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: Mud Pies and Other Recipes

Every few months, another reissue from the New York Review of Books Children’s Collection comes out. And every few months, I have to rave about it here, because they’re all just amazing. This time, it’s Marjorie Winslow’s 1961 gem Mud Pies and Other Recipes, a “cookbook for dolls,” as author explains in the introduction, “written for kind climates and summertime.” (Not all kids are into dolls, true, but I find these recipes work just as well for loveys and stuffed animals.)

Winslow’s tone is studiously serious, as befits the subject matter, and children will appreciate the lack of any hint of a patronizing tone. Yet she accomplishes this while never losing a certain twinkle: “Doll cookery is not a very exacting art. The time it takes to cook a casserole depends on how long your dolls are able to sit at table without falling over.” (You can almost hear Julia Child saying it, can’t you?) The accompanying illustrations by Erik Blegvad are equally charming.

The recipes themselves range from basic appetizers (Stuffed Sea Shells: “Scoop up a shovelful of sand.... Pack this into the tiniest sea shells you can find. Sprinkle these with a pinch of dry sparkling sand and serve.”) to main dishes both spare (Fried Water: “Serve small portions, because this dish is rich as well as mouth-watering.”) and more complex (Left-Handed Meatloaf and its variant, Right-Handed Meatloaf). Desserts are not neglected (e.g., Pine Needle Upside-Down Cake), nor are appropriate wine pairings (Mums ’61, from the flowers, of course).

The whole thing is executed so brilliantly from start to finish, and is, like every NYRCC reissue, so gorgeously packaged, that this slim volume may just need to spend some time on adult nightstands as well as on kids’ shelves. (I know it did in our house.)

[Photos: Whitney Webster]