Reading Reflections (Reading Old Books) + Reading Journal (31 March)

I have more confidence in the dead than in the living.
—William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt was a contemporary of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, not to mention Jane Austen. He was considered one of the most important critics and essayists of the English language, although he is little read today (see Wikipedia).

I love his sentiments on reading old books, for I feel similarly. He comments that with contemporary authors, we’re distracted by their life and opinions, and they can be either for good or ill. With dead authors, if you want to know about them “you have only to look into their works.” When I read, I don’t want to interview an author and learn about their inspiration. Normally, I just want to read their books.

I also take issue with much modern literature, simply because I don’t like read about sex in books. It has to be really tastefully done for me not be annoyed. The sex in The Masterpiece was thus tastefully done. The sex in (the abandoned) Norwegian Wood – not so much.

At any rate, this quote from Hazlitt rang true to me this week:

The dust and smoke and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality.

Does a modern author’s life influence your read of their books? What about a dead author’s life? Which do you prefer: the old or the new? I do like modern books, I’m just picky about which ones.

Continue reading »

Reading Reflections: A Book Kingdom

The figure of my study is round, and has no more bare wall than what is taken up by my table and chair; so that the remaining parts of the circle present me a view of all my books at once, set upon five rows of shelves round about me. … ’Tis there that I am in my kingdom, and there I endeavor to make myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from all society. …

Michel de Montaigne*

Where is your book-kingdom? What is your dream book-kingdom if you don’t have it yet?

Continue reading »

Pat the Bunny and Other Interactive Books for Kids

When I handed Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt to my son after I read it to him in the library, he got a really big kid smile on his face and he held it close to him. It’s a small book, just right for little hands. But the pleasure comes from the interaction: my son can pet the fuzzy bunny, he can lift a cloth to play peek-a-boo with the main character, and he can scratch Daddy’s face. According to Wikipedia, Pat the Bunny is the number 6 all-time best-seller for children’s books, even 50 years after first publication. I’m not surprised, because the textures and the activities make this a book perfect for little kids. Continue reading »

Martel-Harper Challenge (Fourth Quarter 2008)

I know I’m insane to think about another challenge when I’m already feeling overwhelmed. But I love the concept and the reading list for the Martel-Harper Challenge. Continue reading »

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz

When I heard the concept of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz (monologues given by  medieval children), I thought it would be horribly boring. Monologues? I thought. What is fun about monologues? I thought children would be bored by these “Voices from a Medieval Village.”

To my delight, I found Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! to be easy and fun to read. I loved meeting the youth of Schlitz’s created medieval village and I would love to see a group of children perform this collection of monologues: it is a collection of personalities, and it shows how every person in a village has a role, be they rich or poor. I think children would like this book as well! Continue reading »

Ingenuity and Authority: Who Really Wrote Aesop’s Fables?

A few months ago, I read a version of Aesop’s Fables that I found online at Project Gutenberg, written and published in the early 1900s. I thought I’d read Aesop’s Fables.

I was interested, then, to read in chapter two (“Ingenuity and Authority”) of Seth Lerer’s Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter that Aesop’s fables differ markedly from generation and generation. The history of Aesop’s fables (the Aesopica), then, illustrates how the translators changed the message of a translated text, especially in literature for children. This prompted a question: How are the authors’ purposes and translators’ objectives subversively included in modern children’s literature, and does it matter? Continue reading »

Speak, Child: The Illiad as the Infancy of Children’s Literature

In his first chapter (“Speak, Child”) of Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, Seth Lerer discusses the “infancy” of children’s literature. Such a study requires a review of children’s education, as that is the basis for children’s literature. Lerer discusses the classics (the “really old classics,” as I’ve dubbed them on this blog) that were the basis of education in the ancient world.

I took note of two elements within his discussion of the classics. First, children’s education was based on recitation and memorization. Also, children learned from extracts of The Illiad and The Odyssey, and later The Aeneid, works that even then were “adult” literature. Continue reading »

The End of Publishing?

Chris at book-a-rama brought a most interesting article to my attention.

“The End: Have We Reached The End of Book Publishing As We Know It?” is a fascinating look at the publishing industry and struggles it is facing. While I don’t think publishing is going to ever end,  I thought the article had some great insights into book publishing. This article reminded me of some things I’ve been thinking about recently; that is, why do we read what we read? Continue reading »

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

I was dressing my 10-month-old son on his bedroom floor the other evening when he started reaching up. I saw his fingers brush the edge of the orange cover of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, which was on the edge of the second-lowest shelf. Once he was fully clothed in pajamas, I sat him up and pulled the book off the shelf.

“In the great green room,” I began, setting him on my knee.

He stopped squirming and clapped his hands together, ready for his story. Continue reading »

Stuart Little Was a Banned Book

The New Yorker has an interesting article this week about the development of literature for children and E.B. White’s writing of Stuart Little. Did you know that after it was published in 1945, Stuart Little was banned by many libraries? I haven’t read Stuart Little since I was a child, but I hadn’t realized that and I couldn’t think why it would have been banned. Why would anyone ban a seemingly harmless book about a mouse-child?

The reasons behind the ban are surprising. Banning Stuart Little was a sort of political battle between two woman in the newly developing field of children’s literature. How many other “bans” on books are simply personal?

If you are interested in children’s literature, banned books, or Stuart Little in particular, check out the article. It made me want to reread Stuart Little and see what the fuss was about.