Leonard Weisgard

Born December 13, 1916 in New Haven, Connecticut and died January 14, 2000, in Glumso Denmark.

Leonard Weisgard was a kaleidoscopic individual: every time you turn his life just a little, there is a completely new picture. An author and illustrator, his first book was published in 1937 and he wrote or illustrated some 200-300 books, many in collaboration with some of the most notable talents of the forties and fifties, particularly Margaret Wise Brown, Alvin R. Tresselt, Charlotte Zolotow, Alice Dalgliesh, Sesyle Joslin and Eve Titus. If you grew up anytime in the forties through the sixties, you will probably be familiar with his distinctive work, in part because of his collaboration with these great authors; in part because he was one of the early illustrators with Little Golden Books (launched in 1942) and in part because of his awards which included the 1947 Caldecott medal for The Little Island.

His friend, Ken Chowder described him:

There was no one like Leonard, even Leonard himself. Leonard was gracious and generous and beautifully well-spoken and -dressed; he was also reclusive and agoraphobic and capable of saying virtually anything, or nothing at all. He reveled in attention, and hated it. He loved conversation and adored people, then lived far out in the country (in two countries, in fact) where he saw very few of them. He was politically active for years, and hated politics. He worked like a dog for some 30 years, illustrating many hundreds of books and writing many more; then he simply stopped far before what one could call retirement, and spent about 25 or 30 more years not working much more than a stitch.

Born December 13, 1916 in Connecticut to Samuel H. Weisgard (British) and Fanny Cohen Weisgard, most of his early life was actually spent in Britain. The Weisgards returned to the US in 1924. His memories of these years are anchored by three vignettes; an early exposure to an illustrated Mother Goose rhymes, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland illustrated by Tenniel, and a pantomime performance of Jack in the Beanstalk.

Weisgard is in some ways a classic example of the childlike freshness of perception mentioned in last week's Pigeon Post essay. He seems to have been preternaturally sensitive and alert to colors, smells, and sounds. He mentions this a couple of times in his acceptance speech for the 1947 Caldecott Medal:

We were all of us incredible creatures when we were little. We could see and hear and feel and smell and with easy concentration create things that never were and things that were yet to come.

We can all remember when we originally saw and felt things not yet inhibited by manners or sentiment. Then we were lower to the ground and nearer to detail; then we could create a piece of silver out of some tinfoil down a drain, spot a robin on a water tower and see it become a chimney pot wearing a red hat; make a brown cow out of an old glove; build a city in the folds of a bedsheet; or even transform a doting aunt into a witch!

And again

I remember the sharpness of small pain, of infinite curiosity which would inevitably end in small joy or great disaster, of hiding things in my nose or cutting the Brussel's lace dining room curtains because the pattern was so disturbing and the starch so stiff. I was obsessed with the darkness of drawers, and wanted to create my own expressions with the hands of the clock, paint permanent shadows behind furniture and people.

I also remember something like this infinite curiosity ending in disaster. It was late of an evening, in the sultry tropics. We were living in Nigeria. I was five years old. We had a guard for the house who had, in a way, adopted me. I was fascinated by his bow and arrows, his ancient musket, his machete: everything about him was fascinating. He, this day, had given me an egg from one of his chickens. That evening I sat on the grass mat in the den, examining this wonderful thing, turning and turning it about in my small hands. My father was home that evening, sitting in his easy chair, watching me examine my treasure.

But he was not quick enough to anticipate my next step of childish examination which was to crack open the egg to let out the chick which must be in there. I can still recall the roar of alarm in the background. I don't know which was more distressing to me: the lack of appearance of a chick, the mess of egg on the matt, or the look on my father's face.

Leonard Weisgard studied for two years at the Pratt Institute. He then spent some time studying dance with Martha Graham and then undertook a career in illustration, starting out with work for some of the major publications of the day, Good Housekeeping, New Yorker, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. At various points over the next few years he continued an on-again off-again involvement in theatre doing set design.

Weisgard published his first story, Suki, the Siamese Pussy, in 1937. Two years later began the very productive collaboration with Margaret Wise Brown resulting initially with the 1939 publication of The Noisy Book, the first in a series of Noisy books. Over the years, Brown and Weisgard produced more than two dozen books together including perennial favorites, The Noisy Book; Red Light, Green Light; The Little Island; The Golden Egg Book; and The Important Book.

Margaret Wise Brown was as prolific at writing books as Weisgard was in illustrating them. Supposedly the genesis of The Noisy Book occurred during a lunch time conversation in which Weisgard related his childhood memory of the sounds of London's streets. Brown delivered a draft of the text the next day and he completed the illustrations for it by the end of the week.

Our kids loved The Noisy Book and The Quiet Noisy Book which, sadly, are currently out of print. Keep your eyes open for them though. I can't believe they would stay out of print for long.

Weisgard worked in many different media. In fact it might be better to say he worked in most media: pencil, crayon, pen and ink, watercolor, acrylics, oils, etc. He is noted for his distinctive blend of realism with an angular style somewhat akin to the cubists and for his frequent scale shifts where a creature is in proportion to its surroundings in one picture but then very large or very small in the next setting.

Weisgard married Phyllis Monnot, a designer and film-maker, in 1951. They collaborated on a number of projects including designing the costumes and sets for a production of The Nutcracker Suite and The Dryad for the San Francisco ballet. They were also keen collectors of American folk art.

In 1969, at the prompting of a couple of Scandinavian friends, Weisgard and his family (he had three children), moved to Denmark for a year. A year turned into the rest of their lives. As referenced by Chowder above, Weisgard had been hugely productive for many, many years. After moving to Denmark he produced a few more children's books but he was basically done at that point. Weisgard passed away January 14, 2000.


Picture Books

The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard Highly Recommended

The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown (under thepseudonym Golden MacDonald) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard Highly Recommended

Independent Reader

The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard Recommended

Bibliography

Suki, the Siamese Pussy by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1937
Through the Harbor, from Everywhere by Irmengarde Eberle and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1938
Cinderella by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1939
Pup Called Cinderella by Esther W. Reno and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1939
The Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1939
Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy (adapted by Brown) by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1940
Little Joe by Dorothy Clark and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1940
The Country Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1940
Under the Greenwood Tree (selected songs from Shekespeare's plays) by Julia Louise Reynolds and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1940
Grab Bag: Stories for Each and Every One by Lavinia R. Davis and Marjorie Fischer and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1941
Louis of New Orleans by Frances Cavanah and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1941
Pedro of Santa Fe by Frances Cavanah and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1941
The Poodle and the Sheep by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1941
The Seashore Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1941
Americans Every One by Lavinia R. Davis and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1942
Night and Day by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1942
Picture Book of Musical Instruments by Marion Lacey and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1942
The Indoor Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1942
The New Haggadah by Mordecai M. Kaplan and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1942
The Water-Carrier's Secrets by Maria Cristina Chambers and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1942
Big Dog, Little Dog by Golden MacDonald (Margaret Wise Brown) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1943
Little Chicken by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1943
The Noisy Bird Book (includes some reproductions from Audubon) by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1943
Bucky Bear, Who Would Not Take His Nap by Elaine Wayne and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1944
Dorinda by Elizabeth Howard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1944
Pick the Vegetables by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1944
Red Light, Green Light by Golden MacDonald (Margaret Wise Brown) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1944
Timid Timothy, the Kitten Who Learned to Be Brave by Gweneira Maureen Williams and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1944
Whose Little Bird Am I? by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1944
Little Lost Lamb by Golden MacDonald (Margaret Wise Brown) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1945
Susie is a Kitten by Nettie King and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1945
Would You Like to Be a Monkey? by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1945
City Country ABC by Morrell Gipson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
Heidi by Johanna Spyri and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
Mrs. Mallard's Ducklings by Clelia Delafield and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
Rain Drop Splash by Alvin R. Tresselt and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
Round the Afternoon by Charlotte E. Jackson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
The City Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
The Little Island by Golden MacDonald (Margaret Wise Brown) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1946
Down Huckleberry Hill by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1947
The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1947
High Trail by Vivian Breck and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1948
Just for Fun by Alice I. Hazeltine and Elva S. Smith and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1948
Pelican Here, Pelican There by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1948
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1949
The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1949
The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1949
Dark Wood of the Golden Birds by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1950
The Funny Bunny Factory by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1950
The Little Lost Squirrel by Alvin R. Tresselt and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1950
The Quiet Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1950
Who Dreams of Cheese? by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1950
Let's Play by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1951
Pantaloon by Kathryn Jackson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1951
Pussy Willow by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1951
Stories of Love by Alice I. Hazeltine and Elva S. Smith and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1951
The Family Mother Goose by and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1951
The Summer Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1951
Indian, Indian by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1952
Little Eskimo by Kathryn Jackson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1952
Noon Balloon by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1952
The Clean Pig by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1952
Wheels by Kathryn Jackson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1952
A Book About God by Florence M. Fitch and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
Let's Play Train by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
Little Frightened Tiger by Golden MacDonald (Margaret Wise Brown) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
My First Picture Book by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
Silly Willy Nilly by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
The Golden Bunny, and Seventeen Other Stories and Poems by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
Three, and Domingo by Margueritte Harmon Bro and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1953
Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jakob Ludwig Karl and W.K. Grimm and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1954
Gulliver's Travels (edited for young readers) by Jonathan Swift and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1954
Just Like Me by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1954
The Big Treasure Book of Nursery Tales by Evelyn Andreas and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1954
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1954
Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
Pilgrim Thanksgiving by Wilma P. Hays and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
Secret River by Marjorie K. Rawlings and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
The Big Book of Train Stories by and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
The Child Jesus by Florence M. Fitch and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
The New Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1955
Baby's Playthings by and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Mr. Peaceable Paints by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Mrs. Goose's Green Trailer by Miriam S. Potter and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Something for Now, Something for Later by Miriam Schlein and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
The Most Beautiful Tree in the World by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
The Story of Valentine by Wilma P. Hays and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Treasures to See: A Museum Picture-Book by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Whistle for the Train by Golden MacDonald (Margaret Wise Brown) and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1956
Abner's Cabin by Alf Evers and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Ferris and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
My Book of Prayer: Sabbath and Weekdays by Hyman Chanover and Evelyn Zusman and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
Rabbit Story by Alvin R. Tresselt and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
The Son of God: Readings from the Gospel According to St. Mark, with Background Information by Edric A. Weld and William Sydnor and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
Where Did Tuffy Hide? by Isabel and Frederick Eberstadt and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
Who Ever Heard of Kangaroo Eggs? by Samuel S. Vaughan and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1957
First Days of the World by Gerald Ames and Rose Wyler and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1958
Sylvester Jones and the Voice in the Forest by Patricia Miles Martin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1958
The First People in the World by Gerald Ames and Rose Wyler and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1958
Willa: The Story of Willa Cather's Growing Up by Ruth Franchere and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1958
Adam and the Golden Cock by Alice Dalgliesh and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1959
My Book of Prayer: Holidays and Holy Days by Hyman Chanover and Evelyn Zusman and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1959
Nibble, Nibble: Poems for Children by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1959
The Macmillan Science-Life Series by John D. Barnard and others and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1959
The Snowflake and the Starfish by Robert Nathan and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1959
The Valentine Cat by Clyde R. Bulla and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1959
Brave Baby Elephant by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1960
Cozy Hour Storybook by Nora Kramer and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1960
Do You Want to Hear a Secret? by Sylvia Berger Redman and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1960
Nails to Nickles: Story of American Coins Old and New by Elizabeth A. Campbell and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1960
Who is at the Door? by Isabel and Frederick Eberstadt and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1960
Baby Elephant's Trunk by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Norway, Retold from Norse Folklore by Virginia Haviland and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventure in Color by Mary Le Duc O'Neill and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
Half-as-Big and the Tiger by Bernice Frankel and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
McCall's Read Me a Story Book by Margaret Bevans and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
See Along the Shore by Millicent E. Selsam and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
The First Doll in the World by Lee Pape and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
The Raccoon and Mrs. McGinnis by Patricia M. Martin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
Toby Tyler; or, Ten Weeks with a Circus by James Otis and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
What Is for My Birthday? by Isabel and Frederick Eberstadt and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
When I Go to the Moon by Claudia Lewis and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
Where Does the Butterfly Go When It Rains? by May Garelick and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1961
Baby Elephant and the Secret Wishes by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
Good Hunting Little Indian by Peggy Parish and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
Like Nothing At All by Aileen Fisher and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
Penguin's Way by Johanna Johnston and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
Senor Baby Elephant, the Pirate by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
The Mouse and the Lion by Eve Titus and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
Watch That Watch by Hila Colman and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
When a Boy Wakes Up in the Morning by Faith McNulty and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1962
Baby Elephant Goes to China by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
Fins and Tails by Elizabeth A. Campbell and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
Giving Away Suzanne by Lois Duncan and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
Peter's Brownstone House by Hila Colman and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
Sir Kevin of Devon by Adelaide Holl and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
The Athenians in the Classical Period by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
The Beloved Friend by Marguerite Vance and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
When a Boy Goes to Bed at Night by Faith McNulty and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1963
Baby Elephant's Baby Book by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1964
Scarab for Luck by E. La Monte Meadowcroft and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1964
The Beach Before Breakfast by Maxine W. Kumin and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1964
The Boat That Mooed by Christopher Fry and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1965
The French Are Coming by Wilma P. Hays and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1965
Whale's Way by Johanna Johnston and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1965
Hawaiian Myths of Earth, Sea, and Sky by Vivian Laubach Thompson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1966
The First Farmers in the New Stone Age by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1966
White Bird by Clyde R. Bulla and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1966
A Wreath of Christmas Legends by Phyllis McGinley and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1967
Cynthia and the Unicorn by Jean Todd Freeman and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1967
Jesus Christ, Son of God by Mary L. Ellis and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1967
The Little Woodcock by Berniece Freschet and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1967
The Lost Prince by Frances Burnett and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1967
The Plymouth Thanksgiving by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1967
Midnight Alarm: The Story of Paul Revere's Ride by Mary K. Phelan and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1968
On the Sand Dune by Doris Orgel and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1968
Salt Boy by Mary Perrine and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1968
Su An by Doris Johnson and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1968
The Beginnings of Cities: Re-creation in Pictures and Text of Mesopotamian Life from Farming to Early City Building by Leonard Weisgard and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1968
Growing Time by S.S. Warburg and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1969
How Things Began (includes The First People in the World, and First Days of the World) by Gerald Ames and Rose Wyler and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1969
Journey to Jericho by Scott O'Dell and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1969
Look at the Moon by May Garelick and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1969
Shepherdess of France: Remembrances of Jeanne d'Arc by Judith Masefield and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1969
What Makes a Bird a Bird? by May Garelick and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1969
Nannabah's Friend by Mary Perrine and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1970
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1970
And It Came to Pass by Jean Slaughter and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1971
Doctor Proctor and Mrs. Merriwether by Irma S. Black and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1971
The Elephants's Child by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1971
The Magic Ringlet by Konstantin Paustovsky and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1971
Wake Up and Goodnight by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1971
How the Leopard Got His Spots by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1972
Try and Catch Me by Nancy Jewell and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1972
Calf, Goodnight by Nancy Jewell and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1973
Try on a Shoe by Mancure and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1973
How the Rhinocerous Got His Skin by Rudyard Kipling and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1974
The Golden Christmas Tree by Jan Wahl and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1988
The Golden Birthday Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard 1989

Archaeolinguistics

It is interesitng to come across old words and find out about there origins and relevance. I came across an essay that mentioned sockdologize and had to go digging to find out what it meant.

The quirky site, Dear Aunt Nettie has a good post on the word, its origins and its significance.

Dear Recondite:

Oh, that's an easy one. It's the answer to the trivia question:

"What does the word "sockdologize," mean, and why is the word crucial to American history?"

Answer:

"Sockdologize" and its many variations (sockdologer, sockdollarger, etc.) was a slang term which became very popular in the United States during the 1850s and '60s, and is still used in some parts of the country to this day. It means a forceful or decisive blow ­ a finisher; something that ends or settles a matter and leaves nothing else to follow, a knockdown blow, a decisive overwhelming finish, reply, argument, conclusive remark, or blow, which leaves no possible response.

Random House Unabridged: "His right jab is a real sockdolager." "The revelation of his actual source of income was a sockdolager from which this politician never recovered."

American frontierspersons were famous for their ability to invent new words, like skeedaddle, bushwhack, absquatulate, tarnation, gumption, bulldozer, etc., etc. In British and Continental stage plays of the time a standard comic character was the backwoods American with his outlandish talk and manners. The most famous melodramatist of the time, Dion Boucicault,² made his reputation on wily old American backwoods characters who sounded like ignorant cusses but were able to see through the plots and schemes of the aristocracy and big business.

So what role does this unlikely coinage play in American history?

The adjective form "sockdolagizing" was one of the last words that Abraham Lincoln ever heard.

The play, "Our American Cousin" by Tom Taylor, which was playing at Ford's Theater in Washington DC on the night of April 14, 1865, has a line in in which always brought down the house:

"Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal-- you sockdologizing old man-trap."¹ John Wilkes Booth, an actor himself and aware of the dialog, knew that the line brought the loudest burst of laughter from the audience, and as the audience laughed, Booth fired at that precise moment to muffle the loud noise of his fatal shot.
---
¹ http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/ouamc11.txt
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dion_Boucicault

Two Peas in Different Pods

In researching this coming week's Featured Author, Leonard Weisgard, I came across this comment in his Caldecott acceptance speech:

Books at school were upsetting to me. Those frightening black and blue worlds, where everything was outlined in black and indiscriminately filled in with one color. There were blue cows and blue pigs and blue chickens and blue barns and blue people beneath a sky filled with blue sunshine and blue trees on blue grass. On the next page the world would suddenly have turned orange. An orange child in an orange world carrying an orange basket filled with orange juice, up an orange hill under an orange sky.

Susan Jeffers had a completely different take on exactly the same situation:

. . . The books were illustrated with beautiful, small ink drawings. These black-and-white illustrations sometimes had a spot of color - maybe blue or orange - that was it.

Looking back now, I realize I did not miss the bigger color pictures we now have in books. Those small, spare illustrations left my imagination free to create. This ability came into good use when, as a teen, I struggled to stay awake through the Reverend Stoneton's sermons. High in the choir loft, I would tell myself stories, creating in my imagination all the pictures that were not included in My Book House.

They both then went on to create beautiful illustrations for a new generation of children, who wouldn't have to put up so often with blue and orange pictures.

Susan Jeffer books in print.

Leonard Weisgard books in print.

Leonard Wiesgard Samples








Susan Jeffers Samples

Padraic Colum

A man of many parts was that Padraic Colum and yet few now know of him. Poet, playwright, very successful children's author, he made a big splash but the ripples of his success have close to disappeared. His story telling powers are undiminished and his materials (myths and legends) remain as important as ever. Colum is the type of author whom we are seeking to bring to the attention of a discerning audience.

Padraic Colum was born Patrick Collumb, the first of eight children, in Collumbkille, County Longford in the center of Ireland on December 8, 1881. His father managed the local workhouse - a combination of homeless shelter, YMCA, hostel and work center.

Colum describes his early life in The Junior Book of Authors:

I was born nearly in the middle of Ireland. The town I was born in has nothing to be said for it. However, my father happened to be the master of a workhouse; consequently I was born where waifs, strays, tramps congregated.

In those far-back days the workhouse was an oddly significant institution in Ireland. It was mainly for people who were too poor to support themselves - these were the paupers, mostly old men and women or younger people more or less incapacitated or defective. Having the run of the institution from the kitchens to the dormitories, as a child I saw a lot of these paupers and was often entertained by the gossip and the histories of old men and women who were survivals from an Ireland that had disappeared.

But I wasn't nearly as much interested in the resident-paupers as I was in the "casuals" - people who entered for a night and went away in the morning, coming into the workhouse for a night's shelter and supper and breakfast. This particular workhouse was on the highway between the east and the west, between Leinster and Connacht, and the "casuals" whom I watched coming and going through the big gate were men and women who were genuine wayfarers, nomads, the "masterless men" whom English writers noted as being common in Ireland generations before - tramps and their women and children.

There were also itinerant artisans, men who followed decaying trades, and ballad singers with tramp fiddlers and pipers. As I watched them taking the road of a morning, going I knew not into what mysterious region, the romance of the road was brought home to me and I think it has never quite left my mind. It is on account of these early impressions, I think, that so many of my poems and stories are about wandering people.

While I was still a child I left the town I was born in and went to live in the next county. There, in my grandmother's house, I heard stories before I read them and songs and scraps poetry before I had to learn any at school. I was fortunate, I believe, in getting this sort of oral knowledge, which left me with an interest in legends and traditions.

Colum only received eight years of formal education. In 1898, at seventeen, he began work as a clerk at the Irish Railway Clearing House in Dublin. In Dublin he fell into, and became a founding member of the Celtic Revival/Irish Renaissance. He kept company with and became friends of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, J.M. Synge and other leading lights. While still working as a clerk, he penned a number of plays which were well received.

In 1901, when barely twenty, he helped found the Irish National Theatre (later called the Abbey Theatre) as well as later, in 1911, The Irish Review. He wrote close to a dozen plays in the first decade of the century, several of which were produced at the Abbey Theatre. He also published a couple of collections of his poetry. It was in this period that Colum converted his birth name of Patrick Collumb to its Gaelic equivalent, Padraic Colum.

In 1912 he married a fellow writer, Mary Macguire. Colum at this point had also become involved in the Irish Volunteers and took part in gun-running for the independence movement. In 1914, short on cash, the Colums moved to the USA, initially for just a few months. In his autobiographical piece in The Junior Book of Authors Colum recounts how he came to start writing children's stories.

Then in 1914 I came to America for the first time. It was while in America, in the first year I was here, that I began to write stories for children. My beginning in this field was something of an accident. In order to keep what knowledge I had of Irish I used to translate every day some passages from that language. The only text I had at one time was a long folk story. This I translated. Then one of the editors of the New York Tribune who had charge of a children's page asked me if I had anything that could go on that page. I handed in my translation and it was published as a serial.

The famous illustrator, Willy Pogány, who had just come to America, saw the stories and suggested that I should do a children's book which he would illustrate. I put the translations together, added greatly to them, and wove them into a long narrative, which was The King of Ireland's Son. Afterwards the Macmillan Company commissioned me to make the Iliad and the Odyssey into a children's book. And so I started writing books for children.

Other than a three-year sojourn in France in the early thirties, the Colums remained in the US and became American citizens in 1945. While continuing to write plays and poetry as well as a couple of novels, from the 1920's onwards, Colum lived comfortably off his success as a children's author. Among his literary peers it seems as if there was a view that he never fulfilled his promise as a playwright. Perhaps it is another example of the subversive American practice of coaxing people to provide what is wanted rather than what they wish to produce.

While there might have been a loss in rarified literature, I suspect it was more than made up for by the provision of wonderful retellings of folk tales and legends, for this was Colum's medium. By a significant margin, his most popular books were the retelling of the Greek myths and legends in The Children's Homer and The Golden Fleece. Next in line would be his Nordic and Irish myths and legends; The Children of Odin, A Treasury of Irish Folklore, Nordic Gods and Heroes, and The King of Ireland's Son.

I am especially partial to the Greek myths and legends. My youngest is a keen aficionado of epics, myths and legends and over the years I have probably read him a half dozen versions of Iliad and Odysseus. To test whether Colum had aged too much for the modern generation, last night I read the opening of The Children's Homer to him. It begins:

This is the story of Odysseus, the most renowned of all the heroes the
Greek poets have told us of--of Odysseus, his wars and his wanderings.
And this story of Odysseus begins with his son, the youth who was called
Telemachus.

The kiss of the Blarney Stone holds good and it looks like I am on the hook for the rest of the book.

Padraic Colum died January 12, 1972.

Independent Reader

Great Myths of the World by Padraic Colum Suggested

The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1918 Children's Stories Suggested

The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1918 Children's Stories Highly Recommended

The Children of Odin: A Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1920 Children's Stories Highly Recommended

The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1921 Children's Stories Recommended

The Island of the Mighty, Being the Hero Stories of Celtic Britain Retold from the Mabinogion by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Wilfred Jones 1924 Children's Stories Suggested

Bibliography

The Children of Lir [and] Brian Boru by Padraic Colum 1902 Plays
A Fiddler's House (produced in Dublin by Padraic Colum 1903 Plays
Broken Soil by Padraic Colum 1903 Play
The Foleys [and] Eoghan's Wife by Padraic Colum 1903 Plays
The Kingdom of the Young by Padraic Colum 1903 Plays
The Saxon Shillin' by Padraic Colum 1903 Plays
The Land by Padraic Colum 1905 Play
Heather Ale: A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum 1907 Poems
Studies (miscellany) by Padraic Colum 1907 Other
The Fiddlers' House by Padraic Colum 1907 Play
Wild Earth: A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum 1907 Poems
The Miracle of the Corn: A Miracle Play by Padraic Colum 1908 Plays
The Destruction of the Hostel, produced in Dublin by Padraic Colum 1910 Plays
Thomas Muskerry by Padraic Colum 1910 Play
My Irish Year by Padraic Colum 1912 (autobiography)
The Desert by Padraic Colum 1912 Plays
A Boy in Eirinn by Padraic Colum 1913 Children's Stories
Broad-Sheet Ballads, Being a Collection of Irish Popular Songs by Padraic Colum 1913 Other
The Betrayal by Padraic Colum 1913 Plays
Poems of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood by Padraic Colum 1916 Poems
The Irish Rebellion of 1916 and Its Martyrs: Erin's Tragic Easter by Padraic Colum 1916 Other
The King of Ireland's Son by Padraic Colum 1916 Children's Stories
Three Plays: The Fiddler's House, The Land, Thomas Muskerry by Padraic Colum 1916 Plays
Wild Earth and Other Poems by Padraic Colum 1916 Poems
"The Grasshopper" by Padraic Colum 1917 Plays
Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels by Padraic Colum 1917 Children's Stories
Mogu the Wanderer by Padraic Colum 1917 Play
The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1918 Children's Stories
The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said by Padraic Colum 1918 Children's Stories
The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1918 Children's Stories
The Girl Who Sat by the Ashes by Padraic Colum 1919 Children's Stories
The Boy Apprenticed to an Enchanter by Padraic Colum 1920 Children's Stories
The Children of Odin: A Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1920 Children's Stories The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Willy Pogany 1921 Children's Stories
An Anthology of Irish Verse by Padraic Colum 1922 Poems
Dramatic Legends and Other Poems by Padraic Colum 1922 Poems
The Children Who Followed the Piper by Padraic Colum 1922 Children's Stories
A Thousand and One Nights: Tales of Wonder and Magnificence by Padraic Colum 1923 Children's Stories
Castle Conquer by Padraic Colum 1923 Novel
The Six Who Were Left in a Shoe by Padraic Colum 1923 Children's Stories
Tales and Legends of Hawaii Volume 1: At the Gateways of the Day Volume 2: The Bright Islands by Padraic Colum 1924 Children's Stories
The Island of the Mighty, Being the Hero Stories of Celtic Britain Retold from the Mabinogion by Padraic Colum and illustrated by Wilfred Jones 1924 Children's Stories
The Peep-Show Man by Padraic Colum 1924 Children's Stories
The Forge in the Forest by Padraic Colum 1925 Children's Stories
The Voyages, Being Legends and Romances of Atlantic Discovery by Padraic Colum 1925 Children's Stories
The Road 'round Ireland by Padraic Colum 1926 Other
The Way of the Cross: Devotions on the Progress of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the Judgement Hall to Calvary by Padraic Colum 1926 Poems
Creatures by Padraic Colum 1927 Poems
The Fountain of Youth: Stories to Be Told by Padraic Colum 1927 Children's Stories
Book of Modern Catholic Prose by Padraic Colum 1928 Other
James Stephens by Padraic Colum 1928 Other
Balloon by Padraic Colum 1929 Plays
The Strindbergian Balloon by Padraic Colum 1929 Play
Cross Roads in Ireland by Padraic Colum 1930 Other
Old Pastures by Padraic Colum 1930 Poems
Orpheus: Myths of the World by Padraic Colum 1930 Other
Three Men: A Tale by Padraic Colum 1930 Children's Stories
Ella Young: An Appreciation by Padraic Colum 1931 Other
A Half-Day's Ride; or, Estates in Corsica by Padraic Colum 1932 Essays
Poems by Padraic Colum 1932 Poems
The Big Tree of Bunlahy: Stories of My Own Countryside by Padraic Colum 1933 Children's Stories
The White Sparrow by Padraic Colum 1933 Children's Stories
The Legend of Saint Columba by Padraic Colum 1935 Other
The Story of Lowery Maen by Padraic Colum 1937 Epic Poem
Flower Pieces: New Poems by Padraic Colum 1938 Poems
The Jackdaw by Padraic Colum 1939 Poems
Where the Winds Never Blew and the Cocks Never Crew by Padraic Colum 1940 Children's Stories
The Frenzied Prince, Being Heroic Stories of Ancient Ireland by Padraic Colum 1943 Children's Stories
The Show-Booth by Padraic Colum 1948 Plays
Ten Poems by Padraic Colum 1952 Poems
The Arabian Nights: Tales of Wonder and Magnificence by Padraic Colum 1953 Children's Stories
The Collected Poems of Padraic Colum by Padraic Colum 1953 Poems
A Treasury of Irish Folklore: The Stories, Traditions, Legends, Humor, Wisdom, Ballads, and Songs of the Irish People by Padraic Colum 1954 Other
The Vegetable Kingdom by Padraic Colum 1954 Poems
The Flying Swans by Padraic Colum 1957 Novel
Garland Sunday by Padraic Colum 1958 Poems
Irish Elegies by Padraic Colum 1958 Poems
Our Friend James Joyce by Padraic Colum 1958 Memoir
Ourselves Alone! The Story of Arthur Griffith and the Origin of the Irish Free State by Padraic Colum 1959 Other
The Poet's Circuits: Collected Poems of Ireland by Padraic Colum 1960 Poems
Between Friends: Letters of James Branch Cabell and Others by Padraic Colum 1962 Other
Moytura: A Play for Dancers by Padraic Colum 1963 Plays
The Poems of Samuel Ferguson by Padraic Colum 1963 Poems
Roofs of Gold: Poems to Read Aloud by Padraic Colum 1964 Poems
The Challengers: Monasterboice, Glendalough, Cloughoughter by Padraic Colum 1966 Plays
The Stone of Victory and Other Tales by Padraic Colum 1966 Children's Stories
"The Road 'round Ireland" by Padraic Colum 1967 Plays
Images of Departure by Padraic Colum 1969 Poems
Selected Short Stories of Padraic Colum by Padraic Colum 1985 Other
Selected Plays of Padraic Colum by Padraic Colum 1989 Plays
Selected Poems of Padraic Colum by Padraic Colum 1989 Poems
Kate Mary Ellen and the Fairies by Padraic Colum 1997 Children's Stories

Holy Season

With our power and technology, our instant communication all the time anywhere and our huge stores of knowledge and information virtually at our fingertips, we become more and more insulated from the vicissitudes of life and nature. Famines are in remote places, plagues are (mostly) a thing of the past. We berate ourselves if after a fire, tornado or hurricane, things are not returned to normal, better and renewed, within a year.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was recently complaining, "There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul." But the issue is not Western, it is modern. All across the globe as societies become wealthier, they become more urbanized, and they become more isolated from the happenstance of weather and fate. It inescapably builds our confidence and erodes our humility.

As adults, we become wrapped up in thinking ahead, contingency planning, preparing for the best and worst. These steps are part of what allows us to be successful. These are also activities that do not come naturally to children. Cause and effect are a relationship that only becomes apparent to them over time as are the concepts of responsibility and outcome.

Children don't know any of this at first and it is part of why they experience life with an intensity that is hard for adults to recapture. Visual intensity, sense of smell, emotional intensity. We older ones have become accustomed to the emotional buffetings of the world, so accustomed we no longer notice them. Like the noise of a train near a house; when you first move in it's a constant distraction and within a month you don't even realize it's there.

For children everything is new and fresh. Life is full of wonder, terror, awe, and magic.

We approach the holy season, a time in the year when most of the major religions mark some of their most pivotal events. Behind the liturgy and the traditions, behind the barrage of commerce, behind all of this is an invitation to renew the ties of our own lost sense of wonderment and celebrate that wonder with our children. A time to re-explore the primal sense of reverence, awe, and incomprehension.

As a parent I take every opportunity to try and remind the kids as they grow older to look at things with fresh eyes. It is a delicate balance between imagination and practicality. How do you distinguish being open-minded (good) from being empty-minded (bad)? It is so much easier when they are younger.

But not always. Some years ago when my youngest was about six years old, we were living in Britain. As I had lived in England as a child in the sixties as well as in the seventies, I had my own list of places I remembered as being especially fascinating; Madame Tussaud's, Stonehenge, Tintangel.

Late in November the kids had a three-day weekend and so we headed off to Devon and Cornwall. Tintangel, though actually a twelfth century castle, is the reputed location of King Arthur's court. It is an inspiring site: many ancient, weathered walls and buildings precariously perched on a steep headland jutting dramatically out into the Atlantic and overtopping a mysterious grotto of wave-gouged caverns.

The day we visited started out cold, wet, grey and overcast. By the time we reached Tintagel, though, it was only intermittently sprinkling us and, with a fresh steady wind off the Atlantic, we were treated to periodic outbreaks of blue sky. It was what counts as a beautiful autumn day in November in England.

We had explored the various walled areas of the castle and had crossed over to a mesa-like protrusion, rising with sheer walls of crumbling rock a couple of hundred feet above the crashing Atlantic waves but topped with a three or four acre patchy grass field. As we clambered up over one of the ridges to get to this field, of a sudden, a very large grey and silver-white seagull, gliding on the wind, banked and alighted on the ridge not fifteen feet in front of us. He perched there, a depthless black eye cocked towards us, teetering somewhat in the 20 mile an hour wind rushing over him, pushing down on us. As you looked up at him on the ridge line, so close, swaying in the wind, bright blue sky behind him studded with huge dark clouds skidding by, it was impossible not to feel the magic of the moment.

I was helping my six year old who was very focused on his handholds and feet gripping the rock. I leaned over to him and whispered dramatically, "Look up there. Do you see it? Do you think it might be the spirit of some ancient knight of the round table, returned to guard Tintagel?" My little engineer looked up at me and said "It's a seagull, Daddy!"

Some lose their innocence earlier than others.

So in this holy season it is a time when we should consider pulling ourselves out of the routine and the mundane. It is so easy to get wrapped up in squeezing in that one last project at work, the last business trip, the last Christmas shopping trip. So easy to accidentally convey to our children that it is all tactical, mechanistic, and, well, ordinary.

Regardless of the specifics of your religion, how do we as parents create an environment where these emotions of awe and reverence can be acknowledged and celebrated?

As the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass tells us, it is a matter of practice.

'I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.

'Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. 'Try again:
draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one CAN'T
believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen.
'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things
before breakfast!"

There are so many good books that pivot on a sense of wonder and awe. Sometimes it is all in the words, sometimes it is in the plot, sometimes the character.

The King James Bible is full of some of the most wonderful language, often times so far beyond real comprehension that the focus is all on the majesty of the words. For example, from Isaiah Chapter 6:

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon
a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.


Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain
he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with
twain he did fly.


And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the
LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.


And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried,
and the house was filled with smoke.

The following is a list, eclectic in the extreme, of books that might help bring a sense of wonder and awe and the holy to your children in this holy season.


Picture Books

Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Helen Berger Highly Recommended

Christopher's Harvest Time by Elsa Beskow Recommended

A Small Miracle by Peter Collington Highly Recommended

King Midas and the Golden Touch by Charlotte Craft and illustrated by Kinuko Craft Recommended

Carl's Masquerade by Alexandra Day Highly Recommended

Because I Love You by Max Lucado and illustrated by Mitchell Heinz Recommended

Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet Highly Recommended

The Whales' Song by Dyan Sheldon and illustrated by Gary Blythe Highly Recommended

A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor Highly Recommended

Oscar Wilde's the Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde and Elissa Grodin and illustrated by Laura Stutzman Recommended

Independent Reader

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie and illustrated by Scott Gustafson Recommended

The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann and illustrated by Roberto Innocenti Recommended

Norman Rockwell's Faith of America by Fred Bauer illustrated by Norman Rockwell Suggested

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis Highly Recommended

The Holy Bible Illustrated by Barry Moser Recommended

Young Adult

Holy Terrors by Janetta Rebold Benton Suggested

Hieronymus Bosch by Hieronymus Bosch and Larry Silver Suggested

The Book of Kells by Bernard Meehan Suggested

Mere Oblivion

Here is an interesting article by Ian Hamilton in the March 16, 2000 Guardian, Against Oblivion. He is writing about poets' reputations rather than about authors of children's books but the dynamics are not dissimilar.

These ups and downs are to be expected and literary history is full of them. I mean, whatever happened to the 19th-century Spasmodics? And maybe we should not shed too many tears for fashion's victims. After all, getting to be fashionable is not usually an accident. Maybe we need these intermittent purges. On the other hand, there are poets who, by keeping to one side of the ins and outs of literary fashion, do find themselves rather more to one side than they would wish. By holding back, they run the risk of getting lost.

Rather more to one side than they would wish - how nicely put.

The Bibliomaniac's Prayer

The Bibliomaniac's Prayer by Eugene Field

Keep me, I pray, in wisdom's way
That I may truths eternal seek;
I need protecting care to-day,--
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
So banish from my erring heart
All baleful appetites and hints
Of Satan's fascinating art,
Of first editions, and of prints.
Direct me in some godly walk
Which leads away from bookish strife,
That I with pious deed and talk
May extra-illustrate my life.

But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation's way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep,
Whereon when other men shall look,
They'll wail to know I got it cheap.
Oh, let it such a volume be
As in rare copperplates abounds,
Large paper, clean, and fair to see,
Uncut, unique, unknown to Lowndes.

For it was then that I knew I loved reading

Robert Louis Stevenson in his Collected Essays has one, Random Memories: rosa quo locorum, describing his earliest recollections of reading.

I was sent into the village on an errand; and, taking a book of fairy tales, went down alone through a fir-wood, reading as I walked. How often since then has it befallen me to be happy even so; but that was the first time: the shock of that pleasure I have never since forgot, and if my mind serves me to the last, I never shall, for it was then that I knew I loved reading.

Plus this interesting observation on the move from being read to to reading.

To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of their pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the malady of not marking' overtakes them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never again the chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. Non ragioniam of these. But to all the step is dangerous; it involves coming of age; it is even a kind of second weaning. In the past all was at the choice of others; they chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to their own tune the books of childhood. In the future we are to approach the silent, inexpressive type alone, like pioneers; and the choice of what we are to read is in our own hands thenceforward.

War in the winter

I just finished Alex Kershaw's The Longest Winter. This is the story of a single platoon, the eighteen members of which, through the dogged defense of their position at the beginning of the German onslaught at the Battle of the Bulge on December, 16, 1944, managed to delay the advance of a critical German regiment of Panzer tanks for twelve crucial hours.

Amazingly, the entire platoon survived despite a couple of members receiving dreadful wounds. Because they were all captured (only surrendering after having completely exhausted their supply of ammunition) and through the discombobulation associated with the decommissioning of captured soldiers at the end of the war, the significance of their actions and the beneficial consequences of their defense was not recognized until years later. Medals and commendations for members of the platoon did not actually get awarded until the 1970's.

More than the battle actions, this is a good book for painting the most remarkable feats of very ordinary American citizen soldiers.

You might pair this with a pictorial version of an incident of the Battle of the Bulge, captured in Peggy Mercer's There Come a Soldier .

Best foot forward

I am reading Thomas J. Cutler's The Battle of Leyte Gulf, currently out of print. This late WWII naval battle doesn't receive a lot of attention but Cutler's account is a nice mix of historical analysis and battle action.

I have just finished his account of the bombing of and ultimately the sinking of the USS Princeton, an aircraft carrier. The Princeton was commanded by Captain William H. Buracker. Also aboard was Captain John M. Hoskins, who was scheduled to succeed Buracker in command of the Princeton within the next couple of weeks.

In the course of the engagement, 108 sailors lost their lives and 190 were wounded, including Captain Hoskins who lost a foot. There is a post script to the story.

"Captain Hoskins had, of course, missed his chance - by a frustratingly few days - to command USS Princeton. And he had lost a foot. But John Hoskins was not the kind of man to be easily deterred. He was eventually fitted with an artificial foot and was expected, under the circumstances, to accept diability retirement as his lot. There had not been a 'peg leg' captain in the Navy since the days when sail yielded to steam. But Hoskins petitioned the Navy to allow him to remain on active duty, and, when it was decided that one of the newly built aircraft carriers was to be named Princeton, Hoskins applied for her command. He insisted that he was 'one foot ahead of the other applicants' and argued that he was better qualified for the assignment because, in a middle-of-the-night emergency, he could get to his battle station more rapidly than anyone else since he would already be wearing a sock and a shoe. His arguments may not have been convincing, but his spirit certainly was. John Hoskins was given command of the new USS Princeton."

Death of the Bird

A.D. Hope was a wonderful, if occassionally racy, Australian poet. You can find his works in any anthology of Australian Poetry.

As I look out at the woods, a steady, cold rain drizzling down this late-November day, The Death of the Bird seems to match the mood.

The Death of the Bird

For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.

Year after year a speck on the map divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home;

And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest;
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart's possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast.

The sands are green with a mirage of valleys;
The palm-tree casts a shadow not its own;
Down the long architrave of temple or palace
Blows a cool air from moorland scraps of stone.

And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger,
The delicate voice, more urgent with despair,
Custom and fear constraining her no longer,
Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air.

A vanishing speck in those inane dominions,
Single and frail, uncertain of her place.
Alone in the bright host of her companions,
Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space.

She feels it close now, the appointed season:
The invisible thread is broken as she flies;
Suddenly, without warning, without reason,
The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies.

Try as she will the trackless world delivers
No way, the wilderness of light no sign,
The immense and complex map of hills and rivers
Mocks her small wisdom with its vast design.

And darkness rises from the eastern valleys,
And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath,
And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.

Louisa May Alcott

There are some stories that somehow seem to escape the shackles of language, place, time and fashion. They entertain and edify children down the generations without ever seeming old, stilted or "peculiar" even when there are details that anchor them in a different time and place.

Think about the Railway Children, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Wizard of Oz, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, King Solomon's Mines and Tom Sawyer. What is the authorial sleight of hand that allows these books to remain relevant and entertaining over such spans of time and reach children with knowledge and sophistication unimaginable to the author of the story at the time it was written?

It is in this pantheon of books out of time that Louisa May Alcott's Little Women resides. Written one hundred and forty years ago and set in the northeast US at the time of the Civil War, it has an identifiable time and setting but is a timeless read.

I cannot recognize what it is that set these books apart nor do I know of any research which has attempted to identify those characteristics that permit a book to unfetter itself from the period in which it is written. If you go back to the time of publication and identify the other books which were in circulation, there are often others which were even more popular but have faded completely from the scene. Reading these other books, you can often, like a building or a song, place it to the quarter century if not the decade based on the language, structure and tone of the book. But by being so anchored in their time of writing, they seem doomed to die with those times, whereas others float free on down the tide of generations, always fresh and entertaining.

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania to Amos Bronson Alcott and his wife Abigail May Alcott on November 29, 1832. She lived her life predominantly in Massachusetts, alternating between Boston and Concord. Louisa was the second of four daughters: Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth, and May.

Alcott led an initially difficult, but fascinating life. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was an idealistic, progressive transcendentalist philosopher, very active in many movements and launching many initiatives but in the end, apparently very impractical, leaving the family usually in straightened financial circumstances.

Alcott was home-schooled consistent with her father's theories but supplemented by the very rich intellectual environment with which he enveloped the family. Not only were there rarified discussions within the family on social and scientific issues but the young Alcott was taken under the wing of family friends and neighbors including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller. She apparently spent much time in Emerson's library reading deeply and broadly.

Out of this hot-house transcendentalist environment, she took away a deep commitment to helping her family, helping others, and an abiding respect for hard work. After a reasonably disastrous family exercise in utopian community living (in the community christened Fruitlands) when she was twelve and which resulted in borderline starvation, Alcott committed herself to doing whatever was required to provide for her family.

She was exposed to writing from an early age, all four daughters being required to maintain a journal of thoughts and observations which would then be reviewed with her parents, all as part of her practical and spiritual education. There were a number of entries through these middle teenage years reflecting her commitment to see her family through the hard times such as this one when she was fifteen "I will do something by and by. Don't care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I'll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won't." This was a fairly prescient forecast as she did indeed do all these things (as well as acting as a tutor for Emerson's daughter and working as a household servant) as she tried to bring in money and did indeed eventually become wealthy and happy.

In her mid-teens, and like Jo in Little Women, Alcott began writing stories and was earning money by selling poems and sentimental/passion stories, often under the pen name of A.M. Barnard, to various magazines and other publications by her late teens. She published her first book, Flower Fables, a collection of fairy stories originally written for Emerson's daughter, Emma, in 1854 when she was twenty-two.

All during these years of financial strain, uncertainty and near impoverishment, Alcott, as with the rest of her family, remained true to their progressive ideals, supporting various movements including women's suffrage, abolition, coeducation, vegetarianism, temperance, education reform.

In 1856, after a number of years of poor health, Alcott's beloved younger sister, Elizabeth, died of scarlet fever. This was followed soon after by the marriage of her older sister Anna, bringing to a close the many years of family life together. It was these first twenty-four years of her life and her family experience that formed the basis for the books which were to bring her literary fame and fortune.

With the coming of the Civil War, Alcott, wanting to help, went to Washington, D.C. to serve as a nurse. She only served for six weeks before contracting typhoid and being invalided back home. The treatment, including doses of mercury, was almost worse than the disease and she suffered various recurrent symptoms throughout the remainder of her life. While serving, she had written many letters home describing the terrible conditions and circumstances to which she was exposed and the suffering of her patients.

She used this material to writer her second book, Hospital Sketches, which was published in 1863. The public was desperate for all information about the war and this combined with her distinctive, straightforward writing style in which she was able to relate terrible stories in a way that was moving without being overly sentimental, brought her to the attention of a much wider critical audience than she had had with her earlier writings and book.

Encouraged by the positive reception of Hospital Sketches, Alcott produced seven books over the next five years. These books provided some measure of financial and literary success and she was able to achieve her goal of beginning to pull her family out of their precarious financial circumstances.

Her publisher Thomas Niles, encouraged her to write a girls' story. Alcott was reluctant at first and skeptical of her ability to produce anything that might find an audience but accepted the suggestion and began work on a story, basing it on her own life. Her hesitancy is reflected in her journal recorded at this time, "So I plod away, though I don't enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls or knew many, other than my sisters; but our queer plays and experiences might be interesting, though I doubt it."

So out of this very distinctive up-bringing, peculiar life experiences, and the need to put food on the table was created one of America's iconic stories. There was no literary guile, no effort to write a classic, no deliberate artifice in structuring the story - simply another book to earn some money.

Alcott wrote the story in six weeks and Little Women, substantially drawing from her own life, was published in 1868. It was an instant and huge success. So successful in fact that she immediately sat down and wrote a sequel Little Women, or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, Part Second in two months. Ever since, these two volumes have almost always been published as a single book, Little Women.

With the triumph of Little Women, Alcott had arrived at a station of literary and financial success, for which she had striven but had seemed completely improbable. Some of the things that set Little Women apart from the run of the mill children's books of the time were that it was a warm and sympathetic story, it told a story without preaching, it was very concrete in its descriptions of people and settings and the protagonists were clearly attractive character's but all flawed in their own particular way; they were characters with whom children could empathize.

This period saw the emergence of a number of children's protagonists each of whom were essentially good kids, but all of whom had flaws. In addition to Jo and her sisters in Little Women, there was also The Story of a Bad Boy by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, and of course the north stars in this particular constellation, The Adventures of Tom Sawyerby Mark Twain.

There are considered to be eight Little Women stories though they are more of a hive of stories than a series per se. Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out all cover the March family and children. An Old Fashioned Girl; Eight Cousins, The Aunt-Hill; Rose in Bloom; Under the Lilacs, and Jack and Jill are considered part of the series as well even though they do not focus on the March family.

As she wrote further stories, Alcott's writing style became more structured and there is perhaps more intention to communicate a particular message.

As with any great story whose success is assured by popularity, there have of course been legions of literary army ants eager to attack and draw out all sorts of points ranging from literary critiques to assaults on the stories for various social short-comings. I think these can be safely tucked away in some sort of basement collection of critical writings that don't amount to a hill of beans.

You can turn your children loose on these books and be confident that they will enjoy them. I would add, whether representative or not, that they ought to be left where young boys can get their hands them as well. I remember one long summer finding myself one day without anything to read and raiding my sister's room for anything that might be good and first latching on to Little Women. I enjoyed it so much I then kidnapped her Little Men as well as Jo's Boys. Had I not been bereft of reading material I probably would never have thought of trying them. I am glad that I did.

Alcott never married. Her father died March 4, 1888 and Louisa May Alcott followed him two days later on March 6, 1888.

Bibliography

Flower Fables by Louisa May Alcott 1855

Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott 1863

On Picket Duty, and Other Tales by Louisa May Alcott 1864

The Rose Family. A Fairy Tale by Louisa May Alcott 1864

Moods by Louisa May Alcott 1865

Nelly's Hospital by Louisa May Alcott 1865

A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott written in 1866 and published in 1995

The Mysterious Key, and What It Opened by Louisa May Alcott 1867

Aunt Kipp by Louisa May Alcott 1868

Kitty's Class Day by Louisa May Alcott 1868

Little Women or, Meg. Jo, Beth and Amy, 2 volumes by Louisa May Alcott and illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith 1868

Louisa M. Alcott's Proverb Stories by Louisa May Alcott 1868

Louisa May Alcott's Proverb Stories by Louisa May Alcott 1868

Morning-Glories, and Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott 1868

Psyche's Art by Louisa May Alcott 1868

Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories by Louisa May Alcott 1869

An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott 1870

V.V.: or, Plots and Counterplots by Louisa May Alcott 1870

Will's Wonder Book by Louisa May Alcott 1870

Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott 1871

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Volume 1: My Boys, Etc. by Louisa May Alcott 1872

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Volume 2: Shawl-Straps, Etc. by Louisa May Alcott 1872

Something to Do by Louisa May Alcott 1873

Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott 1873

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Volume 3: Cupid and Chow Chow, Etc. by Louisa May Alcott 1874

Eight Cousins; or The Aunt-Hill by Louisa May Alcott 1875

Rose in Bloom. A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" by Louisa May Alcott 1876

Silver Pitchers: And Independence, A Centennial Love Story by Louisa May Alcott 1876

A Modern Mephistopheles, anonymous by Louisa May Alcott 1877

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Volume 4: My Girls, Etc. by Louisa May Alcott 1878

Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott 1878

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Volume 5: Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc.by Louisa May Alcott 1879

Meadow Blossoms by Louisa May Alcott 1879

Sparkles for Bright Eyes by Louisa May Alcott 1879

Water Cresses by Louisa May Alcott 1879

Jack and Jill: A Village Story by Louisa May Alcott 1880

Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Volume 6: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. by Louisa May Alcott 1882

Spinning-Wheel Stories by Louisa May Alcott 1884

Jo's Boys, and How They Turned Out. A Sequel to "Little Men" by Louisa May Alcott 1886

Lulu's Library. Vol. I. A Christmas Dream by Louisa May Alcott 1886

A Garland for Girls by Louisa May Alcott 1887

Lulu's Library. Vol. II. The Frost King by Louisa May Alcott 1887

A Modern Mephistopheles and A Whisper in the Dark by Louisa May Alcott 1889

Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters and Journals edited by Ednah D. Cheney 1889

Lulu's Library. Vol. III. Recollections by Louisa May Alcott 1889

Comic Tragedies Written by "Jo" and "Meg" and Acted by the Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 1893

A Round Dozen: Stories edited by Anne Thaxter Eaton 1963

Glimpses of Louisa: A Centennial Sampling of the Best Short Stories by Louisa May Alcott edited by Cornelia Meigs 1968

Behind a Mask; The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott by Louisa May Alcott and edited by Madeleine B. Stern 1975

Louisa's Wonder Book: An Unknown Alcott Juvenile by Louisa May Alcott 1975

Plots and Counterplots; More Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott by Louisa May Alcott 1976

Diana and Persis edited by Sarah Elbert 1978

Transcendental Wild Oats by Louisa May Alcott 1981

The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott edited by Joel Myerson 1987

The Works of Louisa May Alcott by Louisa May Alcott 1987

A Double Life: Newly Discovered Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott edited by Madeleine B. Stern 1988

Alternative Alcott edited by Elaine Showalter 1988

The Journals of Louisa May Alcott edited by Joel Myerson 1989

Louisa May Alcott's Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories edited by Daniel Shealy 1992

Louisa May Alcott Unmasked: Collected Thrillers edited by Madeleine B. Stern 1995

The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott 1996

A Modern Cinderella Or The Little Old Shoe And Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott 2002