover . . . um, ever?  Yeah.  Ever.  It’s not even online yet, so just stay tuned because when it is you know I’ll be blogging it.  So excited. (pssst! Abrams! Let me do the cover reveal!)

• If you missed the whole Barbie, Computer Programmer children’s book debacle, now’s your time to catch up.  This was the inciting incident.  This was the follow-up.

• The nice thing about working for NYPL is that they give me an awful lot of leeway when it comes to programming.  I want to do a monthly series of Children’s Literary Salons on a host of different topics?  Go to it!  Any topic I like.  The best ones, however, are often suggested by other people.  For example, when editors Cheryl Klein and Stacy Whitman suggested we have a panel on Native American YA literature where authors Eric Gansworth and Joseph Bruchac could talk about the cross-cultural pleasures and challenges of working with their editors, I was all for it.  Sadly, most of my Lit Salons are not recorded . . . but this one was!  Cheryl, you see, is married to James Monohan and together they run the blog The Narrative Breakdown.  My Salon?  It became one of the episodes and you can listen to it here.  As for those of you interested in attending a Salon (they’re free after all) there’s one this coming Saturday and you can see the full roster of them here.

• This thing.  More libraries should do this thing. Yes.

• A few things.  Jacqueline Woodson wrote a New York Times piece about the incident at the National Book Awards.  There is that.  Now I would also recommend that you read two additional pieces as well.  I Am Racist and I Am Sexist and Probably Some Other -Ists, Too.  The other is just called Racist.

• Speaking of Ms. Woodson, did you see the list of books President Obama purchased at Politics and Prose last Saturday?  If we just pull out the children’s book fare it included:

1. “Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business” by Barbara Park
2. “A Barnyard Collection: Click, Clack, Moo and More” by Doreen Cronin
3. “I Spy Sticker Book and Picture Riddles” by Jean Marzollo
4. “Nuts to You” by Lynn Rae Perkins
5. “Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus” by Barbara Park
6. “Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson
7. “Redwall” by Brian Jacques
8. “Mossflower” by Brian Jacques
9. “Mattimeo” by Brian Jacques
10. “Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms” by Katherine Rundell

• Daily Image:

I consider this my early Christmas present.  Years ago when I did the Top 100 Children’s Novels poll, I did a post on All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor that included every book cover I could find of the title.  All but one.  The book jacket I grew up with appeared to be lost to the sands of time.  And now, all thanks to Sadie Salome, it’s been returned to me.  Behold the only work of historical fiction I read independently and for fun as a kid from cover to cover:

Still the best, so far as I’m concerned.  Thanks, Sadie.

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by Richard Scarry (mostly) Golden Books  2014 A recently discovered Scarry manuscript is unearthed... and out pops Lowly Worm! Weird-but-true, and totally irrelevant, anecdote about a Richard Scary book. Once while working in the bookstore a woman came in, furious, to return one of those cute little critter books because of its "gratuitous use of meat." Specifically, she was offended by a

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Christopher Weyant’s work has been published worldwide in books, newspapers, magazines, and online. His cartoons are in permanent collection at The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. YOU ARE (NOT) SMALL is his first children’s book.

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Whoa! the past two weeks have been chaotic as most people on the East Coast know.  Dad's in the hospital with pneumonia.  I'd like to blame Sandy but I don't think a hurricane can cause pneumonia.  So there's been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.

In the meantime, family members are arriving from all over because Dad is pretty sick.  Poor Dad! 

Anyway, KBWT did not happen this week but I just found a website that I am going to use A LOT!  Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site.  Teachers and children's activity leaders will LOVE this site.  Helpful  reviews, booklists, a newsletter, links to other helpful sites, lesson plans!  So much useful well-organized stuff.

I needed a resource list for cities and towns because today is World Town Planning Day and Carol Hurst's site had an excellent list with books I SHOULD have remembered to include in my program tonight.  I just signed up for Carol's newsletter so that I never forget this site again.  YAY!

And World Town Planning Day reminds me of one of my favorite towns - Richard Scarry's Busy Town!!  CBS has a great site based on their Busy Town Mysteries show.   Check it out

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Keep reading…

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This one is for my dad who has been poked and prodded by doctors and nurses the last couple of weeks. Keep reading…  

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Hi Folks, A family emergency came up so posting for B is for Books will be spotty for the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile I’ll be posting scans from my library of Richard Scarry collections. Thank you for your patience! Thao Keep reading…

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As seniors in high school we got to go camping for a couple of days as a class field trip. It was an attempt to recreate the trips taken by the Group of Seven, a group of Canadian landscape painters who spent days in the wilderness drawing and searching for inspiration. Since I had never [...]

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Our popular feature is back!  Blank-Meets-Blank was actually started first by Betsy Bird at Fuse #8 – she ranks the best “Blank-Meets-Blank” when she attends publishers’ librarian previews.  This is an awesome way to booktalk to kids and teens in your library or classroom!

Today, we’re sharing the best Blank-Meets-Blanks for our upcoming Fall 2011 titles:

“Richard Scarry meets Where’s Waldo?”

EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND by Brian Biggs
On-sale 9.13.11

“Kate DiCamillo meets Neil Gaiman”

LIESL & PO by Lauren Oliver
On-sale 10.4.11

“Ramona meets The Penderwicks”

MO WREN, LOST AND FOUND by Tricia Springstubb
On-sale 8.23.11

“Lord of the Flies meets Michael Grant’s GONE”

VARIANT by Robison Wells
On-sale 10.4.11

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We’re lucky in our house. Our daughter’s bedtime is usually pretty smooth and often winds up being a wonderful end to the day. My wife and I rotate reading to Tessa before bed, but I often try my best to beat her to the comfy papasan chair where we do our bedtime reads.

No matter what books you choose to read at night, the most important thing about bedtime reading isn’t necessarily the books, but rather consistency. We have found that our daughter really does well with a routine and when we stick to it, she transitions so much better. When we’ve had problems around bedtime, we’ll have often ask Tessa, “Do you want to go night-night?,” and it’s amazing because she’ll usually respond with a “Yes.” That blows our minds when it happens, but believe me, we appreciate how our little 2 year-old has been able to express that when she’s struggling late in the day.

We also may be a bit unusual in our home because we read for quite a long time before bed. Reading for 20-30 minutes is pretty normal for us so we often read between 6 and 10 books a couple of times each. Right now, we have a really good selection of books for bedtime reading. Some are specifically about bedtime, but others are just some of Tessa’s favorites.

Here’s our current bedtime reading list:

* A favorite for us right now is just about anything by Sandra Boynton

. We have a whole collection of her books given to us by a friend whose kids were too old for them. Too old for Sandra Boynton? I don’t believe it, because I love reading her probably just as much as my daughter loves listening to and looking at them.

Here’s what we usually read:

The Going to Bed Book - An arkful of animals preparing for sleep. An upbeat yet mesmerizing book for little ones who are�

4 Comments on Fun reads in our current bedtime reading routine, last added: 4/10/2011

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Eric Van Raepenbusch said, on 4/10/2011 9:24:00 AM

Great list! Pajama Time is in our rotation for my 10 month old son. Also, Brown Bear Brown Bear, The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, Buster’s Zoo by Rod Campbell.

I personally think bedtime is so smooth at our house too because of books! It is awesome to hear that you are reading to your daughter for 20 – 30 minutes each night. Not only is it fun for you and her, but it is really helping build a foundation that is so important in her journey to becoming a reader.

Lynette Mattke said, on 4/10/2011 10:18:00 AM

My son is older – 10 years – but our favorite bedtime books are the Barefoot Books, like The Barefoot Book of Knights or The Barefoot Book of Pirates. He loves to turn to them again and again.

Chris Singer said, on 4/10/2011 1:20:00 PM

Thanks Eric! I’ll have to try out some of those you mentioned. My daughter has never been a great sleeper, rarely sleeping through the entire night, but the actual bedtime has always been smooth (Keeping my fingers crossed so I don’t jinx it). We’re very lucky she enjoys books the way she does.

Chris Singer said, on 4/10/2011 1:21:00 PM

I am a Barefoot Books Ambassador and am familiar with both those books. I can’t wait to get them for Tessa

me

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