Posts Tagged ‘Christopher Robin’
“In literature, as in Life, one is often astonished by what is chosen by others”*…
Why a classic is missing from the New York Public Library’s list of the 10 most-checked-out books of all time…
… the New York Public Library, celebrating its 125th anniversary, released a list of the 10 most-checked-out books in the library’s history. The list is headed by a children’s book—Ezra Jack Keats’ masterpiece The Snowy Day—and includes five other kids’ books. The list also includes a surprising addendum: One of the most beloved children’s books of all time didn’t make the list because for 25 years it was essentially banned from the New York Public Library. Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, would have made the Top 10 list and might have topped it, the library notes, but for the fact that “influential New York Public Library children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore disliked the story so much when it was published in 1947 that the Library didn’t carry it … until 1972.” Who was Anne Carroll Moore, and what was her problem with the great Goodnight Moon?…
[There follows a fascinating story of self-assured curator who, even as she resisted a new wave in children’s literature, was a powerful force in making literature available to all of the kids of New York.]
… As [Betsy] Bird notes in a fascinating blog post, the legacy of Anne Carroll Moore is one that many children’s librarians struggle with. “She is the quintessential bun-in-the-hair shushing librarian,” says Bird. “She’s such an easy villain.” Her discriminating book recommendations delivered from on high represent the exact opposite of the credo pledged by most children’s librarians today: that the library’s role is to provide the widest possible array of titles and allow children to find the books they love. Yet Moore did more than anyone else in the first half of the 20th century to encourage children of all races and incomes to read. To adopt a 21st century rallying cry, Bird notes, Anne Carroll Moore “was all about diverse books waaaaaay before anyone else was.”…
“How One Librarian Tried to Squash Goodnight Moon,” from Dan Kois (@dankois) in @Slate.
* André Malraux
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As we head to bed, we might recall that it was on this date in 1934 that a female black bear named Winnie at the London Zoo passed away at the age of 20. A favorite of A.A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, Winnie was the namesake of Christopher Robin’s his own stuffed bear- and the inspiration for his father’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories.
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid”*…
Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts…
– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
As the anniversary of her death approaches, Jane Austen and her work will be celebrated across the UK and the world. Lucy Worsley explores why such a well-loved author remains so mysterious.
“Downright nonsense” was the verdict of Mrs Augusta Bramston, a Hampshire friend and neighbour of the Austen family, on reading Pride and Prejudice. In 1814, Jane Austen published Mansfield Park, a sophisticated study of love and family life. Mrs Bramston nevertheless thought she ought to give it go, and having struggled through volume one, “flattered herself she had got through the worst”.
Jane Austen recorded this and other hilarious remarks from friends in a list of opinions on Mansfield Park. The document, in Austen’s own neat handwriting, is just one of the funny and sad items in the British Library’s new exhibition, Jane Austen Among Family and Friends [which opened yesterday].
Austen surely recorded the comments in a spirit of malicious mockery rather than regret. Even if only a small number of readers appreciated her at the time of her death in 1817, she hopefully knew just how brilliant a writer she was. Two hundred years later, everyone knows it. Her face is to appear on £10 notes and £2 coins, and the bicentenary of her death will see a slew of exhibitions showcasing her writing and world…
More on “The Divine Jane” at “Jane Austen at 200: still a friend and a stranger.”
* Jane Austen
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As we muse on manners, we might send nostalgic birthday greetings to A.A. Milne; he was born on this date in 1882. Milne spent the earliest years of his career as a playwright, screenwriter, and the author of a single mystery novel, but is remembered for the two volumes of Winnie-the-Pooh stories he wrote for (and featuring) his son, Christopher Robin. His transitional work, written immediately after the birth of his son, was a book of children’s verse, When We Were Young, famously ornamented by Punch illustrator E. H. Shepard.
The Annals of Popular Culture: B is for Bieber…
Justin Bieber, the Internet’s hatchling, has left the nest, preparing to spread his swaggy wings and be fly…
Serious artist Justin Bieber—amid the scurrilous rumors spread by a provincial gutter press, based on their narrow-minded adherence to photographs and words—recently announced his retirement from music, signaling his embarking on a new career in broader, even more obnoxious forms of art.
Of late, Bieber’s more confrontational, avant-garde explorations in being irritating have included: peeing in a mop bucket, challenging the conventional notion of mop buckets not having some kid’s piss in them; spray-painting monkey and penguin graffiti, representing the idea that celebrities are trapped just like zoo animals, and also that Justin Bieber thinks penguins are dope; and haunting a Brazilian brothel dressed as a spooky ghost, a stand-in for the lingering specter of society’s prudishness about prostitution, and the classic Freudian connection between death and banging bitches. It also included not actually retiring from music, his most antagonistic artistic statement yet…
Read on at “Justin Bieber symbolically signals his artistic rebirth by egging his neighbor’s house.”
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As we reconsider our positions on the High vs. Low debate, we might send nostalgic birthday greetings to A.A. Milne; he was born on this date in 1882. Milne spent the earliest years of his career as a playwright, screenwriter, and the author of a single mystery novel, but is remembered for the two volumes of Winnie-the-Pooh stories he wrote for (and featuring) his son, Christopher Robin. His transitional work, written immediately after the birth of his son, was a book of children’s verse, When We Were Young, famously ornamented by Punch illustrator E. H. Shepard.
Auld Lang Syne…
Rob Sheridan has a day job; he’s the creative director of Nine Inch Nails. But he moonlights as a photographer and artist pursuing his own interests… Recently they’ve run to what’s become of the mascots of well-known breakfast cereals:
… For some reason this image has been swimming around in my head for a few years now, and finally – after chipping away at it bit by bit over the last couple months – I’ve brought it to life as a large, absurdly detailed print. It’s kind of about the strange, uncomfortable feeling of reuniting with old friends only to find that the magic just isn’t there anymore – and in turn, about the melancholy “nothing will ever be as good as it used to be” type of nostalgia, of which I am increasingly fond. And of course, a tribute to the late, great, wood-paneled, shag-carpeted 1970’s rec room.
Thanks to Monster Cereal Blog, where this stunner was featured.
As we watch the chocolate bleed into the milk, we might send birthday balloons to Christopher Robin Milne– real-life model for the wise young friend of Winnie the Pooh– born to Daphne and A.A. Milne on this date in 1920.
A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin… and a bear
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