We Too Are Children
This blog written by Ariel S. Winter catalogs children’s literature by adult authors of the 21st century which are apparently currently out of print. My faves: The Cat and the Devil by James Joyce, which is actually back in print now, all of these by Langston Hughes, and Andy Warhol’s Card Games Are Fun.
The name Ariel S. Winter reminds me of Jonathan Winters. Where do people get these names anyway? Jack Pendarvis blogged about him today. Jack Pendarvis is an adult author who really should write some children’s fiction. I think people who made up fairy tales like those of the Brothers Grimm probably had a mind very much like that of Mr. Pendarvis.
On my breaks from subbing a class of fourth graders at an international school, I read a lot of Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s History of the United States. In his introduction Zinn defends the adaptation of his book from critics who I’m sure did denounce the book for presenting children with an alternate view of the American history they are still in the process of learning. I don’t remember exactly what he said exactly, but it was pretty much along the lines of: Most people treat children like children even though they understand everything that’s going on just as well as anyone. My feeling on this is that most people who treat children like children and think they can’t handle the Truth! haven’t been around children very much. READ MORE >
Odd Books for Sally
Stephanie Barton, managing director of Penguin Children’s Books, says publishers in 2010 will go with “very traditional, no-risk purchases.”
(Does this mean no more, “Joined at Birth: The Lives of Conjoined Twins”?)
Oh come now, I don’t believe you, Steph. Somewhere sits a sneaky MSS, as in smart, as in subversive, as in prepping the soil to grow not turnips, but psychotomimetic unicycles.
Alt books for kids? Weird books, strange books, honest books–books you read as a child (or to your child) and then went, “What the fuck?”
“After a fall from an experimental aircraft, Cris Molina is stricken with an unusual brain malfunction: He sees everything wrong (shoes look like books and a shirt looks like a fifth century Ming vase).”
Or, for your 12 year old…who may or may not be Doing It.
“Okay,” said Jonathan. “The choice is this. You either have to shag Jenny Gibson—or else that homeless woman who begs spare change outside Cramner’s bakers.”
Your selections?