2010 Wrap: Books, Part 3

As an adult reader, I go for relatively little new fiction, in favor of older writing. I figure the cream of the crop has had more time to rise to the top, and certainly there's no shortage of classics that my schooling and personal reading have still left untouched. Given my extremely limited reading time (I am a parent of young kids, after all), my chances of striking literary gold seem stronger with that stuff.

Yet with children's books, in terms of what’s available in print, the choice has generally been between the giants of years past (Sendak and Ingalls Wilder and Seuss and the like) or the brand-spanking-new. Almost all the middle ground is out of print, only to be found with the help of a good local librarian. (Or such is my perception.)

Things have been changing, though, largely thanks to the New York Review of Books Children's Collection, which continues to publish five or so of their trademark beautiful hardcover reissues of forgotten out-of-print kids' titles every year. It appears 2010 was an early-1960s year: We got E. K. Spykman's sparkling, offbeat 1960 chapter book Terrible, Horrible Edie; Marjorie Winslow and Erik Blegvad's infintely charming 1961 cookbook for dolls, Mud Pies and Other Recipes; a whimsical 1963 fable from Rhoda Levine and Edward Gorey, Three Ladies Beside the Sea; and Alastair Reid and Bob Gill’s 1960 picture-book paean to creative imagination, Supposing. Everything NYBRCC selects to republish is of such high quality, and the volumes are such gorgeous little gems of book production (just the right amount of old-fashioned), that I've come to anticipate every new reissue—if you’ll pardon the oxymoron—with only slightly less eagerness than readers of Dickens's serials must have awaited the continuation of his novels.

Other publishers seem to have caught on, at least with regard to their own backlists; the year saw a number of compilation volumes of greatest hits past. David Macaulay reached back to some of the books with which he first made his name—the classic architecture-for-kids titles Cathedral, Castle, and Mosque—dusted them off, and updated them for the marvelous Built to Last. Sara Pennypacker's neurotically hilarious Stuart books got a (remarkably affordable!) three-book compilation edition as well, The Amazing World Of Stuart.

I hope the trend continues and enlarges; there's still an awful lot of good material out there waiting to be rediscovered. (Not to harp on it, but I'd certainly be obliged if some helpful publisher would reprint the personal childhood favorite I mentioned a post ago.) In the meantime, I'll go wait for the next scrumptious NYRBCC title.

Coming in part 4: Can gross-out books for boys be literary?

[Images: Courtesy of New York Review of Books Children's Collection (Supposing, Edie) and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Built)]

New Books: Three Ladies Beside the Sea

I’ve previously mentioned the amazing New York Review Children’s Collection; most of its little-known classics I’ve previously encountered have been chapter books. But the company’s latest reissue is a 1969 picture book, in rhyming couplets. Oh, did I mention that the illustrations are by Edward Gorey?

Both my wife and I have long been big Gorey fans—in fact, I think one of my first birthday gifts to her was a copy of Amphigorey Also. And as I've mentioned before, our older son, Dash, is a big fan of all things spooky, so we gave him his first introduction to Gorey’s work (that same book) early, when he was four. Things were going fine—he loved the macabre tone and the style and humor of the artwork—until, halfway through “The Blue Aspic,” I suddenly remembered how it ends: With the haughty opera star stabbed to death by her longtime anonymous admirer/stalker. (The panel informs us of this with Gorey’s usual calm equanimity.)

So it was with particular excitement that I picked up Three Ladies Beside the Sea. There was no guarantee that a similar surprise didn’t await within, but the slim volume, written by Rhoda Levine, didn’t have that look. That impression was correct—this book is aimed at fairly young children (though its charm and beauty will appeal to older ones too), and there’s nothing more shocking in it than a woman who often spends hours up in a tree.

The story, as the title suggests, is of three elegant (this is Gorey, after all) women who live in neighboring houses by the ocean. Edith is happy and bubbly; Catherine is quiet but positive; Alice is pensive and distant. The three are friends, and even occasionally meet on the beach to play chamber music together. So Edith and Catherine are a bit worried about Alice’s habit of spending long hours in a tree, through all nature of weather, gazing at the sky as if searching for something.

When they ask her about it, she tells them that she once encountered a bird whose plumage was so lovely and whose song was so beautiful that she’s been floating ever since. Now she’s compelled to watch the skies for its return, as only hearing its song again can return her to the ground. After taking a moment to process this, the other two come up with some suggestions that might keep their friend out of the tree, with mixed results. (I won’t give away the ending, except to say it’s a happy one.)

It’s all charmingly told by Levine in short quatrains of well-crafted, unforced poetry that’s perfect for young readers. And then there are the illustrations, whose ornate gorgeousness will be no surprise to anyone familiar with Gorey’s work. Still, the dazzling quality of his art never gets old for me. (Nor, apparently, to my two-year-old, who has claimed Three Ladies Beside the Sea as part of his bedtime-reading canon—every night.)

In sum, it’s yet another gem to add to the set the New York Review Children’s Collection has already accumulated.

[Cover image courtesy of the New York Review Children’s Collection.]