The List: Part Two

Later Childhood

One of the absolute joys of chapter books is the independence you’ve gained. You can read. On your own. And your parents, though they might miss the snuggle at bedtime, are free from the tyranny of the inevitable “read it again!” that so defines the life of the pre-literate child.

Another America opened up when our teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School, Barbara Palesty, read us The Little House in the Big Woods. No longer in 1970s New York – picture dirty streets and graffiti-covered subways – I was transported to 1870s Wisconsin, and the world of a working family – everyone did their share – as they planted, harvested, then ate all their own food. A particular sense memory was the description of a holiday breakfast – bacon, coffee, and griddle cakes that Ma made into “pancake men” – that was my introduction to writing about food. I was also enamored of the long cotton prairie dresses Laura and Mary wore. So much better than the pleated polyester mini-skirts of the current day.

Mrs. Palesty may have read a few of the books, or the whole series – I’m not quite sure – but my own children read each and every one. And we still discuss them. When winter gets intense, I think of Laura, feeling “dull and stupid”; in my case, though, I have heat and enough food. In hers, there was none, and food was reduced to plain bread because massive snow drifts had stopped the supply trains from running.

Other notables from this era include The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, about an orphan and her adventures in an English garden, and Mandy, written by one Julie Andrews Edwards, about another orphan in a similar setting. I loved identifying the back cover black-and-white photo of the author as the one and only Maria Von Trapp from the bursting-with-color Sound of Music.

A special mention goes to The Cricket in Times Square, a small masterpiece by George Selden, with illustrations by the glorious Garth Williams, he of Little House books fame. For a New York child, nothing could be more delightful than the tale of Chester Cricket of Connecticut, adopted by Mario, the son of Mama and Papa Bellini, who run a newsstand in the Times Square subway station. It seems Chester has found his way to the Bellinis via the picnic basket of some day trippers to the country. “What ensues is an altogether captivating spin on the city mouse/country mouse story, as Chester adjusts to the bustle of the big city. Despite the cricket's comfortable matchbox bed (with Kleenex sheets); the fancy, seven-tiered pagoda cricket cage from Sai Fong's novelty shop; tasty mulberry leaves; the jolly company of Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat; and even his new-found fame as "the most famous musician in New York City," Chester begins to miss his peaceful life in the Connecticut countryside.” -- Goodreads

And then there is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a fantastic tale of running away to the perfect setting. For Claudia and her little brother, said setting is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How they board a train from — again —Connecticut, manage an overnight stay in the museum, and come in contact with one Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, is the stuff of dreams. Who wouldn’t want a night at the museum? I loved this book and apparently so did many others. It won the Newberry Medal in 1967 and was a Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time (2021).

But what about Nancy? As in Drew. I knew I was a reader when I devoured one book after another and prided myself on eventually attaining the whole series. I still have it. In addition to the satisfaction of acquisition -- children are acquisitive by nature -- there was an addictive quality to the Nancy Drews that I got swept up into. Get lost in one tale, finish, move on to the next. Then look at how nice they look on your shelf.

The small army of writers, under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, was onto something – formulaic writing -- when they created the characters, setting, and dialogue of Nancy’s girl world, where adventures and independence ruled the day.

My favorite Nancy Drew story is not one written by the Keene team, but told by a dear friend: She asked for one for her birthday, and a backpack arrived with the collection inside. “Best birthday gift ever!” she said.

Next week, the paperbacks of adolescence.

The List

Well, an approximation of the list of books I can remember reading. And, of course, enjoying.

Let’s start with Phase One: Childhood.

My Dolly and Me (Patricia Scarry, Eloise Wilkin)

A delightful Wonder Book with lovely illustrations by Eloise Wilkin about a little girl who takes her doll everywhere she goes. I wanted desperately to be transported to her Victorian house, with its sweet front porch and rolling lawn. Written by the wife of Richard Scarry.

Mr. Pine’s Mixed Up Signs & Mr. Pine’s Purple House (Leonard Kessler)

A hilarious tale about what happens when the town sign maker misplaces his glasses. With humorous illustrations and an engaging, easy-to-read style that automatically made me want more. Luckily, there was Mr. Pine’s Purple House, which urged non-conformity, in the guise of one purple house on a block of many other colors.

Billy Brown Makes Something Grand (Tamara Kitt)

If there is one book that defines my early childhood, it is Billy Brown, who insists he will make his mother a birthday cake. Chaos ensues when he locks mom out of the kitchen and throws in everything but the sink, including – almost – the family cat. Like the Mr. Pine books, Billy Brown was an easy reader that used rhyming and word repetition to help children learn basic literacy skills. My father and I could recite lines from Billy Brown years after I’d stopped reading it.

And then Peanuts. I read the books, I had a stuffed Snoopy, and years later used said Snoopy as a teaching tool. Small children loved when I justified a classroom rule because “Snoopy says so.” As a child, my mother was horrified that I was reading Peanuts, not the classics. My argument has always been that I was reading so it didn’t matter. And I grew up and read the classics, as well.

A word about Richard Scarry and the Ramona books.

I somehow missed the Richard Scarry books when I was little, but when they entered the lives of my own children I could not get enough. Neither could they. Their favorite activity was identifying all the produce in the market in The Best Word Book Ever. This became a favorite activity in my classroom, as well.

And Ramona.

What can I say? Except that we read all the books, and listened to all the tapes where Stockard Channing brilliantly did all the voices in Ramona’s world. Whole car trips were spent laughing hysterically over Ramona’s antics, including the one where she sabotages her sister’s birthday cake by throwing her doll in the oven, after reading Hansel and Gretel.

Next week, the chapter books.

One at a Time

The week in writing was really the month in reading.

For some time now, I’ve noticed I am reading more but processing less. An article for work, a book for pleasure, a book on tape for walking.

It was too much.

“I only read one book at a time,” several friends told me.

So, for the month of July, I tried an experiment. I read one book until I finished it.

And, not surprisingly, I was so much more satisfied. I retained more of what I read, connected with one writing style, and only exposed myself to one genre at a time.

I also felt calmer, less fractured, and more invested in the work of the writer I was reading.

And I finished multiple books. It’s all good…

Reading and Reconnecting: Part Two

Then there’s reading the work of others. Especially other artists.

I recently read Her Again, the Meryl Streep story, by Michael Schulman. Here’s what a great biographer does: he taps into the cultural context of his subject – in this case, the New York of the 1970s, where Streep landed after Yale – giving the reader a framework for understanding the development of the artist.

Streep’s story is inextricably linked to second-wave feminism, especially in her portrayal of Johanna in the iconic Kramer vs. Kramer, the history of The Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park, and the actor John Cazale, with whom Streep lived in a loft on Franklin Street before he died of lung cancer in 1978. I’d completely forgotten about that year’s snowstorm to end all storms, which, when over that spring, left mounds of garbage and sludge on the streets of New York. The following is my favorite section, where Schulman shows the multiple sides of Streep’s feminine persona at the end of second-wave feminism:

“The Deer Hunter took her dangerously close to Hollywood It-girl territory, but she would soon do her best to unplant those seeds. After Cazale’s death, Streep threw herself into three projects simultaneously. She played the tell-all–writing ex-wife in Woody Allen’s Manhattan. In Kramer vs. Kramer, she was Joanna, locked in a reckless custody battle for her son with her ex-husband, Dustin Hoffman’s Ted. And she played Katherine, the lead in a Shakespeare in the Park production of  The Taming of the Shrew. ‘Her life was like a one-woman repertory theater,’ Schulman writes. ‘Uptown, she was Joanna, the mother who leaves her son. Downtown, she was Jill, the wife who humiliates her husband. By night, in Central Park, she was Kate, the shrew to be tamed. Joanna, Jill, and Kate: three women who break the rules, leaving the men around them befuddled, cowed, and furious.’ ” – Vogue Magazine

As a native, such stories add richer layers – who knew there were more? – to the glory and madness of my own New York-in-the-1970s childhood.