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Vol. LXII, No. 4
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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Vol. LXII, No. 4
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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The wit, utility, power to move, and sheer gorgeousness of children’s books is currently being celebrated in two Princeton venues. At the Princeton Public Library, copies of the recent winners of top prizes in new children’s books, including the esteemed Newbery and Caldecott medals, are on display along with a descriptive note of “Congratulations!” by Youth Services Librarian Lucia Acosta. Meanwhile, “The Art of Having Fun” is in joyful evidence in an exhibition of “Père Castor’s Activity Books” at the Cotsen Children’s Library in Firestone Library on Washington Road.
Right now all five of the Princeton Public Library’s copies of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the winner of the 2008 Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children, are out. So are the three copies of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, this year’s winner of the John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature. “There is a huge run on them instantly,” noted Ms. Acosta, describing the demand on winning titles as soon as their selection is announced by the American Library Association. “Then it levels off.”
In the meantime, however, children — and their parents — can feast their eyes and challenge their brains with the books that won awards for excellence in literature for young adults, books that capture the experience of child and adolescent disabilities, books for beginning readers, books in Spanish, and informational books. Ms. Acosta couldn’t resist picking up Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, a Pura Belpré Award (given to Latino writers and illustrators) Honor Book. She also loves the striking collage-like illustrations in Vulture View, a Geisel Honor Book. “Vultures like a mess,” the text goes. “They land and dine. Rotten is fine.”
Cut-Outs and Make Believe
Cotsen Curator Andrea Immel had been thinking about the Père Castor activity books exhibit, which runs until June 15, for a long time. Produced in the 1930s by the Parisian-based publisher Flammarion, the books are, she said, “intended to be used up, and yet they were designed by some of the best artists illustrating children’s books in Paris between the two World Wars.”
The series was named for the beaver, “castor” in French, because of the animal’s association with industriousness. They offered children projects that promoted self-expression through creative play with highly stylized or abstract forms, often using scissors, colored paper, and paste. Jeu des Portraits, for example, encourages children to do the unthinkable: take out the book’s staples, disassemble the pages, and cut apart the rectangular faces of various French kings. Activities that can follow include matching the kings’ heads with the correct shoulders, and imitating the sovereigns’ facial expressions.
The Russian artists Nathalie Parain and Nathan Altman were important contributors to the series. Ms. Parain introduced editor Paul Faucher of Flammarion to a number of her friends who had left their native Russia for Paris in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Their illustrations were instrumental in bringing the Soviet avant-garde style of the 1920s to the series which is, Ms. Immel noted, “still regarded as one of the most outstanding achievements in children’s bookmaking during the twentieth century.”