Maria Tatar's Blog, page 28

Norton Juster's Accidental Masterpiece

NYT has a wonderful essay by Norton Juster about the genesis of The Phantom Tollbooth.  And we now have a beautiful  Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, brilliantly edited by Leonard Marcus.  It's wonderful to see the book in large format, with high production values that do justice to a work that derives its firepower from wordplay.

Not everyone in the publishing world of the 1960s embraced The Phantom Tollbooth. Many said that it was not a children's book, the vocabulary was much too difficult, and the ideas were beyond kids. To top it off, they claimed fantasy was bad for children because it disorients them.

The prevailing wisdom of the time held that learning should be more accessible and less discouraging. The aim was that no child would ever have to confront anything that he or she didn't already know.

But my feeling is that there is no such thing as a difficult word. There are only words you don't know yet — the kind of liberating words that Milo encounters on his adventure.

 http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141240217/…

 

Treehorn Lives!

 

Here's hoping that Treehorn will make a comeback.  I was saddened to learn of the death of Florence Parry Heide, whose Treehorn trilogy was illustrated by Edward Gorey.

Her best-known book, "The Shrinking of Treehorn" (1971), was about a boy whose parents paid little heed to him, even as he began getting littler and littler, unable to reach familiar shelves, watching as his clothes seemed to grow on him. Its comic, macabre plotline appealed to the artist Edward Gorey, who illustrated it and two sequels, "Treehorn's Treasure" (1981) and "Treehorn's Wish" (1984).

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/arts/f…

Lost Shadows

[image error]Erin Row just won the Canadian Children's Literature Award for a book with a premise that has deep roots in adult literature.  Peter Schlemihl loses his shadow, as does Hans Christian Andersen's learned man in "The Shadow," along with Hofmannsthal's Frau ohne Schatten.  And of course Peter Pan leaves his shadow in the Darling nursery and has to have it refastened.

Plain Kate, aimed at readers aged 11 and up, follows the adventures of an orphan who makes a deal with a stranger, trading her shadow for a chance to fulfil her deepest wish.

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/1…

 

Julian Smith Reads Peter Pan

There is a reason why there are (now) nearly 4 million hits for this video.  Thanks to the great Michael Sims for discovering  Peter Pan in Smithland and sending me the link.

 

In conversation with Gregory Maguire at Harvard Bookstore Today

6pm at Brattle Theater in Cambridge.  We will be discussing Annotated Peter Pan!

No More Adventures in Wonderland

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinio…

New stills from Singh's Snow White

You can see them now at:

 http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20483133…

and they are stunning.

 

Annotated Peter Pan Event

 

The Annotated Peter Pan is now in bookstores and available on Amazon.  I'm looking forward to talking about J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan on October 12 at the Harvard Bookstore.  The 6pm event will be followed by a book signing and by a showing of the exquisite 1928 film, Peter Pan, at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Mass.

Nevermore Never Again: Sendak Has a New Book

 

Maurice Sendak has a new book: Bumble-ardy, and Terry Gross's interview with him about the book is just incandescent.  There are so many moving and revealing moments, most of those are best left untouched by critical comment.  In the interview, you will hear Sendak in deep confessional mode, and he is wonderfully open and unplugged about everything from a life dedicated to art and reading to why he feels himself unsuited to childrearing.  His comments on the phrase "Never again" in Bumble-ardy reminded me of the multi-layered complexity of his "simple" stories.  It evokes the postwar response to the Holocaust, the impossibility of recapturing the past, the futile struggle against disappearance,  the words of Poe's raven, even as it resonates quietly with childhood experiences of loss.

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140435330/this-pig-wants-to-party-maurice-sendaks-latest

 

I especially like the fact that he has embraced the poetry of nonsense, a move that has a certain inner logic when you are his age and trying to make sense of your life: "I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of [writing] something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter."

Nevermore Never Again: Sendak's Has a New Book

 

Maurice Sendak has a new book: Bumble-ardy, and Terry Gross's interview with him about the book is just incandescent.  There are so many moving and revealing moments, most of those are best left untouched by critical comment.  In the interview, you will hear Sendak in deep confessional mode, and he is wonderfully open and unplugged about everything from a life dedicated to art and reading to why he feels himself unsuited to childrearing.  His comments on the phrase "Never again" in Bumble-ardy reminded me of the multi-layered complexity of his "simple" stories.

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140435330/this-pig-wants-to-party-maurice-sendaks-latest

 

I especially like the fact that he has embraced the poetry of nonsense, a move that has a certain inner logic when you are his age and trying to make sense of your life: "I'm writing a poem right now about a nose. I've always wanted to write a poem about a nose. But it's a ludicrous subject. That's why, when I was younger, I was afraid of [writing] something that didn't make a lot of sense. But now I'm not. I have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter."