Edith Nesbit

Born August 15, 1854 in London, England
Died May 4, 1924 in Kent, England

If you like your children's authors to be moral paragons, vignettes of virtue and models of rectitude, you are going to need to give Edith Nesbit a pass. In doing so, though, you will be cutting your kids off from some of the best gems in children's literature. The politest gloss to put on it is that Edith Nesbit lived an unconventional life. Closer to the truth would be to say that her life was something of a mess.

Nesbit lived and worked in that late Victorian and Edwardian period of intellectual and social effervescence in England, when, what today would be called the chattering classes, began to experiment with new social mores and patterns of living that at first seemed refreshingly liberating from the seemingly unremitting and unglamorous pursuit of gradual personal -improvement-through-deeds so prevalent in the Victorian era. There was a desire to fix the world and make it a better place by blazing new trails. Sort of Woodstock comes to Literary England.

Nesbit was born the youngest of a family of six children in 1854 in London. Her father, an agricultural chemist who ran what now might be termed a technical school, died when she was three years old. She was sent away to boarding school and then joined her mother and sister shuttling around Europe for the next several years, seeking some respite for her sister's illness. She lived and was educated in France, Germany, and Spain before they returned to Britain in 1872, settling initially in Kent and then moving to London.

There she met a philandering but apparently very attractive, Hubert Bland, whom she married in 1880. Nesbit was many months pregnant when they wed. She then discovered that Bland had an ongoing relationship (which would last a further ten years) with another woman, also pregnant. Shortly after they wed, Bland's business partner embezzled most of the funds from his business and ran off. Bland meanwhile came down with smallpox and in one way or another was commercially incapacitated for a number of years.

This left Nesbit in the position of suddenly being, like the mother figures in a number of her later children's stories, the sole provider for the family. She filled this financial void by becoming a writer of verse, short stories and articles for the many magazines prevalent in those times. For the better part of twenty years she turned out a massive volume of stories, publishing her first book in 1885. While some of this work was for children, much of it was for adults or was verse. It was not unusual for her to write half a dozen or more books in a year. With few exceptions, this torrent was not particularly distinguished and is only remembered now in the context of her later work in children's literature.

Meanwhile, her home life remained distinctive. A close friend came to stay with Nesbit following a miscarriage. This friend, in turn, became pregnant by Nesbit's husband, not once but twice. By agreement on the part of all parties, Nesbit raised all five children (her own three with Bland as well as their two siblings) as her own and it was only much later that this complex arrangement was revealed, despite the fact that the close friend lived with them as an "Aunt". Oh what a tangled web we weave . . .

And yet from this morass of personal chaos, Nesbit snatched two rabbits from the hat. Unprecedented in her pedestrian literary track record, and as if from nowhere, in 1899, Nesbit published the first of a series of books that over the next decade were to cement her position as one of a handful of pivotal children's authors. The Story of the Treasure Seekers is the tale of the Bastable children. It was a popular, commercial and literary success.

With her Bastable stories (The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, and The New Treasure Seekers) Nesbit did something not really done before. She put the children in the center of the stage, not acted upon but as the actors, the real protagonists with their own story to tell. On the one hand these stories very much reflect a Victorian past with an emphasis on behaving well, being responsible, etc. You can also see a Victorian flavor in the stories in the fact that there is a distinctly sentimental element. That being said, in our much more jaded century, that fillip of sentimentality actually has a nice ring to it, especially as it only shows up in moderation.

Nesbit's twist to her stories was that she decanted these moral expectations through the mind and behavior of children. The stories are narrated by the children (though it is not immediately obvious that that is the case) with a knowing, and sometimes jaundiced, perspective of the adults around them. This style of narration was a huge innovation compared to what had gone before. Suddenly, child readers had peers within the text; children with similar pleasures, frustrations, incomprehensions of what was expected of them, and with similar - often flawed - reasoning. What is a transparently knot-headed course of action by the children in the story seems perfectly sensible when you are shown their reasoning.

Beyond representing the puzzlement with which children often view the world of the adult, and showing the child's reasoning that so often leads them into a course of action completely bewildering to an adult, Nesbit also introduced her children as flawed characters and not little models of perfection that just need a little buffing and polishing here and there. They make bad decisions, they make mistakes, they break things, they quarrel with one another, repeatedly, etc. This mold-breaking innovation, seeing and representing the world through the eyes of children, was much emulated by future writers and you can see Nesbit's influence in Enid Blyton, Edward Eager, C.S. Lewis, Noel Streatfeild, Noel Coward, E.M. Forster and others. Though not one of the Bastable series, and in fact probably better known in the USA than that series, Nesbit's The Railway Children, was very much in the same vein as the other three.

As if one innovation were not enough, Nesbit then added a further development with a new series of stories starting with Five Children and It published in 1902. In this series, (Five Children and It , The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Story of the Amulet), Nesbit took her earlier model of the Bastables (independent children operating outside the direct supervision of adults (and much perplexed by the adult world and its peculiar expectations and customs) and added an element of magic and fantasy to it. It was not a wild deus ex machina type of fantasy, just a narrow little one - in fact almost small enough to be believable in the imagination of a child.

Meet the Psammead, an ancient and irascible sand-fairy whom the children unearth in a gravel pit. The wonderful feature of the Psammead is that it has to grant the children with a wish each day with the caveat that the wish and its immediate effects expire at sundown. This wish is the engine that drives all their adventures as the children learn to be careful of that for which they wish.

Nesbit was something of a bridge between past and future. With her emphasis on good behavior and doing the right thing, coupled with the strong but selective use of sentimentality in her stories, she was very much a product of the Victorian era. However, through her portrayal of children as real and central to her stories and her use of magic and fantasy, she presaged much of the wonderful children's stories yet to come.

Two other Nesbit books continue to engage children today, The Enchanted Castle and The House of Arden published in 1907 and 1908 respectively. In both these tales, in some ways similar to the others, there is an increasing awareness of darkness and of the complexity of magic. Not horror stories by any means nor depressing, but they have a tension and strain in them that sets them apart from the earlier tales and appeal because they are more complex.

Part of the beauty of Nesbit's work is that it does have broad appeal. In all the books mentioned there are children ranging from very young up to fifteen or so. They therefore have the attraction that, if you are reading to an audience of children not of the same age, everyone will usually find someone in the story with whom to associate. Her writing also deepened and became more complex over the decade of 1900-1910, so you can find stories that range from light and direct to more complex all depending on the tastes of the child reading.

To a degree, Nesbit was a cipher onto which later literary critics are able to project a very wide range of divergent images and interpretations. She was unconventional in the extreme in her personal deportment, but very much a patriot and moralist. She eschewed the intrusion of strong messages and religion into her stories and, yet, she was an enthusiastic political activist (and early co-founder of the Fabian Society). She traveled amongst the leading literary lights of her time such as H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw. She wrote a mass of unmemorable verse and adult books and regarded herself as primarily a poet, but she is remembered really only for her innovative children's stories.

After the passing of her husband, Bland, in 1914, Nesbit married Thomas Tucker, a retired marine engineer in 1917. With this marriage, Nesbit found a far greater level of stability and affection than she had experienced in her earlier life. Nesbit passed away May 4, 1924 following complications from an extended bout of bronchitis.

While relatively little-known in the US she remains notably popular in the UK and her books are a delight to share with children.

Picture Books

Jack And the Beanstalk by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by Matt Tavares Suggested

Independent Readers

Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by H.R. Millar Highly Recommended

Lionel And The Book Of Beasts by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by Michael Hague Suggested

Melisenda by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by P. J. Lynch Suggested

The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by C.E. Brock Highly Recommended

Shakespeare's Stories for Young Readers by Edith Nesbit Suggested

The Best of Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit Suggested

The Book of Dragons by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by H. R. Millar & Herbert Granville Fell Suggested

The Children's Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit and William Shakespeare and illustrated by Rolf Klep Suggested

The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky Recommended

The House of Arden by Edith Nesbit Recommended

The Magic World by Edith Nesbit Suggested

The Phoenix and the Carpet by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by H. R. Millar Highly Recommended

The Story of the Amulet by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by H. R. Millar Recommended

The Story of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit and illustrated by Gordon Browne & Lewis Christopher Edward Baumer Highly Recommended

William Shakespeare, Stories from Twenty Plays - by Edith Nesbit and Shakespeare Suggested

The Wouldbegoods - by Edith Nesbit Recommended

Bibliography

The Prophet's Mantle by Edith Nesbit 1885
Lays and Legends by Edith Nesbit 1886
Spring [ Summer, Autumn, Winter] Songs and Sketches by Edith Nesbit 1886
The Lily and the Cross by Edith Nesbit 1887
The Star of Bethlehem by Edith Nesbit 1887
Eventide Songs and Sketches by Edith Nesbit 1887
Morning Songs and Sketches by Edith Nesbit 1887
Leaves of Life by Edith Nesbit 1888
The Better Part and Other Poems by Edith Nesbit 1888
Easter-Tide: Poems by Edith Nesbit 1888
The Time of Roses by Edith Nesbit 1888
By Land and Sea by Edith Nesbit 1888
Landscape and Song by Edith Nesbit 1888
The Message of the Dove: An Easter Poem by Edith Nesbit 1888
Lilies and Heartsease: Songs and Sketches by Edith Nesbit 1888
The Lilies 'round the Cross: An Easter Memorial by Edith Nesbit 1889
Corals and Sea Songs by Edith Nesbit 1889
Life's Sunny Side by Edith Nesbit 1889
Songs of Two Seasons by Edith Nesbit 1890
The Voyage of Columbus, 1492: The Discovery of America by Edith Nesbit 1892
Sweet Lavender by Edith Nesbit 1892
Listen Long and Listen Well by Edith Nesbit 1893
Sunny Tales for Snowy Days by Edith Nesbit 1893
Told by Sunbeams and Me by Edith Nesbit 1893
Our Friends and All about Them by Edith Nesbit 1893
Something Wrong by Edith Nesbit 1893
Grim Tales by Edith Nesbit 1893
Flowers I Bring and Songs I Sing by Edith Nesbit 1893
Fur and Feathers: Tales for All Weathers by Edith Nesbit 1894
Hollow Tree House and Other Stories by Edith Nesbit 1894
Lads and Lassies by Edith Nesbit 1894
Tales That Are True, for Brown Eyes and Blue by Edith Nesbit 1894
Tales to Delight from Morning till Night by Edith Nesbit 1894
Hours in Many Lands: Stories and Poems by Edith Nesbit 1894
The Butler in Bohemia by Edith Nesbit 1894
A Family's Novelette by Edith Nesbit 1894
The Girl's Own Birthday Book by Edith Nesbit 1894
Doggy Tales by Edith Nesbit 1895
Pussy Tales by Edith Nesbit 1895
Tales of the Clock by Edith Nesbit 1895
Dulcie's Lantern and Other Stories by Edith Nesbit 1895
Treasures from Storyland by Edith Nesbit 1895
The King's Highway by Edith Nesbit 1895
Holly and Mistletoe: A Book of Christmas Verse by Edith Nesbit 1895
A Pomander of Verse by Edith Nesbit 1895
Rose Leaves by Edith Nesbit 1895
The Poet's Whispers: A Birthday Book by Edith Nesbit 1895
As Happy as a King by Edith Nesbit 1896
In Homespun by Edith Nesbit 1896
Tales Told in Twilight: A Volume of Very Short Stories by Edith Nesbit 1897
Diana Forget by Edith Nesbit 1897
The Children's Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit 1897
Royal Children of English History by Edith Nesbit 1897
Dog Tales, and Other Tales by Edith Nesbit 1898
Songs of Love and Empire by Edith Nesbit 1898
A Book of Dogs, Being a Discourse on Them, with Many Tales and Wonders by Edith Nesbit 1898
Winter-Snow by Edith Nesbit 1898
Pussy and Doggy Tales by Edith Nesbit 1899
The Secret of the Kriels by Edith Nesbit 1899
The Story of the Treasure Seekers, Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune by Edith Nesbit 1900
The Book of Dragons by Edith Nesbit 1900
Nine Unlikely Tales for Children by Edith Nesbit 1901
The Wouldbegoods, Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit 1901
The Town in the Library by Edith Nesbit 1901
To Wish You Every Joy by Edith Nesbit 1901
Thirteen Ways Home by Edith Nesbit 1901
The Revolt of the Toys and What Comes of Quarrelling by Edith Nesbit 1902
Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit 1902
The Red House by Edith Nesbit 1902
Playtime Stories by Edith Nesbit 1903
The Rainbow Queen and Other Stories by Edith Nesbit 1903
The Literary Sense by Edith Nesbit 1903
The Story of the Five Rebellious Dolls by Edith Nesbit 1904
The New Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit 1904
Cat Tales by Edith Nesbit 1904
The Phoenix and the Carpet by Edith Nesbit 1904
Pug Peter: King of Mouseland, Marquis of Barkshire, D.O.G. P.C. by Edith Nesbit 1905
Oswald Bastable and Others by Edith Nesbit 1905
The Philandrist; or, The Lady Fortune-Teller by Edith Nesbit 1905
The Rainbow and the Rose by Edith Nesbit 1905
The Story of the Amulet by Edith Nesbit 1906
The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit 1906
The Incomplete Amorist by Edith Nesbit 1906
Man and Maid by Edith Nesbit 1906
The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit 1907
The Magician's Heart by Edith Nesbit 1907
Twenty Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare: A Home Study Course by Edith Nesbit 1907
The House of Arden by Edith Nesbit 1908
Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism, 1883-1908 by Edith Nesbit 1908
Jesus in London: A Poem by Edith Nesbit 1908
The Old Nursery Stories by Edith Nesbit 1908
Harding's Luck by Edith Nesbit 1909
Cinderella (produced in London, 1892) by Edith Nesbit 1909
Daphne in Fitzroy Street by Edith Nesbit 1909
Salome and the Head: A Modern Melodrama by Edith Nesbit 1909
These Little Ones by Edith Nesbit 1909
The Magic City by Edith Nesbit 1910
Fear by Edith Nesbit 1910
The Wonderful Garden; or, The Three C's by Edith Nesbit 1911
Dormant by Edith Nesbit 1911
Ballads and Verses of the Spiritual Life by Edith Nesbit 1911
My Sea-Side Book by Edith Nesbit 1911
The Magic World by Edith Nesbit 1912
Unexceptional References by Edith Nesbit 1912
Garden Poems by Edith Nesbit 1912
Wet Magic by Edith Nesbit 1913
Our New Story Book by Edith Nesbit 1913
Wings and the Child; or, The Building of Magic Cities by Edith Nesbit 1913
Children's Stories from English History by Edith Nesbit 1914
Battle Songs by Edith Nesbit 1914
The Incredible Honeymoon by Edith Nesbit 1916
The New World Literary Series, Book Two by Edith Nesbit 1921
The Lark by Edith Nesbit 1922
Many Voices by Edith Nesbit 1922
Hubert Bland, Essays by Edith Nesbit 1922
To the Adventurous by Edith Nesbit 1923
Five of Us--and Madeline by Edith Nesbit 1925
Long Ago When I Was Young by Edith Nesbit 1966
The Conscience Pudding by Edith Nesbit 1970
The Last of the Dragons, and Some Others by Edith Nesbit 1972
The Princess and the Hedgehog by Edith Nesbit 1974
The Old Nursery Stories by Edith Nesbit 1975
Septimus Septimusson by Edith Nesbit 1976
Fairy Stories by Edith Nesbit 1977
The Princess and the Cat by Edith Nesbit 1977
The Ice Dragon by Edith Nesbit 1977
Belinda and Bellament by Edith Nesbit 1982
E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror by Edith Nesbit 1983
The Cockatoucan by Edith Nesbit 1987
The Book of Beasts by Edith Nesbit 1988
In the Dark: Tales of Terror by Edith Nesbit 1988
Melisenda by Edith Nesbit 1989
Man-size in Marble by Edith Nesbit 1997
The Best of Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit 1997
Contributor to A Feast of Good Stories by Edith Nesbit 1997
Jack and the Beanstalk by Edith Nesbit 2006
Lionel and the Book of Beasts by Edith Nesbit 2006
Shakespeare's Stories for Young Readers by Edith Nesbit 2006
The Enchanted Castle and Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit

Peacocks and Pagodas

Barry Rubin in an article dated February 13, 2008, in PajamasMedia, captures several strands of thinking with which I agree; the importance of historical perspective, dealing with the facts as they are rather than the theories as you wish them to be, the serendipity surrounding the life of a used book, and a skepticism of faddish intellectual indulgences.

Sometimes to understand one's own era you have to immerse yourself in another. I pick up my copy of Paul Edmonds' Peacocks and Pagodas as an example. This — though you've probably never heard of it — seems the best-regarded book ever written on the people and society of Burma. You may know it as Myanmar. What could be more esoteric, and yet profoundly revealing, about much broader issues?

My copy is a first edition from 1924 and in its long life and travels it once belonged to T.N. Jayavelu, Antiquarian Bookseller of Choolai, Madras, India. But now it resides on a low rickety table in Tel Aviv, at the top of the pile of books I am reading. My text for today's sermon comes from the first three pages only. We are nowadays used to the notion — or at least used to having it pounded into us — that Westerners were historically racist and imperialist, only recently having become enlightened in the age of "political correctness."

And, to paraphrase the Rudyard Kipling poem (and well-known song) about the road to Mandalay, it suddenly dawns on you like thunder that the contemporary conventional wisdom about how people in the West thought about the rest of the world just isn't true.

Churchill and Free Will

Here is an interesting aside from Churchill. Ever the English pragmatist, he has an interesting analogy for the conundrum of Free Will and Predestination. This arises in part from his reflecting on his third attempt at the entrance exam for Sandhurst when he was tested upon some obscure (at least obscure for Churchill) equation to which he had just coincidentally been exposed to the prior week.

From Winston S. Churchill's My Early Life, page 28 in the Folio Society edition.

Which brings me to my conclusion upon free will and predestination; namely - let the reader mark it - that they are identical.

I have always loved butterflies. In Uganda I saw glorious butteflies the colour of whose wings changed from the deepest russet brown to the most brilliant blue, according to the angle from which you saw them. In Brazil as everyone knows there are butterflies of this kind even larger and more vivid. The contrast is extreme. You could not conceive colour effects more violently opposed; but it is the same butterfly. The butterfly is the fact - gleaming, fluttering, settling for an instant with wings fully spread to the sun, then vanishing in the shades of the forest. Whether you believe in free will or predestination, all depends on the slanting glimpse you had of the colour of his wings - which are in fact at least two colours at the same time. But I have not quitted and renounced the mathematick to fall into the metaphysick. Let us return to the pathway of the narrative.

Churchill and Courteously Rigid Discipline

From Harrow, Churchill managed to gain entrance (after repeated effort) to Sandhurst, the British equivalent of West Point.

From Winston S. Churchill's My Early Life, page 50 in the Folio Society edition.

I learned several things at Sandhurst which showed me how to behave and how officers of different ranks were expected to treat one another in the life and discipline of a regiment. My company commander, Major Ball, of the Welsh Regiment, was a very strict and peppery martinet. Formal, reserved, frigidly courteous, punctilious, impeccable, severe, he was held in the greatest awe. It had never been his fortune to go on active service, but we were none the less sure that he would have had to be killed to be beaten.

The rule was, that if you went outside the college bounds, you first of all wrote your name in the company leave-book, and might then assume that your request was sanctioned. One day I drove a tandem (hired) over to Aldershot to see a friend in the militia battalion then training there. As I drove down the Marlborough lines, whom should I meet but Major Ball himself driving a spanking dog-cart home to Sandhurst. As I took off my hat to him, I remembered with a flash of anxiety that I had been too lazy or careless to write my name in the leave-book. However, I thought, 'there is still a chance. He may not look at it until mess; and I will write my name down as soon as I get back.' I curtailed my visit to the militia battalion and hastened back to the college as fast as the ponies could trot. It was six o'clock when I got in. I ran along the passage to the desk where the leave-book lay, and the first thing that caught my eyes were the Major's initials, 'O.B.', at the foot of the leaves granted for the day. I was too late. He had seen me in Aldershot and had seen that my name was not in the book. Then I looked again, and there to my astonishment was my own name written in the Major's handwriting and duly approved by his initials.

This opened my eyes to the kind of life that existed in the old British Army and how the very strictest discipline could be maintained among officers without the slightest departure from the standards of a courteous and easy society. Naturally after such a rebuke I never was so neglectful again.

Churchill and Harrow

Harrow is one of the ancient (1572) public (i.e. not run by the state) boarding schools of England. Along with Eton, it is immensely rich in history and tradition. Harrow has produced nine of the UK's prime ministers, including Winston Churchill.

From Winston S. Churchill's My Early Life, page 15 in the Folio Society edition.

I had scarcely passed my twelfth birthday when I entered the inhospitable regions of examinations, through which for the next seven years I was destined to journey. These examinations were a great trial to me. The subjects which were dearest to the examiners were almost invariably those I fancied least. I would have liked to have been examined in history, poetry and writing essays. The examiners, on the other hand, were partial to Latin and mathematics. And their will prevailed. Moreover, the questions which they asked on both these subjects were almost invariably those to which I was unable to suggest a satifactory answer. I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations.

This was especially true of my entrance examination to Harrow. The Headmaster, Mr Welldon, however, took a broad-minded view of my Latin prose: he showed discernment in judging my general ability. This was the more remarkable, because I was found unable to answer a single question in the Latin paper. I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question '1'. After much reflection I put a bracket around it thus '(1)'. But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true. Incidentally there arrived from nowhere in paticular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle: and then merciful ushers collected my piece of foolscap with all the others and carried it up to the Headmaster's table. It was from these slender indications of scholarship that Mr Welldon drew the conclusion that I was worthy to pass into Harrow. It is very much to his credit. It showed that he was a man capable of looking beneath the surface of things: a man not dependent upon paper manifestations. I have always had the greatest regard for him.

Churchill's introduction to Latin

I am reading Winston S. Churchill's My Early Life, published originally in 1930 when he was 56 years old and his best and most historic roles still lay a decade ahead of him. The edition I am reading is from the Folio Society.

There are a series of vignettes that are such wonderful exemplars of his deft wit or are so evocative of an era that is now so completely vanished that I will be making a number of Thing Finder posts.

The first relates an incident attendant to his new (and first) boarding school to which he was sent when he was seven.

From My Early Life, Folio Society, page 12.

. . . and I was alone with the Form Master. He produced a thin greeny-brown covered book filled with words in different types of print.

'You have never done any Latin before, have you?' he said.

'No, sir.'

'This is a Latin grammar." He opened it at a well-thumbed page. 'You must learn this,' he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines. 'I will come back in half an hour and see what you know.'

Behold me then on a gloomy evening, with an aching heart, seated in front of the first declension.


Mensa a table
Mensa O table
Mensam a table
Mensae of a table
Mensae to or for a table
Mensa by, with or from a table

What on earth did it mean? Where was the sense in it? It seemed absoulte rigmarole to me. However, there was one thing I could always do: I could learn by heart. And I thereupon proceeded, as far as my private sorrows would allow, to memorise the acrostic-looking task which had been set me.
In due course the Master returned.
'Have you learnt it?' he asked.
'I think I can say it, sir,' I replied; and I gabbled it off.
He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a question.
'What does it mean, sir?'
'It means what it says. Mensa, a table. Mensa is a noun of the first declension. There are five declensions. You have learnt the singular of the first declension.'
'But', I repeated, 'what does it mean?'
'Mensa means a table,' he answered.
'Then why does mensa also mean O table,' I enquired, 'and what does O table mean?'
'Mensa, O table, is the vocative case,' he replied.
'But why O table?' I persisted in genuine curiosity.
'O table - you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table.' And then seeing that he was not carrying me with him, 'You would use it in speaking to a table.'
'But I never do,' I blurted out in honest amazement.
'If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely,' was his conclusive rejoinder.
Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.

Elizabeth George Speare

Born November 21, 1908 in Melrose, Massachusetts
Died November 15, 1994 in Tucson, Arizona

There are many parallels between the career of Elizabeth George Speare and that of Virginia Lee Burton despite their writing a generation apart. They were both New England natives, they both spent much of their life focused on their family and came to their writing careers later, and they both produced a body of work which, although small, was both critically and popularly acclaimed.

Their differences were in the audience for which they wrote (Speare wrote for independent readers and young adults whereas Burton, as an artist, focused on picture books for younger children) and the material about which they wrote. Burton's picture book stories are all problem solving themes - being resourceful and working with and within your community to solve some problem. Speare wrote historical fiction for independent readers and has many more layers to her tales.

Elizabeth George was born November 21, 1908 in Melrose, Massachusetts and enjoyed an unusually bucolic childhood. She wrote in More Junior Authors that she felt her birthplace to be

an ideal place in which to have grown up, close to fields and woods where we hiked and picnicked, and near to Boston where we frequently had family treats of theaters and concerts. Every summer we went to the shore, where we stayed on a hill with a breathtaking view of the ocean, with fields and daisies and blueberries, and lovely secret paths through the woods, but, except for my small brother, not another young person anywhere. As I grew older I realized that those lonely summers had been a special gift for which I would always be grateful. I had endless golden days to read and think and dream, and it was then that I discovered the absorbing occupation of writing stories.

I went on writing stories all through high school, but I never again had much time to be alone. I went to Boston University and on to graduate school, and then I taught in Massachusetts high schools. I very much enjoyed teaching English because it was always a thrill to watch some girl or boy discover for the first time the enchantment of reading and writing.

She married Alden Speare in 1936. They moved to Connecticut and in 1939 their son Alden, Jr. was born followed, in 1942, by Mary. The next several years were absorbed by raising her children and it was not until they were in high school that Speare began to turn her hand to writing again, first with articles for women's magazines and the like but ultimately leading to an article being accepted by American Heritage, a forum for writing much more akin to the genre in which she made her reputation.

Speare only published eight books in total, four of which were adult books. Her first novel, Calico Captive, was written for children and was published in 1957, followed a year later by The Witch of Blackbird Pond. In 1961 she published The Bronze Bowwhich was followed by a twenty-two year hiatus during which no children's books were published. In 1983 she released her last book which was also her last children's book, The Sign of the Beaver.

What is remarkable here is the critical reception. Of her four children's books, two (The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Bronze Bow) received The Newberry Medal, the highest award for writing, and a third, The Sign of the Beaver, was a runner-up receiving the Newberry Honor Medal. The decision by the judges for a Newberry Medal for The Witch of Blackbird Pond was apparently a very rare unanimous decision. Many successful authors of children's books go their whole career without any Newberry recognition. For an author to receive two medals and an honor and for that to reflect three quarters of her books is without precedent.

Her one book not to receive a Newberry, despite its popular reception on its debut, was her first, Calico Captive. I think it is fair to speculate that the judges might have been influenced by Lois Lenski's having won a Newberry Honor for a similarly themed story, Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison sixteen years earlier in 1942.

Lenski and Speare shared a similar passion for detailed research, research that gave their stories such immediacy and veracity.

In order to truly share the adventures of my imaginary people, I had to know many things about them - the houses they lived in, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, how they made a living, what they did for fun, what things they talked about, cared about. You can call this research if you like, but that seems to me a dull word for such a fascinating pursuit. (From an interview conducted by Lee Bennett Hopkins and recorded in Pauses.)

She also indicated in Anita Silvey's Children's Books and Their Creators

Young readers write to me, "How did you learn about Indians?" or about life in colonial times? The answer, of course, is research, a word most students seem to find forbidding. To me, it is an ever-fascinating game which I have likened to a scavenger hunt. I go to the library with a long list of items I must find. And turning the pages of some long-forgotten book in a dusty corner, I come upon unexpected treasures, bright bits of history.

And later

Not all the discoveries are in libraries. At a local fair, I watched a woman demonstrating the art of spinning. The colonists, she told me, used a mixture of wool and flax, and, she said, it was the scratchiest clothing you could imagine. I thought of boys sitting for hours on school benches, in their homespun linsey-woolsey clothes, waiting patiently for a turn to read from the book held in the teacher's hand.

Calico Captive is a fictionalized account based on a true story recorded in the diary of Susanna Johnson relating the capture of herself and her family in 1807 by Abenaki Indians during the French and Indian War; their forced march from New Hampshire to Canada; and their eventual rescue when they were ransomed. American's have a very rich, moving and surprisingly balanced literary heritage of stories relating to being captured by Native Americans: how some captives died, some integrated with the tribe, and some returned. For an adult book on this topic, (also appropriate for Young Adults with a strong interest in history) try The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is not based so narrowly on a single event or character but is historical fiction based on the broader events of a period (1687 and the Puritans' persecution of "witches") made real through a fictional character, Kit Tyler who, as an outside from Barbados, is already somewhat beyond the pale, and through her association and friendship with an older woman on the fringe of Puritan society, becomes suspected of being a witch.

The Bronze Bow has a narrower fan base than Speare's other three books but it has a particularly enthusiastic following, in part because of the immediacy of Speare's writing style and in part because it is the only one of her books set in a completely different time and location. The Bronze Bow recounts the trials and gradual maturing and enlightenment of an embittered Jewish boy resentful of the Romans' occupation of Palestine. Speare handles the delicacies of historically writing about Jesus with remarkable finesse.

Her final book, The Sign of the Beaver, is perhaps her most sympathetic to Native Americans. Again, Speare bases her story on a true event. The setting is 1768 in colonial Maine and involves the story of thirteen-year old Matt. Matt's father has had to leave him temporarily on his own in the wilderness to guard their new home while he travels to fetch Matt's mother and sister from the coast. Temporarily turns out to be for the whole summer and autumn and Matt has to learn how to survive on his own, fend for himself, and then, as a further complication that turns into a blessing, figure out how to address two Penobscot Indians, an old man and his grandson who appear in his neighborhood. It is sort of a blend of My Side of the Mountain with a story of cultural discovery.

Speare's writing is always well-researched and characterized by attention to detail and setting, character development and compelling narrative. It is understandable why it has been said that it is a rare graduate of high school that makes it through without reading at least one of her four wonderful books.

Independent Reader

Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare and illustrated by W.T. Mars Highly Recommended

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare Recommended

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare Recommended

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare Recommended

Building a Personal Library

One of the most effective ways of creating an environment in which a child is likely to learn to love to read is to have many, many choices of books from which they can pick. Let them swim in a sea of books. The more books there are, the more likely that there is at least one which will grab their fancy. It only takes a few sparks to kindle the fire and the more kindling you have lying around, the more likely the blaze is to take hold.

Why buy books in the first place? They are expensive, they take up space, they are subject to being torn up, etc., etc.

To a true book lover, this is almost a heretical question. Beyond all the pragmatic answers though (you need a core of books to which you can reliably turn at any time, books that will be re-read many times are natural candidates for purchase, and so on), there is, at the core of it, the desire of a child to have and to hold that which is dear to them. After perhaps a favorite stuffed toy, a favorite blanket, I suspect the next most common childhood beloved possession is a treasured book.

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one. - Augustine Birrell

A room without books is like a body without a soul. - Cicero

There are many considerations in building a library. Here are a few general principles to consider.

Budget

I like the Dutch philosopher (1469 - 1536) Erasmus' perspective - "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." However, we are not all in a position to pursue Erasmus's strategy.

There is a cascade of affordability that shapes what fits your budget. For most people, the local library is the primary foundation on which to build a personal collection. You check out many volumes of books and have them lying around for sampling. Those that get read repeatedly and checked out again and again, become candidates for purchase.

Next most affordable is to find the books you are seeking at used bookstores. Across the country there are a small handful of used book stores that focus primarily on children's books, but usually you will find in any major city a couple or three really good used book stores which also have a good selection of children's books. Don't overlook library sales as a source of children's books; if you know what you are looking for (particular titles, authors or genres), you can often find a bagful for startlingly low prices. You just have to keep a sharp eye on the quality (torn pages, etc.).

One of the real pleasures of scouting used book stores is the surprises that are guaranteed to surface. Robert Graves a children's author? Keep your eyes open for The Green Book. How about Ian Fleming of James Bond fame? He was the author of Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang! There are all sorts of surprises out there.

If you are going to buy new books, you still have the decision of what form the books should take.

Form

Typically among children's books, particularly classics, there are two sets of issues - Physical Form and Edition.

Under the rubric of physical form you have an ascending order of durability; paperback, turtleback bindings, board-books, hardback, and library binding. Turtle-back bindings are basically reinforced paperbacks. The cost of books rises from cheapest at paperback (the least durable) to most expensive at library binding (the most durable).

Board-books are children's books rendered on small format hard cardboard pages that are usually reasonably resistant to infant abuse. This is an interesting form. There are a good number of books that were originally released in standard paperback or hardback versions that I think are especially good for the very youngest of children in board book format. Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, Good Dog, Carl, etc. The traditional format books are nice because they are bigger and take up more of a child's visual horizon. There is something though, about board books, to which every infant I have ever read to, seems to respond to - perhaps it is that it is a size for them to reach out to clasp. Or perhaps it is that they fit into the mouth of a teething child. We have a good number of well loved and thoroughly gnawed board books lying around.

Where in the continuum of durability it makes sense to invest, depends on some further heritage issues.

Heritage

How big a family do you have or are you anticipating? A single child? Then you probably can get away with mostly paperbacks. If they end up having a number of favorites that get dragged all over creation, you can upgrade those on an individual basis to hardbacks.

If, on the other hand you have or anticipate having multiple children, it probably makes most sense, if you can afford it, to go ahead and buy hardbacks for the classics and the favorites of your own childhood. The price differential between a paperback and a hardback is such that you are better off buying a single more expensive hardback edition that will survive being handed from one to another child than to have to replace a paperback that ends up being loved to death.

Because children's book publishing is quixotic in the extreme, there is little way of predicting whether a book your children have loved will still be in print twenty years from now. Online internet searches make it feasible to find just about any kind of book but the condition and price might be a shocker.


Editions

Once you have an idea as to what form of binding is going to make sense, then you have a few more decisions to make, or at least to be aware of. Some of the things to watch out for are:

• Bi-lingual editions - Many classic books are now being rendered into bilingual versions. This is great if your child is learning a second language and you intentionally buy it for the bilingual text. It is frustrating if you are not aware that you are buying a bilingual edition.

• Pop-up editions - These are usually pretty obvious. Some kids love them. I am not particularly enthusiastic about pop-ups and they often have a pretty short half-life. You might want to try out a couple with your kids, but my general recommendation would be to use your money on real books.

• Publishers frequently release old classics on anniversary occasions (e.g. fiftieth anniversary of first publication). That is great if that is all they do. However, they frequently end up doing specially packaged editions with a stuffed toy or some other items packaged up with the book. It's up to you - I have always told our kids I buy toys in a toy store and books in a book store.

• Abridged and bowdlerized editions - This is where it begins to get especially tricky and you need to keep a particularly sharp eye open. Abridged editions typically are shortened in some way to make it "easier" for a contemporary child to read. This change might encompass the simple excision of certain passages, characters or even whole chapters. Sometimes it extends to changing a few words that are now considered objectionable or archaic. Sometimes, the story is basically retold in a shorter "crisper" form with more contemporary language.

In general I am reasonably opposed to abridgements and simplified retellings. I am especially inclined to steer clear of the versions that pander to contemporary fads, by changing the language so that it is less classist, sexist, or racist or whatever the perceived source of injury might be. This is just a bit precious - our children are capable of reading these stories in their original form without becoming prejudiced homophobic, misogynistic, racists. Far better, from my perspective, is to read the original text and discuss what it is that has changed and why such phrases or attitudes may no longer be acceptable than to simply try and airbrush it out of history.

So look closely for signs that a book is an abridgement or has been subject to new editing.

There are a couple of variations on abridgement which actually serve a worthwhile purpose and you might want to consider. The first is when a story is retold in briefer more contemporary language to allow a much younger reader to enjoy the story earlier than their reading skills might allow. For example, The Adventures of Gulliver is a fairly sophisticated text with some archaic stylings and language. A firm reading of it is probably not feasible before 8th or 10th grade. But it is a great story and there are a number of abridgements designed to be read by 4th or 5th graders. To me an abridgement that enables an earlier reading and helps prepare a child to read the more sophisticated version later can be useful but a dumbed down text targeted at an older reader is of questionable value. The challenge is that there are a lot more attempted abridgements for younger readers than there are successful abridgements for younger readers.

The second variation is akin to this and that is the rendering of some classic in a graphic format. I am inclined towards a catholic attitude towards reading - most everything is fair game. When I was coming up, I recall reading Junior Classics, a series of comics that were graphical renditions of children's classics. I read all that I could lay my hands on and enjoyed them thoroughly. Many I went on later to read in their original form. For some books, my only knowledge of that title is that which I recall from that early comic book version. I am comfortable with the thought that a little flawed knowledge is better than no knowledge at all.

• Finally, beware of editions that are re-releases of books published before 1923. These are books that are now out of copyright and therefore subject to some rough editorial man-handling. Most publishers are pretty respectful and keep things as they were but it is not uncommon to do some bowdlerizing of language or to bestow a jazzier, more contemporary title.

Accentuate the Positive

This is just a personal bias on my part but it is certainly an issue we have encountered raising our children in the current book publishing environment. There is a plethora of books that to my way of thinking, are just plain faddishly self-indulgent, shallowly hectoring, special pleading, transparent attempts by the author to take some moral high road at the expense of history and current readers. Read through any list of prize winners, books reviewed in publishing industry magazines, etc. and you are quickly struck by the sheer volume of books that are focused on racism, social dysfunction, abuse in various forms, historical inequities, perceived injustices, etc.

Please do not mistake my criticism. These are all fair issues and there are certainly circumstances where as a parent you might want or need to focus on alcoholism, drug addiction, AIDS, etc. No, my issue is simply the preponderance of these tomes.

I am not of the school that believes a child is forever tainted by what they read. I think they are more robust than that. On the other hand, an unremitting diet of negativity, defeatism, victim glorification, and caustic skepticism cannot but help jade a young mind.

Consequently, one of the goals of Through the Magic Door is to identify those books that are inherently positive or constructive while being great reads: classic books which are compelling and sometimes humorous stories in and of themselves, but which when read by different readers, or read for a second or third time, reward each reader and each reading with a new idea or theme to consider. If there is a serious issue to be addressed, these books set it within the context of a well told story with many layers rather than by hitting the reader over the head with a moralistic point.

Again, this is not to say that some of these books have no place in a well-stocked personal library; just in moderation.


Message Books

Related to the idea of accentuating the positive, there is an additional issue of the past twenty or thirty years of which to be mindful. There is a very large cadre of "Message Books". These are basically books where platitudinous statements are strung together as a substitute for actually writing an engaging story. They are almost always aimed at some simplified singular idea: potty training, starting school, moving house, bullying, death, etc.

There are a few series which address these themes with some modicum of storytelling capacity and are useful to use with kids. The Berenstain Bears and the Franklin series spring to mind. There are many, many more that are simply a waste of good paper and of your child's time.

Again, there can be legitimate issues that you want to address with your children, but our position is that it is far better to do so by finding a book whose story is so engaging that your child is gripped by the tale and that within the context of that story it happens to also address the particular issue.


Logistics

Ouch! Every book lover you might know has encountered this one. Where do you put all those books. Once the bug has bitten and if you can afford to buy books plentifully you soon encounter the limits of space, even in the large houses that have become so common over the past thirty years.

The obvious answers (aside from move to a larger house) are to increase the density of books in any given room (more bookshelves) and expand the number of rooms that are candidates for holding books (bedrooms certainly, the den, the recreation room, and nooks and crannies of most other rooms).

I have reached that stage in life where the house has effectively been filled almost as full as it can be with books. I have purchased some additional time by renting a storage unit, but that is a temporary salve. I know I am going to have to become a more imaginative space manager. I sometimes feel like Elizabeth Brown in Sarah Stewart's The Library.

Sarah Stewart, The Library

Books were piled on top of chairs
And spread across the floor.
Her shelves began to fall apart,
As she read more and more.

Big books made very solid stacks
On which teacups could rest.
Small books became the building blocks
For busy little guests.

When volumes climbed the parlor walls
And blocked the big front door,
She had to face the awful fact
She could not have one more.

There is no easy answer or resolution to this, save one. Redefine interior decorating as the art of arranging books on all surfaces within a house.

Aesthetics

Especially for young children, but applicable to all - Never underestimate the value of beautiful and detailed illustrations. There is an unfortunate over-abundance of children's books illustrated in some style derivative of South Park - a commercially cheap mutant fusing of Introduction to Geometry with Drawing 101.

Innovation and a wide variety of styles has its place but particularly for young children, before they are able to conceptualize about text and words, they are able to "read" pictures and the closer those pictures align with their world and the more detail there is for them to explore, the more engaged they tend to be with the story itself. Even into the independent reader/chapter book years, the aesthetic value of beautiful illustrations is an important contributor to the enjoyment of a book by both child and adult.

Beyond the run of the mill, well produced books, there are also a number of publishers who specialize in producing top-notch, high quality books with a very high aesthetic index. I am thinking of such publishers as the Folio Society and David R. Godine. Some of their catalogue is quality renditions of old favorites such as Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, etc. Sometimes not only is the quality of the publication of value but also the selection itself, resurrecting old favorites that have not been in print for years or decades.

I am an enthusiastic buyer of books from these publishers, however, most children are not well-equipped to treat these beautiful books with the respect that they warrant. These are books for you, not necessarily for your child.


Reading Ability

Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Don't Panic!

The wonderful variability and individuality of children shows up in many ways, not least in their reading capability. Where you can help the most is by inculcating the desire to read - by reading to them, talking with them, singing with them, by being seen to read, etc. When they have the desire, they will figure out how to read. It is easy to get caught up in the endless pedagogical debates about whole word versus phonics; to so closely monitor reading ability that you end up conveying the unintended message that reading is solely a skill to be accomplished, a task; to be so concerned about what they are reading compared to their peers and injecting the message that it is a race or competition.

We will cover reading ability in more detail in a later Pigeon Post essay but remember - Don't Panic!


Letting Go

One of the pleasures of being a parent is introducing your child to stories that you enjoyed as a child or even stories that you had wished to read as a child but for some reason never got to.

But this trip down memory lane is sometimes fraught with disappointment. As I have been emphasizing in this essay, children are their own people. There is a certain symmetry though. What you enjoyed they may not, and certainly what they enjoy you may not.

Of all my childhood books that I have introduced to our three kids, probably 90% have been a hit with at least one. That sounds pretty good except that I thought all of them would like all of the books. Ah well.


Selecting Books

In summary:

• Have lots of books, magazines, newspapers, comics (all the old-fashioned stuff) lying around.

• Let your child choose what he or she wants to read with as much latitude as possible.

• Make sure there is a range of reading materials ahead and behind their nominal age.

• Don't worry about how well they are reading, focus on making sure they love to read.
• Accentuate the positive.

• Pick books that have beautiful, detailed illustrations and are fun to look at.

Suggestions for starting out are contained in a couple of booklists:

Nursery Starter Library

American Expatriates

I have no idea why . . .

but I find this tit-bit from Bernard Wasserstein's new book, Barbarism and Civilisation and reviewed by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, to be oddly intriguing.

. . . Enver Hoxha, the Communist dictator of Albania, whose favourite authors were Goethe, Kipling and Jerome K. Jerome.

Who knew?

Book Bitten

Here is a new children's books blogger with a nice entry about the pleasures of a used bookstore. Hooked on Books.

Measuring Up

As is so often the case, interesting facts, when acknowledged at all, often get buried under political spinning and invective. But there are antidotes and grass-roots efforts and much that can be done at a personal level to strike some balance.

As an example of the first situation, an interesting fact overshadowed by how it is presented, please see the article by Catherine Shock and Jay P. Greene, Adding Up to Failure, in the Winter edition of the City Journal. The authors did some research which turned up an interesting fact: among top ranked education schools, nearly twice as many courses are offered around multiculturalism and diversity as are offered around math.

Interestingly they lead and end the article with perfectly sound propositions.

A good education requires balance. Students should learn to appreciate a variety of cultures, sure, but they also need to know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

and then

The issue isn't whether we should be teaching cultural awareness in education colleges or in public schools; it's about priorities. Besides, our students probably have great appreciation already for students from other cultures—who're cleaning their clocks in math skills, and will do so economically, too, if we don't wise up.

One could quibble with their methodology as outlined in the article but I suspect that their key finding is materially correct. It certainly maps to experiences we have had with the teachers of our children, individuals who as a group are broadly well intentioned, motivated and effective teachers but frequently light on the analytic/scientific side of things. And I don't think this is unique to the US, we experienced it with our kids in school in the UK and Australia as well.

This hits one of my hot buttons. I view mathematics and numeracy in general to be part of a continuum with reading - they are all part of the symbolic representation of an external reality. Literacy lends itself to a fine nuanced comprehension of reality, particularly non-quantifiable aspects of reality (such as beliefs, feelings, etc.) while numeracy at the other end of the scale, lends itself to more testable aspects of reality.

So a finding such as this, that our educators are being over-exposed at one end of the continuum and underexposed at the other is a fair issue to raise and debate. The authors of the article ought to be commended for the effort to shed light on the issue.

It is unfortunate then, that the body of the article is laced with derogatory or mocking comments (e.g. "professors are a self-perpetuatiing clicque") and with belittling comments (e.g. "prospective teachers haven't cried out for more math courses because such courses tend to be harder than those involving multiculturalism".) That tone tends to overshadow the real research they have done and the validity of the point they have raised.

Fortunately, regardless of how things get reported, there are things that can be done. It is someone else's fight to figure out whether teachers in education programs need to be better trained in rigorous and analytical thinking. I leave that to them.

As parents though there is plenty we can do through the books we choose for our kids. The nonficiton wing of children's books has long been sort of a red-headed step child. None-the-less there are great books out there that stock the minds of our children with useful information and help develop the capacity for observation, measurement, analysis and constructive skepticism. TTMD is slowly beginning to build a set of book lists to that end (for example see the book list, Teaching Children to Observe.)

There is a new children's book blog as well that was just launched this month, I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids) that is aimed at bringing attention to the quality books in this genre that can enhance the lives of our children.

Don't mess with Librarians - "They also abandoned other volumes, later, while fleeing from the librarians."

Oh, this is a good one. Here is a US Court of Appeals decision concerning an attempted theft of rare books from a university library collection. The story is on pages two through five. The rest is the legal reasoning behind the judges decision and while it is interesting it is not as laugh-out-loud as the summary of the actual facts.

Hooray for Mrs. Gooch, Ms. Brown and the other librarians, front line defenders of our book heritage.

From the judges summary of the facts (my emphasis added)

Mrs. Gooch had realized that, due to the department's security measures, Lipka and Borsuk could not re-enter the Special Collections Department from the elevator, and she had begun to free herself to call for help. She yelled to Susan Brown that they were being robbed, and Ms. Brown wheeled around to pursue the robbers.

She caught up to them in a stairwell where they were attempting to open the emergency exit and, surprised by her arrival and aggressive confrontation, they dropped several objects - specifically, the two remaining volumes of the Birds of North America four-volume set (they had left two volumes atop the pink bed sheet in the Special Collections Department) and the two volumes of the Quadrupeds three-volume set (one of the three volumes had been left behind, stuck in its drawer in the Special Collections Department). Lipka and Borsuk fled through the emergency door carrying five objects (Hortus Sanitatis, the 20 pencil drawings, Synopsis of the Birds of North America, Origin of Species, and Illuminated Manuscript), with Ms. Brown and other librarians in hot pursuit.

Convictions

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

Indian Giver

Indian giver - one that gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return.

One of those childhood school-yard taunts whose meaning is relatively clear. But where did it come from? Why an Indian giver?

I came across the answer in The Gift, Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde. It is one of those little vignettes that illustrate all the pitfalls of communication that bedevil even the most well-intended travellers - miscommunication arising not from the words we use or misuse but of the assumptions that we carry without being aware of them.

When the Puritans first landed in Massachusetts, they discovered a thing so curious about the Indians' feelings for property that they felt called upon to give it a name. In 1764, when Thomas Hutchinson wrote his history of the colony, the term was already an old saying: "An Indian gift," he told his readers, "is a proverbial expression signifying a present for which an equivalent return is expected." We still use this, of course, and in an even broader sense, calling that friend an Indian giver who is so uncivilized as to ask us to return a gift he has given.

Imagine a scene. An Englishman comes into an Indian lodge, and his hosts, wishing to make their guest feel welcome, ask him to share a pipe of tobacco. Carved from a soft red stone, the pipe itself is a peace offering that has traditionally circulated among the local tribes, staying in each lodge for a time but always given away again sooner or later. And so the Indians, as is only polite among their people, give the pipe to their guest when he leaves. The Englishman is tickled pink. What a nice thing to send back to the British Museum! He takes it home and sets it on the mantlepiece. A time passes and the leaders of a neighboring tribe come to visit the colonist's home. To his surprise he finds his guests have some expectation in regard to his pipe, and his translator finally expains to him that if he wishes to show his goodwill he should offer them a smoke and give them the pipe. In consternation the Englishman invents a phrase to describe these people with such a limited sense of private property. The opposite of "Indian giver" would be something like "white man keeper" (or maybe "capitalist"), that is, a person whose instinct is to remove property from circulation, to put it in a warehouse or museum (or, more to the point for captialism, to lay it aside to be used for production).

The Indian giver (or the original one, at any rate) understood a cardinal property of the gift: whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away again, not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move on in its stead, the way a billiard ball may stop when it sends another scurrying across the felt, its momentum transferred. You may keep your Christmas present, but it ceases to be a gift in the true sense unless you have given something else away. As it is passed along, the gift may be given back to the original donor, but this is not essential. In fact, it is better if the gift is not returned but is given instead to some new, third party. The only essential is: the gift must always move. There are other forms of property that stand still, that mark a boundary or resist momentum, but the gift keeps moving.

Just Communicate - Coping with the Caveman in the Crib

There is an intersting article by Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times on February 5, 2008, Coping with the Caveman in the Crib. Not a panacea for a wailing child but an interesting insight.

Dr. Karp tries to teach parents the skills to communicate with and soothe tantrum-prone children. In doing so, however, he redefines what being a toddler means. In his view, toddlers are not just small people. In fact, for all practical purposes, they're not even small Homo sapiens.

Dr. Karp notes that in terms of brain development, a toddler is primitive, an emotion-driven, instinctive creature that has yet to develop the thinking skills that define modern humans. Logic and persuasion, common tools of modern parenting, "are meaningless to a Neanderthal," Dr. Karp says.

The challenge for parents is learning how to communicate with the caveman in the crib. "All of us get more primitive when we get upset, that's why they call it ‘going ape,' " Dr. Karp says. "But toddlers start out primitive, so when they get upset, they go Jurassic on you."

Kurt Wiese

Born April 22, 1887 in Minden, Germany
Died May 27, 1974 in Idell, New Jersey

Kurt Wiese was one of the first wave of American illustrators by whose innovations and prolixity, America's view of children's books was so influenced from the 1930's through the 1950's. Among his contemporaries were Wanda Gag, Lynd Ward, Berta and Elmer Hader and Lois Lenski. While he authored and illustrated a dozen or so of his own books, Wiese was primarily an illustrator of the books of others and worked with many of the best children's writers of a generation. Beyond the quality of his own artwork and the quality of writing of those with whom he collaborated, there is also the sheer volume of his productivity. I have tracked down 350 or so books in this bibliography but have seen references to his having produced 400 or even 450 books in his career.

Among the better known authors whose works he illustrated were Felix Salten (Bambi), Dhan Gopal Mukerji, Marjorie Flack, Claire Huchet Bishop, Margaret Wise Brown, Sterling North, Mendert de Jong, Roy Chapman Andrews, Noel Streatfield, Walter R. Brooks, Marguerite Henry, and Dufield Stong.

But how did he get from Germany to the USA? Well, therein lies a tale and one probably best told in his own words. Suffice to say that few children's authors/illustrators have traveled such a winding road to their final career. Having grown up in Germany, Wiese graduated school in 1901 and immediately went to work for a trading company with particular ties to China. Here is his account of the next few years from his autobiographical essay in the 1934 Junior Book of Authors.

However, seven years after having left school, I found myself in the center of China, after an unforgettable trip thru Russia, thru the snow-covered vastness of Siberia, along the edge of the Gobi desert, and last thru fertile Manchuria.

Six years of traveling in China and selling merchandise brought me in contact with its people, and the study of the Chinese language helped me to get a better knowledge of this country and its population than foreigners usually do.

When the World War broke out in 1914, I went to the German colony of Tsingtao which was attacked and taken by Japanese troops after a siege of three months. I was taken prisoner but handed over to British authorities and there began a captivity of five years. One year was spent at Hong Kong and the remaining four years in Australia. Unforgettable again was the trip on board of a small steamer thru the islands of the South Sea and along the Great Barrier of Australia, till after three weeks our ship passed thru the rock-gates of Sydney Harbor.

Deeply impressed by the landscape and the animal world of Australia, I began to take up drawing and writing and when I came back to Germany in 1919 I was so successful with the material I brought home that I found I could do better with my drawings and stories than by going back to China and selling merchandise again.

I stayed in Germany for three years, illustrating and writing my first children's books. I also designed exotic backgrounds for a film company, and as this company was formed by the well known animal dealers, Hagenbeck of Hamburg, I was constantly in touch with all kinds of animals, studies of which helped enrich my sketchbooks and my knowledge of animals, which I always had loved to study and draw.

When the film company closed its door I followed an urge for a warmer country again and I left Germany for Brazil. There I found the most beautiful tropical country and the intended short trip lengthened into a stay of three years. The first year was filled with travels thru the mountainous coastal region back of Rio de Janeiro, with others to the South of Brazil, one of which carried me into the deep jungles of Parana and a meeting there with a tribe of Indians that still roam thru these forests in the very same state that they did before the country was discovered by white people.

After the first year in Brazil I met a prominent writer of children's books and he asked me to join the firm for which he wrote and illustrate his books. I accepted and spent two happy years in a house that one dreams of, white against a background of flowers and palm tress, drawing for the Brazilian children. Besides the book illustrations I worked for a newspaper, drawing cartoons and a weekly children's page.

About this time, there came a call from the United States, and after a quick decision, I boarded an American steamer and waved good-by to the row of palm trees along the beach of the harbor of Santos. When I arrived in New York snow flurries swept along the gray skyline of Manhattan.

What he does not mention is that a revolution had already broken out in China in 1911 before the advent of World War I, and that his return to Germany from Australia was via Africa. So, upon his arrival in the US in 1927, at forty years of age, Wiese had been an international trader, lived abroad on three continents for more than a dozen years, seen revolution and war, become a prisoner or war as well as an internee, taken up drawing with no formal training, had practiced commercial art and design, done book illustrating in two different cultures as well practicing as a cartoonist and a journalist. If that's not serpentine, I don't know what is.

Once ensconced in America, he settled down in New Jersey, married, bought a small farm, opened a small art studio and started producing illustrated books for children at a furious pace, something like a dozen books a year for the balance of his working life. "It seems hard for me to believe that I have not lived here all my life."

Wiese's worked is marked by great versatility, I suppose in some way mimicking the flexibility of his life leading up to his career as a children's illustrator. While he favored animal and nature as subjects of illustration, he covered just about everything. He illustrated fiction and non-fiction, stories requiring reasonably life-like illustrations and others with much more of a cartoon quality. He illustrated everything from folk-tales, animal tales, stories of distant lands, to bible stories. He worked with authors on single books as well with authors for whole series. He worked in black and white, as well as in full color illustrations.

In addition to his productivity, Wiese, similar to his contemporary Wanda Gag, was noted not only for his artistic capability in rendering a drawing but also for his eye for the design of the whole book; should it be black and white, two-color, five color or other? Should it be a standard format or did the nature of the story require a different shape?

Unlike many of his contemporary illustrators, Wiese also established himself as the illustrator of a number of series, most spectacularly the Freddy series (discussed below). In addition to this hugely and persistently popular series, he also illustrated a geography series by Marguerite Henry (of Misty of Chincoteague fame), two sets of country series, one by Lois Donaldson and one by Bernadine Bailey, and a series about animal twins by Jane F. Tompkins.

Wiese's current reputation is firmly grounded on four specific books, The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack, The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop, Honk, the Moose by Duffield Stong and the Freddy the Pig series by Walter R. Brooks.

The first of these, The Story About Ping , and perhaps his most enduringly popular book, was written by Marjorie Flack and published in 1933. Flack was already a reasonably well established children's author and had published in 1930, Angus and the Ducks, the first of a series of very popular books concerning Angus, a Scottie dog. However, the ducks in the title (neighbors of Angus's) were Peking Ducks. Apparently Flack became fascinated by these birds, did more research and decided to write what became the The Story About Ping . She selected Wiese to illustrate the book as he had lived in China and could bring the type of knowledge and eye for detail that would lend verisimilitude to the story.

After close collaboration, The Story About Ping , came out in 1933 at the bottom of the Great Depression. In one of those bad news that turns out to be good news turns of fortune, Flack and Wiese were received no money for the writing of this story and instead were to receive royalties on the sales. In the event, The Story About Ping , became a longstanding popular book for young children providing a steady income for Wiese.

In 1935, Honk, the Moose by Duffield Stong was released. In the illustrations of this ever popular story, which is based on actual events in a small town in Minnesota, two boys find they have taken on more than they bargained for when they start looking after a hungry moose who has wandered into town in mid-winter and taken up residence in the stables with the horses.

The Five Chinese Brothers , written by Claire Huchet Bishop and published in 1938, returned Wiese to China. Unlike the multicolor and relatively detailed style he used in Story About Ping, in The Five Chinese Brothers Wiese uses a much simpler drawing style and color scheme. Despite being almost cartoonish in style, the story of the five Chinese brothers, each with a unique and unusual gift, has managed to hold the fascination of children for seventy years.

Finally, there is the phenomenon of Freddy the Pig, twenty-six books written over thirty-one years between 1927 and 1958 by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese. The eponymous Freddy is one of a cast of barnyard characters and the series is driven by his various interests and pursuits (Freddy the Detective, Freddy the Politician, Freddy Plays Football, Freddy Goes to Florida, etc.) Unlike the other three which are firmly in the picture book category, the Freddy books are well illustrated chapter books for independent readers (though they are great books for reading to at bed time). The books were tremendously popular through the 1940's and 1950's, attracting a very loyal readership. The books went out of fashion and then out of print in the 1960's but were revived, in part in response to quiet and persistent lobbying by die-hard fans, in the 1990's.

Kurt Wiese effectively retired in the late 1960's and after a long, adventurous and hugely productive life, passed away in New Jersey on May 27, 1974.


Picture Books

Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Highly Recommended

Honk the Moose by Phil Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Highly Recommended

Independent Reader

Daughter of the Mountains by Louise Rankin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Suggested

Freddy and Simon the Dictator by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy and the Dragon by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy and the Ignormus by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy and the Men from Mars by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy Goes Camping by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Freddy the Pilot by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Recommended

Li Lun, Lad of Courage by Carolyn Treffinger and illsutrated by Kurt Wiese Suggested

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Kurt Wiese Suggested

Bibliography

Don: The Story of a Lion Dog by Zane Grey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1928
Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1928
Karoo, the Kangaroo by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
The Chinese Ink Stick by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Bambi by Felix Salten and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Sheep by Archer Butler Gilfillan and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Down in the Grass by Harold Kellock and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Poodle-Oodle of Doddle Farm by Lawton and Ruth Mackall and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Hindu Fables, for Little Children by Dhan Gopal Mukerji and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Book of Mysteries Three Baffling Tales: The River Acres Riddle, Cat's Cradle, and The Hexagonal Chest by Augusta Seaman and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1929
Liang & Lo by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
Wallie the Walrus by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
Abschied vom paradies by Frank Thiess and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
The Adventures of Mario by Waldemar Bonsels and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
Wolf-Tracker by Zane Grey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
Pal: The Story of an Airedale by Alexander C. Jenkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
The Wreck of the Dumaru: A Story of Cannibalism in an Open Boat by Lowell Jackson Thomas and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
More to and Again by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1930
Ella, the Elephant by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1931
Joe Buys Nails by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1931
Ekorn by Hakkon Lie and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1931
North America: The Land They Live in for the Children Who Live There by Lucy Mitchell and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1931
Bunny, Hound, and Clown by Dhan Gopal Mukerji and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1931
The Parrot Dealer by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
Back of Time by Margaret Isabel Ross and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
City Jungle by Felix Salten and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
Wagtail by Alice Gall and F.H. Crew and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Lewis and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
Freddy the Detective by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
Silver Chief, Dog of the North by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1932
Jothy: A Story of the South Indian Jungle by Charlotte Chandler Wyckoff and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1933
The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1933
Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1933
Me an' Pete by Wendell McKown and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Our Planet, the Earth: Then and Now by Lillian Rifkin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Snowy for Luck by Arthur Russell Goode and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Alexander: The Tale of a Monkey by Marion Brown and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Ki-Yu: A Story of Panthers by R. L. H. Haig-Brown and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Odie Seeks a Friend by Julius King and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Ho-Ming, Girl of New China by Elizabeth Lewis and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Farm Boy: A Hunt for Indian Treasure by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1934
Peetie: The Story of a Real Cat by Inis Weed Jones and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
Camel Bells: A Boy of Baghdad by Anna Ratzesberger and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
River Children: A Story of Boat Life in China by Mary Hollister and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
Little Ones by Dorothy Kunhardt and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
Yen-Foh, a Chinese Boy by Ethel J. Eldridge and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
The Story of Freginald by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
Honk, the Moose by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1935
Buddy the Bear by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
All the Mowgli Stories by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Great Kipling Stories, biography of Kipling by Lowell Thomas by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Attack, and Other Stories by Burdette Ross Buckingham and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Too Many Bears, and Other Stories by Burdette Ross Buckingham and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Ling, Grandson of Yen-Foh by Ethel J. Eldridge and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Gay Pippo by Eleanor Fairchild Pease and Beatrice De Melik and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Mulberry Village: A Story of Country Life in China by Mary Hollister and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
No-Stitch, the Hound by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1936
Kurt Wiese's Picture Book of Animals (includes Ella, the Elephant, Karoo, the Kangaroo, and Wallie, the Walrus) by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Ki-Ki, a Circus Trooper by Edith Janice Craine and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Each in His Way: Stories of Famous Animals by Alice Gall and F. H. Crew and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Jasmine: A Story of Present-Day Persia by Anna Ratzesberger and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Beggars of Dreams by Mary Hollister and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
China Quest by Elizabeth Lewis and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Cheeky, a Prairie Dog by Josephine Sanger Lau and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Blue Mittens by Mary Katherine Reely and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
The Clockwork Twin by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
High Water by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Silver Chief to the Rescue by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
Polar Bear Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1937
The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Animals of a Sagebrush Ranch by Alice Day Pratt and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Carnival Time at Stroebeck by May V. Harris and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
The Streamlined Pig by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Jasper, the Gypsy Dog by Mable (Chesley) Kahmann and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Yinka-Tu, the Yak by Alice Lide and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Donkey Beads: A Tale of a Persian Donkey by Anna Ratzesberger and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Moo-Wee, the Musk-Ox by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Tale of Two Horses by Aime Felix Tschiffely and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Hidden Valley by Laura Benet and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Hamlet, a Cocker Spaniel by Irma Black and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
The Blue Junk by Priscilla Holton and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Kee-Kee and Company: A Story of American Children in China by Mary Hollister and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Alice-Albert Elephant by Marjorie Hayes and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Young Settler by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Corporal Corey, of the Royal Canadian Mounted by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1938
Dirk's Dog by Meindert De Jong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Kip, a Young Rooster by Irma Black and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Cats for the Tooseys by Mabel Scudder La Rue and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Joan and the Deer by Marjorie Medary and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Three Sisters: The Story of the Soong Family of China by Cornelia Spencer and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Crunch the Squirrel by Elizabeth Anne Bond and J. E. Rabin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Amandus, Who Was Much Too Big by Elsie and Morris Glenn and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Saranga, the Pygmy by Attilio Gatti and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
The Trial of the Buffalo by Rutherford Montgomery and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Blackfellow Bundi, a Native Australian Boy by Leila and W. K. Harris and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Silk and Satin Lane by Esther Wood and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Wiggins for President by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Cowhand Goes to Town by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
Penguin Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1939
The Rabbits' Revenge by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
On Safari by Theodore J. Waldeck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Toco Toucan by William Bridges and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Greased Lightning by Sterling North and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Blue Butterfly Goes to South America by Ruth H. Hutchinson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Pecos Bill and Lightning by Leigh Peck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Little Tooktoo: The Story of Santa Claus' Youngest Reindeer by Marie Ahnighito Stafford and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Dogs by Albert Payson Terhune and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
With Love and Irony by Yu-t'ang Lin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Tito, the Pig of Guatemala by Charlotte E. Jackson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Freddy's Cousin Weedly by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Valiant, Dog of the Timberline by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1940
Tapiola's Brave Regiment by Robert Nathan and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
The Ferryman by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Bells of the Harbor by Meindert De Jong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Muffly: The Tale of a Muskrat by Zenobia Bird and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
The Mystery Dogs of Glen Hazard by Maristan Chapman and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Bambi's Children by (With Erna Pinner) Felix Salten and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Animal Babies by Alice Day Pratt and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
In Defense of Mothers: How to Bring up Children in Spite of the More Zealous Psychologists by Leo Kanner and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
The White Panther by Theodore J. Waldeck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Freddy and the Ignormus by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Alaska in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Argentina in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Brazil in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Canada in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Chile in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Mexico in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Panama in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
West Indies in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Captain Kidd's Cow by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Snowshoe Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1941
Little Boy Lost in Brazil by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Juneau, the Sleigh Dog by West Lathrop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Favorite Stories Old and New by Sidonie M. Gruenberg and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Ootah and His Puppy by Marie Ahnighito Stafford and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Corn-Belt Billy by Mabel Leigh Hunt and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
White Stars of Freedom by Mirim Isasi and M. B. Denny and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Lions on the Hunt by Theodore J. Waldeck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Angleworms on Toast by MacKinlay Cantor and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Nibs, the Orphan Deer of the Adirondacks by Don Lang and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Paddy's Christmas by Helen Albee Monsell and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
When the Typhoon Blows by Elizabeth Lewis and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Abraham Lincoln by Enid Meadowcroft and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Little Lost Monkey by JoBesse McElveen Waldeck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Jamba the Elephant by Theodore J. Waldeck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Tents in the Wilderness: The Story of a Labrador Indian Boy by Julius Ernst Lips and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Freddy and the Perilous Adventure by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Spike of Swift River by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Bolivia in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Ecuador in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Greenland in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Guatemala in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Honduras in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Iceland in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Peru in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Venezuela in Story and Pictures by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Raccoon Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1942
Made in China: The Story of China's Expression by Cornelia Spencer and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Adventure in Black and White by Attilio Gatti and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Igor's Summer: A Story of Our Russian Friends by Lorraine and Jerrold Beim and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Oswald's Pet Dragon by Carl Glick and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Roger and the Fishes by Charlotte E. Jackson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Puppy for Keeps by Quail Hawkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Sly Mongoose by Katherine Pollock and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Tramp, the Sheep Dog by Don Lang and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Midnight and Jeremiah by Sterling North and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Mr. Red Squirrel by Thomas Pendleton Robinson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Freddy and the Bean Home News by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Missouri Canary by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Return of Silver Chief by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Costa Rica in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Nicaragua in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
El Salvador in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Uruguay in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1943
Central American Roundabout by Agnes Edward Rothery and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
The Adventures of Monkey (adapted from translation by Arthur Waley) by Wu Ch'eng-en and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
Freddy and Mr. Camphor by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
Colombia in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
Guiana in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
Newfoundland in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
Paraguay in Story and Pictures by Lois Donaldson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1944
You Can Write Chinese by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
The Wizard and His Magic Power: Tales of the Channel Islands by Alfred S. Campbell and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
Our Country by Lucy Mitchell and Dorothy Stall and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
Mpengo of the Congo by Grace Winifred McGavran and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
Hello, Alaska by Sarah Litchfield and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
Channel Islands by Alfred Stuart Campbell and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
A Very Special Pet by Lavinia Davis and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
The Eskimo Hunter by Florence Hayes and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
Freddy and the Popinjay by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
Censored, the Goat by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1945
The Home-Builders by Warren Hastings Miller and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
The Picture Story of China by Emily Hahn and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Australia Calling by Margaret L. Macpherson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Wild West Bill Rides Home by Muriel F. Millen and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
This Is the Moon by Marion Cothren and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Too Many Dogs by Quail Hawkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Jungle Journey by JoBesse McElveen Waldeck and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Four Friends by Eleanor Hoffman and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Mr. Two of Everything by M.S. Klutch and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Freddy the Pied Piper by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Australia in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
The Bahamas in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Bermuda in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
British Honduras in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Dominican Republic in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Hawaii in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
New Zealand in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
The Virgin Islands in Story and Pictures by Marguerite Henry and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1946
Li Lun, Lad of Courage by Carolyn Treffinger and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1947
Hoppity by Miriam Evangeline Mason and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1947
Abraham, the Itinerant Mouse by Donald Hutter and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1947
Dumblebum by Elsie and Morris Glenn and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1947
Freddy the Magician by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1947
Positive Pete! by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1947
Fish in the Air by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
A Circus of Our Own by Irmengarde Eberle and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
White Leopard: A Tale of the African Bush by Inglis Fletcher and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
What Every Young Rabbit Should Know by Carol Denison and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Lost Horizon by James Hilton and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Dike against the Sea by Mary Hollister and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Ranger, Sea Dog of the Royal Mounted by Charles Stanley Strong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Go West, Young Bear by Elizabeth Hamilton and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Daughter of the Mountains by Louise S. Rankin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Rosie, the Rhino by Marion Conger and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Freddy Goes Camping by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1948
Boating Is Fun by Ruth Brindze and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Anabel's Windows by Agnes Hewes and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Bob Clifton, Elephant Hunter by Dock Hogue and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Magic Firecrackers by Mitchell Dawson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic by Betty Heskett MacDonald and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Little Circus Dog by Jene Barr and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
The Golden Door: A Story of Liberty's Children by Hertha Ernestine Pauli and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
The Most Beautiful House, and Other Stories by Hertha Ernestine Pauli and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Laughing Matter by Helen R. Smith and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Little Prairie Dog by Jene Barr and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Freddy the Explorer by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Freddy Plays Football by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1949
Su-Mei's Golden Year by Marguerite Harmon Bro and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Bob Clifton, Jungle Traveler by Dock Hogue and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
The Flowered Donkey by Margaret Mackay and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Etuk, the Eskimo Hunter by Miriam Macmillan and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
The Walking Hat by William N. Hall and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Lucky Days for Johnny by Irene Smith and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Freddy the Cowboy by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Hirum, the Hillbilly by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
The Prince and the Porker by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Red Squirrel Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1950
Tommy's Wonderful Airplane by Eleanor Lowenton Clymer and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Bob Clifton, Congo Crusader by Dock Hogue and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Down the Road with Johnny by Irene Smith and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Round Meadow by John Oldrin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
The House with Red Sails by Leone Adelson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
The Poetic Parrot by Margaret Mackay and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Roundhouse Cat, and Other Railroad Animals by Freeman Henry Hubbard and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
The Adventures of Wu Han of Korea by Albert J. Nevins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
The Jungle Twins by Irma Roberts and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Freddy Rides Again by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Royal Red by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1951
Happy Easter by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Skeeter: The Story of an Arabian Gazelle by Robert Shaffer and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
The Adventures of Kenji of Japan by Albert J. Nevins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Children of the Blizzard by Heluiz Chandler Washburne and Anauta Blackmore and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
The Wonderful Adventures of Ting Ling by Vernon Bowen and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Ranger's Arctic Patrol by Charles Stanley Strong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
The Moffats, New edition by Ethel Daniels Hubbard and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
The Train That Never Came Back, and Other Railroad Stories by Freeman Henry Hubbard and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Nibby by Ann Meyer and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Freddy and Freginald by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Freddy the Pilot by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
Black Bear Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1952
The Dog, the Fox, and the Fleas by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Snow for Christmas by Vernon Bowen and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Laurie by Estelle Barnes Clapp and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Ning's Pony by Hester Hawkes and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Amos, the Beagle with a Plan by John Parke and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
All about Volcanoes and Earthquakes by Frederick Harvey Pough and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Famous Bridges of the World by David Barnard Steinman and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Bob Clifton, African Planter by Dock Hogue and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Many Hands in Many Lands by Alice Kelsey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
The Adventures of Pancho of Peru by Albert J. Nevins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Collected Poems of Freddy the Pig by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Freddy and the Spaceship by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1953
Your Breakfast and the People Who Made It by Benjamin C. Gruenberg and Leone Adelson and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
The Adventures of Ramon of Bolivia by Albert J. Nevins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
Stories of Jesus by Ethel Lisle Smither and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
Early Old Testament Stories by Ethel Lisle Smither and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
Freddy and the Men from Mars by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
Silver Chief's Revenge by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
Porcupine Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1954
Livingston, the Pathfinder by Basil Joseph Mathews and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Bright Pathways by Esma Booth and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Copydog in India by Stringfellow Barr and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
The Adventures of Duc of Indochina by Albert J. Nevins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
First to Be Called Christians by Ethel Lisle Smither and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Quest of the Snow Leopard by Roy Chapman Andrews and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Kim of Korea by Faith Grigsby Norris and Peter Lumn and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Lions in the Barn by Virginia Frances Voight and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
A Beast Called an Elephant by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
Otter Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1955
The Cunning Turtle by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Later Old Testament Stories by Ethel Lisle Smither and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Day after Tomorrow by Alice Hudson Lewis and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Three Seeds by Hester Hawkes and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Eight Rings on His Tail: A Round Meadow Story by John Oldrin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Rolling Show by Virginia Frances Voight and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Where Any Young Cat Might Be by Carol Denison and Jane Cummin and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Freddy and Simon the Dictator by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Reindeer Twins by Jane F. Tompkins and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1956
Limpy: Tale of a Monkey Hero by Hyde Matzdorff and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1957
Great All-Star Animal League Ball Game by Vincent Starrett and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1957
All about Great Rivers of the World by Anne Terry White and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1957
Freddy and the Flying Saucer Plans by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1957
Mike: The Story of a Young Circus Acrobat by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1957
Great Gravity, the Cat by Johanna Johnston and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1958
Freddy and the Dragon by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1958
The Groundhog and His Shadow by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1959
Rocco Came In by John Beecroft and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1959
Alaskan Hunter by Florence Hayes and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1959
Pika and the Roses by Elizabeth Coatsworth and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1959
The Flute Player of Beppu by Kathryn Gallant and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1960
What? Another Cat! by John Beecroft and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1960
Cuddle Bear of Piney Forest by Anne M. Halladay and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1960
Mr. Piper's Bus by Eleanor Lowenton Clymer and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1961
Phil Stong's Big Book (includes Farm Boy: A Hunt for Indian Treasure, High Water, and No-Stitch, the Hound) by Duffield Stong and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1961
Silver from the Sea by Ruth Tooze and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1962
Amat and the Water Buffalo by Jeanette Guillaume and M. L. Bachmann and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1962
Rabbit Brothers Circus: One Night Only by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1963
The Thames, London's River by Noel Streatfield and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1964
Twenty-Two Bears by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1964
The Thief in the Attic by Kurt Wiese and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1965
Our Nation's Capital, Washington, D.C. by Bernadine Bailey and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1967
The Truffle Pig by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1971
The White Leopard: A Tale of the African Bush by Inglis Fletcher and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 1978
The Wit and Wisdom of Freddy and His Friends by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 2000
Freddy and the Perilous Adventure by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 2001
Freddy Goes to the North Pole by Walter R. Brooks and illustrated by Kurt Wiese 2001
The King and the Princess by Jack O'Brien and illustrated by Kurt Wiese