I snagged this book a few years ago at a library sale mostly for all the books mentioned throughout its near 500 pages. It's impressive. The Acknowledgements list takes up the first four pages and after every section there are another couple of pages of books to read with children.
Francelia Butler's "Sharing Literature with Children" was designed for use in college classes and as a source book for libraries and elementary schools and though it tends to slant slightly further to being a textbook, it is still a great resource. It's full of essays about the theories behind children's literature and its symbolic themes.
It's appropriate and a nice coincidence given the sad news of author Maurice Sendak's passing today that I opened up the book to his name in this book originally published in 1977. Butler's class asked Sendak "How do you know what it is like to be a child?" His answer? "I have been a child."
The fiveparts cover "Toys and Games", "Fools", "Masks and Shadows", "Sex Roles", and "Circles" with numerous examples taken from sources like folk rhymes, folk play (Punch and Judy is referenced),fantasy, fiction, poetry, myths, fables, folktales,literary folktales, limericks, dramas, essays, biblical writings, and folk songs.
Some of the references are particularly great. For example here is a rhyme about Marilyn Monroe:
Marilyn Monroe
Broke her toe
Riding on a buffalo
On the way to Mexico
Some of the other pop culture heavy rhymes reference Macy's, Charlie Chaplin, and even Hitler (Part I, Page 10)
An essay included in the first part of the book on "toys becoming real" includes the first chapter of Sendak's "The Sign On Rosie's Door". I've always loved the first lines of this book.
There was a sign on Rosie's door.
It read, "If you want to know a secret knock three times."
I won't ruin what the secret is since it's revealed quite early on (next couple of lines), but the scene that follows the big reveal is one I can remember from my own childhood; of the magic that is possible in a clutched hairbrush and the extra-strong hold of Aqua Net hairspray. Even now, decades later I can still call to mind the memory of my agonised facial expressions in the mirror as I sang "Crazy For You" and squeezed myself into stonewash jeans one size too small before going out into the brightness of an imagined spotlight and pressing the play button on my Barbie cassette player only after the roar of the crowd died down.
In the preface Butler mentions that another intention of this book was to help adults reading it to recapture their hidden child. I know it did for me and like I said it's full of references to other works and excerpts. It's by far one of the best books I've bought for reference in recent years and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is writing for children themselves.
However, keep in mind it was printed in the 70's. Some of the things said are archaic at times. After reading Bettelheim and Campbell I've been left with this ideas that the themes of children's literature never really change, but seeing that I find some of the ideas archaic, perhaps it should be more reassuring to me because what I'm writing now doesn't follow Campbell's "Hero's Journey" as closely as I had once thought it might.
In the interview an with Issac Bashevis Singer found within the section of "Fools", Singer states that he needs three conditions to write: 1) I must have a plot. 2) I must have a desire or a passion to write a story. 3) I must have the conviction or the illusion that I am the only one who is able to write this particular story.
Personally I cannot agree with Singer's Third Condition. Maybe it is a lack of confidence on my part. I would replace his with "I have a reason." I knew I wanted to write books since I was four years old. I didn't know I wanted to write the sort of books I loved as a child until I was twenty-eight. The reason why I'm writing for children is because as a child books meant everything to me. They were friends. Compatriots. There would have been no dreaming, no passion, no sense of adventure in me without the books that are crammed on to the shelves of my autobibliography.
Books like this one remind me of some of those books whose titles I have forgotten and leads me towards the books I never met in my travels. The sort of books I am passionate to write.
Sendak said, "You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated."
He never said you couldn't write for the child inside yourself, which is above all things, wild or otherwise, what I think made Sendak very special. He wrote for the child that he still was and that he would always be.
I hope some day I accomplish the same. Until then I'll go on imagining I'm "Alinda" (another reference to Sendak's The Sign on Rosie's Door) until the dream comes true.
"The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.”
Francelia Butler's "Sharing Literature with Children" was designed for use in college classes and as a source book for libraries and elementary schools and though it tends to slant slightly further to being a textbook, it is still a great resource. It's full of essays about the theories behind children's literature and its symbolic themes.
It's appropriate and a nice coincidence given the sad news of author Maurice Sendak's passing today that I opened up the book to his name in this book originally published in 1977. Butler's class asked Sendak "How do you know what it is like to be a child?" His answer? "I have been a child."
The fiveparts cover "Toys and Games", "Fools", "Masks and Shadows", "Sex Roles", and "Circles" with numerous examples taken from sources like folk rhymes, folk play (Punch and Judy is referenced),fantasy, fiction, poetry, myths, fables, folktales,literary folktales, limericks, dramas, essays, biblical writings, and folk songs.
Some of the references are particularly great. For example here is a rhyme about Marilyn Monroe:
Marilyn Monroe
Broke her toe
Riding on a buffalo
On the way to Mexico
Some of the other pop culture heavy rhymes reference Macy's, Charlie Chaplin, and even Hitler (Part I, Page 10)
An essay included in the first part of the book on "toys becoming real" includes the first chapter of Sendak's "The Sign On Rosie's Door". I've always loved the first lines of this book.
There was a sign on Rosie's door.
It read, "If you want to know a secret knock three times."
I won't ruin what the secret is since it's revealed quite early on (next couple of lines), but the scene that follows the big reveal is one I can remember from my own childhood; of the magic that is possible in a clutched hairbrush and the extra-strong hold of Aqua Net hairspray. Even now, decades later I can still call to mind the memory of my agonised facial expressions in the mirror as I sang "Crazy For You" and squeezed myself into stonewash jeans one size too small before going out into the brightness of an imagined spotlight and pressing the play button on my Barbie cassette player only after the roar of the crowd died down.
In the preface Butler mentions that another intention of this book was to help adults reading it to recapture their hidden child. I know it did for me and like I said it's full of references to other works and excerpts. It's by far one of the best books I've bought for reference in recent years and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is writing for children themselves.
However, keep in mind it was printed in the 70's. Some of the things said are archaic at times. After reading Bettelheim and Campbell I've been left with this ideas that the themes of children's literature never really change, but seeing that I find some of the ideas archaic, perhaps it should be more reassuring to me because what I'm writing now doesn't follow Campbell's "Hero's Journey" as closely as I had once thought it might.
In the interview an with Issac Bashevis Singer found within the section of "Fools", Singer states that he needs three conditions to write: 1) I must have a plot. 2) I must have a desire or a passion to write a story. 3) I must have the conviction or the illusion that I am the only one who is able to write this particular story.
Personally I cannot agree with Singer's Third Condition. Maybe it is a lack of confidence on my part. I would replace his with "I have a reason." I knew I wanted to write books since I was four years old. I didn't know I wanted to write the sort of books I loved as a child until I was twenty-eight. The reason why I'm writing for children is because as a child books meant everything to me. They were friends. Compatriots. There would have been no dreaming, no passion, no sense of adventure in me without the books that are crammed on to the shelves of my autobibliography.
Books like this one remind me of some of those books whose titles I have forgotten and leads me towards the books I never met in my travels. The sort of books I am passionate to write.
Sendak said, "You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated."
He never said you couldn't write for the child inside yourself, which is above all things, wild or otherwise, what I think made Sendak very special. He wrote for the child that he still was and that he would always be.
I hope some day I accomplish the same. Until then I'll go on imagining I'm "Alinda" (another reference to Sendak's The Sign on Rosie's Door) until the dream comes true.
"The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.”
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