The Rabbit Dreams of Dr. Freud's Niece - An illustrator of children's books, Sigmund Freud's niece Martha went by the name Tom, wore men's clothing, and died by her own hand in her late 30s, a year after her husband's suicide. BibliOdyssey recently featured some of her early work from
Das Baby-Liederbuch, noting that because she was Jewish, many of her books were destroyed in the Nazi era and are scarce in the book trade. More about the artist and her work at
Tom Seidmann-Freud.
posted by madamjujujive
on Dec 18, 2011 -
14 comments
Enclyclopedia Brown is a children's fiction series written by Donald J. Sobol since 1963 and still very popular today. These are the
10 most ridiculously difficult mysteries in the series and baffling as to how a child is supposed to be able to solve them.
posted by rozomon
on Aug 30, 2011 -
137 comments
‘Everyone is a worker.’ That is a powerful statement, if you think about it. Richard Scarry wasn’t afraid to paint contemporary American society in such bold strokes. Nor was he afraid to explain commerce and capitalism to children. -
What Do People Do All Day.
posted by Artw
on May 4, 2011 -
34 comments
The Book of Accidents: Designed for Young Children (1831). "In presenting to his little readers
The Book of Accidents, the Author conceives he cannot render a more important service to the rising generation and to parents, than by furnishing them with an account of the accidents to which Children, from their inexperience or carelessness, are liable. If generally studied it will save the lives of thousands, and relieve many families from the long and unavailing misery attendant on such occurrences."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Jul 3, 2008 -
34 comments
Speaking of speeches, David Eggers
delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (
mefi consensus) it's a great example of
nervous energy microphilanthropy,
social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection,
machines of
loving grace. [
previously]
posted by kliuless
on Mar 23, 2008 -
26 comments
The Toymaker offers over 40
free paper toys and pretties you can print out (
PDFs) and make yourself, as well as "
Stories to be Told by Firelight" - online versions of author/illustrator Marilyn Scott Waters' children's stories and
lots of
other fun
goodies. For people who have kids, people who know kids, people who
are kids, and people who love papercraft, illustration, toys, and tales.
[more...]
posted by taz
on Jul 24, 2006 -
18 comments
We all know the story: little Elli, a girl living in the steppes of Kanzas with her dog Totoshka, is blown by a hurricane (stirred up by the wicked witch Gingema) all the way to Magic Land, where she meets the Cowardly Lion, the Iron Woodman, and the scarecrow Strashila and has to make her way to the Emerald City to find the magician Gudvin so she can get back home... What, you don't remember it that way? Didn't you read
The Wizard of the Emerald City and its much-loved sequels
Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers, The Seven Underground Kings, The Fiery God of the Marrans, The Yellow Fog, and
The Mystery of the Deserted Castle? Ah, you're not Russian!
Listen [
RealAudio] to a five-minute description (
on Studio 360) of
Alexander Volkov's Russified versions of Baum (with illustrations by
Leonid Vladimirsky) and how they captivated children and adults in the Soviet Union (you even get a bit of the famous song Мы в город Изумрудный/ Идем дорогой трудной ["We're going to the Emerald City by a difficult road..."]); visit the
Emerald City website (Russian version, where all the links work); and see the wonderful illustrations at
this site, which links to the texts of all six novels (click on Читать...)—in Russian, but the images need no explanation. (Fun fact: the word "Oz" doesn't occur anywhere in the Russian versions.) And if you're interested in other alternate versions, go to
Oz Outside the Famous Forty.
(Via P. Kerim Friedman.)
posted by languagehat
on Nov 25, 2005 -
21 comments
The International Children's Digital Library has over 600 illustrated children's books entirely viewable online. Included are the amazing 1900 illustrated edition of "A is for Apple", and the 1885 color illustrated "Baseball ABC". Also online are the 1905 and 1916 editions of the illustrated "Alice in Wonderland".
Searchable, with books representing 28 languages, including English, Japanese, Farsi, Niuean, Yiddish, Khmer, Tongan, German, Arabic .... (though most contemporary, copyrighted western books are, of course, not here).
posted by R. Mutt
on May 6, 2005 -
12 comments
The Spaghetti Book Club offers book reviews by kids for kids, searchable in a variety of ways. (And most of the reviews are also illustrated by the kid-authors!).
One of my favorites begins: "
Do you like bad ideas or thinking about them? Well, if you like bad ideas then you should read The Book of Bad Ideas. The Book of Bad Ideas is a book that has bad ideas you really shouldn't try at home. If you try them you'll be soooorrrrryyyyy! If you want to learn more about it, I'll suggest a website but I don't know any. Maybe you should read the book."
posted by taz
on Mar 3, 2005 -
6 comments
Welcome to the Lizard Motel. Barbara Feinberg's new
book is both a memoir of certain childhood memories and an indictment against the dismal state of books for young adults. Feinberg became concerned when her two children, once avid readers, became agitated at the prospect of reading the current crop of assigned literature for the upcoming school year. Curious, she started reading these books for herself, and discovered that, by and large, they were all examples of "problem literature," stories intended to educate children about the cold, harsh realities of life. Her
conclusion:
"We seem to have lost sight of what children can actually process, and more important, of their own innate capacities. Instead of our children being free to roam and dream and invent on their own timetable, and to read about children doing such things, we increasingly ask our children to be sober and hard-working at every turn, to take detailed notes on their required texts with Talmudic attention, to endure computer-generated tests." Yet such books are are ever so popular with educators. Why? And what books to MeFites recall from their formative years? What makes for good reading for children?
posted by Ayn Marx
on Aug 29, 2004 -
54 comments
Is this naturism, photography or soft-core child pornography? If you search for photographers like Sally Mann or Jock Sturges you'll come across this entirely legitimate purveyor of naturist books and videos. In the Fifties and Sixties nudist magazines, like
Health and Efficiency, were an excuse for looking at naked bodies. Now that porn is legal, have nudist publications made a comeback as an excuse for looking at photographs of naked children? Their website is itself well concealed - the
front page looks innocent enough but, the
further you click
into it, the more
unsettling it becomes. Or are we all becoming to paranoid for our own good? (
I'd say NSFW)
posted by Carlos Quevedo
on Nov 9, 2002 -
110 comments
The Talk of the Book World Still Can't Sell (NY Times link) About two months ago, a new book about women putting careers before babies, and risking going childless, got a lot of publicity and was expected to be a huge seller. Wrong. Did it scare women? Did it sadden women? Was the coverage unfair (most of it highlighted the 'infertility after late 30's' angle, instead of balancing/choosing between career and family)? Or, did the massive publicity subvert sales by summing up the story and findings?
posted by msacheson
on May 20, 2002 -
27 comments
Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon and dozens of other children's classics, all but invented the picture book as we know it today. Combining poetic instinct with a profound empathy for small children, she knew of a child's need for security, love, and a sense of being at home in the world—and she brought that unique tenderness to the page. Yet these were comforts that eluded her. Brown's youthful presence and professional success—as an editor, best-selling author, and self-styled impresario—masked an insecurity that left her restless and vulnerable.
My favorite children's book author.
The Runaway Bunny is my favorite title of hers that I've read--I've run her name in Search before but never saw this site before:I had no idea she'd written so many titles. Nor how important she was to the genre. A
biography. An
autobiographical essay.
Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon by Leonard S. Marcus looks interesting, too.
And here's a
fan page. And, just for the heck of it--
a 1957 Little Golden Books display.
posted by y2karl
on Apr 8, 2002 -
12 comments
During my day's aimless surfing I was feeling a mite wistful, and it did my heart a load of good to stumble on the internet home of
Funny Face mugs. I also found the
Mr. Men and Little Miss Club. Both of these bits of pop culture were objects of devotion to me as a tyke. Looking at the sweet simplicity of the products today, it amazes me how easy it was to invest plastic mugs and simple line drawings with meaning and personality. I wish there was a place for them in today's
Kiddie Kulture which seems to be about filling in all the blanks before the kids get to use there imaginations.
posted by jonmc
on Feb 24, 2002 -
7 comments
Jeez,
these people need to get a clue. Children should be encouraged to read anything they want, and as much as they please. So what if Harry Potter books have wizards and witches in them? Even kids can tell fact from fiction...when are the adults going to figure that out?
posted by mathowie
on Oct 13, 1999 -
0 comments
