One Present from Flekman’s – written by Alan Arkin, illustrated by Richard Egielski
HarperCollins, 1999

Yes, the great American actor, Alan Arkin wrote several children’s books.  While he was best known for his wonderful stage and screen performances, he was also the author of, among others, One Present from Flekman’s, a picture book from 1999 about a girl, Molly, and her grandfather, who visit an overwhelmingly sized toy store in New York City.  The store is a thinly disguised version of the legendary F.A.O. Schwarz, before it declared bankruptcy and was eventually reintroduced as a very pale imitation of its original self.  Arkin’s grace and humor as an actor comes through in this gentle story of how materialism affects childhood fun.

The book is illustrated by the prolific Richard Egielski, winner of the 1987 Caldecott Medal.  I’m a literary award skeptic, but I think it’s relevant that Arkin’s book was paired with so well-known and respected an artist. From the title page, where a grandpa in a checked coat and sweater vest addresses a little girl in cowboy boots, Egielski captures Arkin’s tone perfectly.  Molly and her grandpa take the train into the city to visit Flekman’s. A condition of their trip involves the number of presents the girl can choose: one.  In a store filled with life-sized stuffed animals, a Ferris wheel, costumed employees and a distracting marionette performance, that condition seems impossible. Why do adults expect children to conform to their optimistic expectations?

I’m intrigued by one picture that reflects the year of the book’s publication.  There is a shelf covered with dolls of every variety, “Raggedy Ann and Andys. Barbie dolls. Humpty Dumpty dolls. Rumpelstiltskin dolls. Pinocchio dolls. Dolls who drank from a bottle and burped.”  Aside from the references to classic folklore and literature, and to dated technologies, there is another cultural reference.   Non-trademarked version of both Babar and Madeline occupy two of the shelves. From 1988-2001, a popular series of Madeline shows were broadcast on television, and a Babar series debuted in 1989. At that time, tie-in toys based on the characters were widely available, only to sadly disappear later. They were high-quality toys, faithful to the original characters.

The toys are not the only dated element in the book.  Of the many distracting items in the store, none are based on screens.  A frenetic sales pitch for a game called Upsy Downzy Inzy Outzy entices kids with “dice and balloons and lights.” Players “had to pick cards and answer questions in a loud voice, then blow a whistle and run around like a crazy person.”  Arkin is satirizing what he sees as the ultimate challenge to a child’s attention span. He couldn’t possible have known the future, virtual play would subsume so much of a child’s time. 

The desperate grandpa calls the Carnegie Deli and orders pastrami sandwiches and egg creams, affectionately alluding to Arkin’s early childhood in New York, as well as his Jewish identity.  But it has become too late for the grandpa to retrieve Molly from the dilemma of limiting herself to one toy. Egielski depicts her lying prone under a pile of bicycles, dolls, and teddy bears.  Eventually, he calls in medical help, in the person of Dr. Brower, who diagnoses “Flekman’s fever,” prescribing warm milk and distance from any toys.  (In an interesting example of sensitivity to representation in children’s book, both Dr. Brower and the store manager are Black.) The resolution to the story is double-edged, with Molly calmed down, but also identified by Flekman’s manager as a potential entrepreneur.  Her marketable idea, however, is a simple washcloth transformed through imagination into a multipurpose toy.  Over the long span of his life, Alan Arkin brought joy to many in his varied roles on stage and in the movies and on television. As a parent and grandparent, he couldn’t have predicted the way complex financial and social forces would conspire against an active little girl trapped in a toy store. 

My Self, Your Self – written and illustrated by Esmé Shapiro
Tundra Books, 2022

It’s important to note that the word “self” in the title of this book is separated from the possessive “my” and “your.” With her inimitable style, and sense of how children perceive both the world and their own feelings, Esmé Shapiro (whose work I have reviewed here and here) has created a creature out of each person’s inner identity.  This small being, with rounded eyes, four limbs, and a leafy plant growing out of its head, becomes the way for kids to visualize how and why they are each unique. 

Shapiro both ventures definitive statements and poses questions to her readers.  “MY self is not YOUR self” may seem obvious, but it also demands some definition: “What is a self? Is it INSIDE of us? Or OUTSIDE of us?” Then she becomes more specific, categorizing through examples of how the part of each person that confers individuality may include buttoning one’s coat a certain way, liking the personal attributes of his or her friends, and baking muffins meant to be shared.

Helping one another to manage fears is another attribute of selfhood, and that trait encourages children to think about empathy.  Someone who is secure in her own sense of self is more likely to respond to others.

In Shapiro’s books, reassuring lessons play a role, but the fantastic nature of imagining is never absent.  Having accepted that people, or creatures with plants growing from their heads, all have different selves, she extends the possibilities of what that means.  Do acorns also have selves?  That slightly off-kilter moment leads to some meditations on choice, including what color to paint mushrooms, and colors, which roses to stop and smell.  But she returns to her central premise.  Feeling comfortable in one own’s skin (or perhaps fur?) makes relating to others that much easier. Every word of the text and each picture reflects E.M. Forster’s adage to “only connect,” but translated for children.  Some scenes show the self happily alone, resting inside a flower as it floats on the water. Solitude doesn’t mean loneliness, because a strong inner core strengthens everyone and also ensures flexibility: “My self comes with HERE…it follows me THERE…I bring my self EVERYWHERE!” This feature brings joy, not instability.

Of course, at the end of the day, selves need to share their experiences with one another.  A warm embrace among the flowers shelters these sweetly odd-appearing friends. They are wide, slender, long-limbed, or curled as a snail, but all easily identifiable to children as their own distinct identities, no matter what color they paint mushrooms or what kind of boots they wear.

My Bus – written and illustrated by Byron Barton
Greenwillow Books, 2015

The Three Bears – written and illustrated by Byron Barton
HarperFestival, 1997 (originally published by Greenwillow, 1991)

Byron Barton’s wonderful body of work, including board books, for the youngest readers, illustrates the value of simplicity. He will be greatly missed. In his long career, he showed readers the importance of respect for children’s imagination, intuition about how they perceive the world, and unpretentious images and text. It’s impossible to select the best of his rich and varied contributions to children’s literature, but here are two places to begin.

“I am Joe,” My Bus begins. “This is my car. This is my bus.” There you have all the information needed to understand the story, which centers on counting animals who board different vehicles, but is also about the familiarity of a friendly character.  In bright, geometric images carefully placed in a community, readers follow Joe and his bus as they pick up a number of dogs and cats, and then deliver the animals to a plane, boat, and train. Where are they all going?  We don‘t know, because their destination matters less than their trip and means of transportation, always fascinating to children.  When Joe arrives home, one dog disembarks with him.  Wherever the other animals are headed, it’s reassuring to know that Joe has a dog and that they arrive home safely.  Two cats sit by a quiet bus resting under the moon. They may not belong to anyone, but they’re keeping the bus company.

There are an inexhaustible number of versions of The Three Bears. An author needs to justify each new one.  Barton’s starts out “Once upon a time there were three bears,” not disappointing any reader.  The cover shows the bear family and their house in the background. The opening pages change the perspective because, in spite of the sentence, there are no bears in the picture.  The house is surrounded by trees too numerous to count, each one a green circle on a small red trunk, accompanied by flowers on the ground. Mama Bear’s kitchen as a brick stove, and three bowls of porridge sit on a deep green table.  Again, the subsequent picture shift perspective, with the three bowls viewed through the window of the house.  An economic text highlights each event of the story, which has its own moment to settle in the reader’s mind.

Along comes Goldilocks, sampling porridge, breaking the little chair, and settling in for nap with her shoes neatly placed at the side of the bed.  When the bears return, they could not look less threatening, but children hear them exclaim their surprise at the unsettled condition of their home. No harm is done, but Goldilocks is definitely scared. She runs away and will never return.  The house reappears with the same trees, this time snugly set in their center instead of placed in the corner of a two-page spread. Home is what matters.  There are many other books about the bears to share with children, but Byron Barton’s sets them securely on the path to appreciating them when they are ready.  His work is inimitable.

Big Machines: The Story of Virginia Lee Burton – written by Sherri Duskey Rinker, illustrated by John Rocco
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017

Explaining to children how creativity works is both challenging and rewarding. Presenting  the process through which an author and illustrator of picture books produced some of their favorite characters is especially significant.  In Big Machines: The Story of Virginia Lee Burton, readers learn how a multitalented artist with a consuming vision accomplished magic.  Burton brought to life machines about to be made obsolete, houses threatened by urban expansion, and steam trains bored with jobs.  (She even wrote and illustrated a comprehensive history of life on earth called Life Story.) Sherri Duskey Rinker and John Rocco have constructed an accessible path towards understanding Burton’s gifts, motivations, and lasting importance.

Although Rinker refers to Burton as “magical,” it is clear at the same time that she is down-to-earth. A mother, a dancer, a gardener, and a neighbor, Burton could be any member of her community, except that she is different.  “With a few taps of a wand,” Jinnee, as she is known, “creates animals. She can also make the seasons change, and conjure heroes and people of all sorts.”  There is a risk in emphasizing the almost mystical aspect of artistic creation, but both words and pictures depict how Burton’s wand is a paintbrush, and that her innate talent only allows her to conjure and create through hard work.

Burton appears at her desk from a bird’s eye view, meticulously drawing and erasing.  Rocco does not attempt to reproduce her style, but rather to suggest it, perhaps even to conjure her artwork in a reflection of the way she herself created a world.  The machines that she loved are the central focus of the book. 

We see her, standing along the track with her son, drawing a life-sized steam train. Michael, her little boy, had inspired her work on Mike Mulligan. He observes his mother’s vision of Mary Anne come to life in all its functional detail.  Katy the snowplow transforms a blank sheet of white paper into bright color, as Burton draws and paints the tough red Katy into a determined character.  Burton and her children stand alongside the completed scene.

Readers may be reminded of Crocket Johnson’s Harold with his purple crayon, resolving dilemmas by drawing, but the meld of fantasy and reality in Burton’s biography has a somewhat different purpose.  Standing inside the little house as she draws it, the artist is not saving herself from danger or finding a missing home. Instead, she is realizing an idea of art and engineering as complementary, with both approval of change and nostalgia for inevitable loss. 

Burton’s sons are worried at the little house’s imminent displacement by “Roads! Buildings! Traffic!” and the inevitable darkened skies they bring.  But a flatbed truck hauls the house to safety and the big city remains. Rinker and Rocco establish that Virginia Lee Burton’s life wasn’t one of either/or, but of both/and.  Even as Mary Anne is rewarded for her hard work with a useful role in retirement, and Maybelle the cable car stubbornly keeps her route,  Burton’s genius is the animating force behind these contrasting approaches to progress. The artist’s “wavy and curvy, swoopy and swervy” lines are still a constant presence in the world of children’s books.

There’s a Monster in the Kitchen – written by Patricia Strauch, illustrated by Natalia Aguerre, translated from the Spanish by Kit Maude
Tapioca Stories, 2023

There are a legion of children’s books exploring the question of what constitutes a monster.  From the many versions of Beauty and the Beast, to stories about the legendary golem of Jewish legend, to Sendak’s friendly but frightening wild things, and even lovable Grover’s The Monster at the End of This Book, authors have raised some intriguing possibilities.  Can a seemingly hideous being be nothing worse than misunderstood? Might he be just as scared of you as you are of him?  With a text that pushes boundaries and pictures which are ghastly and lovable at the same time, There’s a Monster in the Kitchen! Offers a new perspective on an old story.

A little boy, Matías, wakes up one morning ready for breakfast.  His bedroom is cluttered with the contradictions of childhood, with a comforting blanket and friendly artwork on the walls disturbed by curtains decorated with spiders and an alarming toy featuring a human eyeball.  Right away, the reader is alerted that Matías is about to confront some variety of terror, but also that, like many children, his own imaginings have primed him for the experience.  When he enters the kitchen, an ominously empty refrigerator, and the orderly countertop drawn on a grid but littered with disorganized food items, let him know that he is not alone.  A horrific monster has made himself at home.

Patricia Strauch’s words and Natalia Aguerre’s images play with the idea of monstrosity. The huge creature’s fur is soft and its tail cherry-pink, yet later the same fur appears rough and its claws are “gnarled and coarse.” Matías’s mother runs to the kitchen anticipating rodents or roaches, the adult versions of monsters.  The monster’s Picasso-inflected features show his own feelings of terror when he confronts the strange figures who seem intent on his destruction.  Aguerre’s portrayal of the father emphasizes the relative identity.  Seated on the top floor of his house quietly reading a newspaper, he hardly seems capable of threatening anyone.  Yet his oversized eyeglasses, unruly hair, and casual striped shirt are potentially as scary to the monster as pointy paws and sharp teeth.

After the monster flees the house like a terrified Goldilocks discovered by bears, the parallel nature of two different worlds comes into focus.  Narrating the day’s events to his family, the monster spreads his arms in the same gesture of disbelief acted out by the human father.  Not only that, but the quiet domestic interior of the creature’s home features a vase of flowers, a small bookshelf, and a tasteful landscape painting on the wall.  The word bubble encasing his description captures the most disturbing visual elements of the humans, with their “spine-tingling, pasty skin” and “their scary, murderous eyes.”  The boy resembles a zombie, the mom looks about to use her ladle as a deadly weapon, and the dad’s strong embrace of his wife and son seems menacing, not protective. 

All’s well that ends well, as the monster, relieved by the chance to tell what had happened, falls asleep curled up on a pillow.  Like Matías, he uses art to explore his experiences, as evidence by the picture posted above his bed.  There’s a Monster in the Kitchen avoids the hazards of cliché, instead propelling readers into a world where familiar and estranged elements collide, and are only partially resolved.  There is no suggestion that monsters and humans will meet again in a moment of reconciliation, only that they will each continue their lives undisturbed, within the embrace of their families.  Children reading the book may consider whether, given their similarities, coexistence could be an option.

The Miracle Seed – written and illustrated by Martin Lemelman
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2023

Given the popularity of books for young readers about under-recognized women scientists, finding one with a distinctive premise is always welcome.  Martin Lemelman’s graphic work of non-fiction celebrates two scientists working in Israel to revive an extinct date palm. He integrates several themes, including Jewish history, the science of botany, and the under-representation of women in the sciences.  The collaborative work of Dr. Elaine Solowey and Dr. Sarah Sallon succeeded in pollinating ancient plant material and producing a date that had not exited for a thousand years.  Lemelman carefully contextualizes their “miraculous” project as part of the Jewish people’s roots, and also paints a vivid picture of the women’s friendship, predicated on mutual respect and shared goals. 

Science is not a miracle and Lemelman does not attribute the project’s success to the supernatural.  Instead, he establishes how the improbability of locating the date palm seed, preserving it, and finding two brilliant and dedicated women to engineer its rebirth evokes a sense of awe sometimes reserved for miracles.  Divided into sections, the book unfurls its story step-by-step, at first inviting readers to travel back to the time of the First Jewish War against Rome (66-73 C.E.), when the Emperor Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and left devastation in the aftermath.  Lemelman draws each scene cinematically, including ones at Masada, where artifacts of the rebellion lie in ruins. In 1963, archeologist Yigael Yadin and his team locate these items; his discovery appears in striking images and poetic text: “They unearthed broken baskets and bronze arrows…They unearthed beautiful mosaics and ragged clothing.” They also found a clay jar containing date palm seeds. 

The story moves forward smoothly, emphasizing both innovation and continuity with the past.  As Solowey and Sallon employ the scientific method to achieve their goal, they refer, casually and affectionately, to Jewish religion and culture.  A seed is planted on the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, commemorating the New Year of the Trees, and soon sprouts. They assign biblical names to the male and female plants produced by their work, and they recite the Shehechiyanu prayer marking a new experience.  There is no contradiction between religion and science, because they operate in different spheres.  The two scientists respond to the results of their experiments from the personal identities, which are proudly Jewish.

In addition to photographs and an informative timeline, Lemelman includes an “Author’s Note” which is truly inventive, chronicling the story of how he came to write this book.  Honest, humorous, and unpretentious, it constitutes a brief book within the larger one, describing his formation as an artist and writer, conversations with his wife about the challenges of his work, and his excitement at find historical sources and artistic inspiration.  The section may be an appendix, but, in retrospect, it enhances the experience of reading by conveying excitement in the full process of writing a book.  Children, and adults sharing the book with them, may find that a bit miraculous, too.

What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Park? – written and illustrated by Eva Montanari
Tundra Books, 2022
What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Beach? – written and illustrated by Eva Montanari
Tundra Books, 2023

Pictures books use a combination of words and images to tell a story. (There are wordless picture books, in which the pictures tell the stories by themselves.)  In Eva Montanari’s Little Crocodile series, the text is composed of simple vocabulary that would be familiar to a toddler or preschooler, and the pictures are her signature-colored pencil and chalk pastel scenes that seem almost tangible, and so bright that you imagine she has just laid down her art implements and finished the pictures.  It’s challenging to create believable, non-generic, characters with this proportion of words and images, but Montanari succeeds. Her crocodile child, friends, and family are lively individuals, interacting with one another in a way that will immediately evoke recognition from young readers.

The books ask what Little Crocodile will say, because he is just beginning to use language.  The events in his life are told from his perspective, as he experiences them, but also how he articulates them in few words.  At the beginning of What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Park, he is busily engaged building with blocks when his grandparents arrive.  Grandma calls him “Sweet Pea,” while Grandpa, communicating like a toddler himself, lifts him up with the “words” “Muah! Muah!” 

They do a lot of different activities at the park, each one a moment of joyous concentration. With Grandma’s help, Little Crocodile blows a dandelion’s seeds into the air, has a snack, and imitates the flight of a pigeon.  He feels independent enough to make friends with other animals, and is able to adjust when the inevitable conflicts arise over sharing.  A ride down the slide, following an owl, is a memorable moment, viewed in anticipation, as Little Crocodile is just about to begin his descent.

A satisfying conclusion to the book involves his farewell to friends, and a sleepy ride home in his stroller. Grandma, glasses perched on her face and pocketbook slung over her arm, happily pushes him.  Grandpa, also wearing glasses, walks while reading his newspaper.  Taking care of his grandchild has been rewarding, but he also wants to return to the adult world.

In What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Beach, the weather has turned warmer.  This time, a parent accompanies him, gently introducing him to the ocean’s waves and holding him as he practices swimming. Crocodile is comfortable and pleased, identifying himself with the fish and jellyfish around him. After a day of building sandcastles and swinging through the air he doesn’t want to leave, but the distraction of watching seagulls approaching a big ship is enough to calm him. Montanari’s adult characters relate to children’s needs, showing the practical sense of how to manage transitions. In fact, the parent crocodile, turning his head to look backward as he bicycles with his child, seems equally fascinated by the ocean liner.  He is an adult who clearly remembers what it felt like to be a child.

A barbecue ends the perfect day.  Little Crocodile, lying on a hammock, seems to be dancing on his back to the music as “The radio goes la la.” His parent, comfortably dressed in a post-beach running suit, cooking something on skewers that looks delicious. It’s no surprise that he is the more tired of the pair, falling asleep in the tent while his child, still awake, holds on to a flashlight.  Learning something new, enjoying unencumbered play, eating outdoors, made for a wonderful day, with the supportive companionship of a parent the best part of all.

Bear Is Never Alone – written by Marc Veerkamp, illustrated by Jeska Verstegen, translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2023

Bear is a gifted pianist, drawing crowds of animal friends to his concerts.  His music is so entrancing that the natural world is completely quiet when he plays.  His back to the reader, and his long arms stretched across the keyboard, Bear has a captive audience in the forest. No one tires of his music; only Bear himself becomes exhausted.  Marc Veerkamp and Jeska Verstegen (whose earlier work I reviewed for Jewish Book Council) gently present a problem to young readers. What happens when an artist’s work brings joy to everyone but reduces him to a virtual prison? More broadly, what should one do when his own needs are in conflict with those of others?

The books pictures are rendered in black and white, composed against a white background. A dramatic touch of red draws the reader’s eye to select images: the sun, flowers, a bird, and a book. The book plays a key role, since it belongs to a zebra, the only one of Bear’s fans who understands the musicians need to sometimes be alone.  The bear and zebra meet on facing pages, and begin to communicate with one another. For once, Bear is an individual.  The zebra’s special attribute is language. In fact, his stripes are lines of printed words, and the red book balances on his back. 

Music is performative, at least some of the time, while reading is not, at least most of the time.  When well-intentioned Zebra offers to read aloud to his new friend, Bear becomes frustrated, and even rude: “If you really want to do something nice for me, why don’t you leave me alone?” While a child would be more likely to feel comfortable uttering that challenge, adults reading the book will definitely relate to its honesty.   Zebra gets the message, and if he is offended, he chooses not to show it.  Bear stands, holding the book, and realizes that flexibility might be the answer to his conflict.  Each picture advances the story like a scene in a play, while the minimalist text deliberately leaves much unsaid.  Being alone together is a novel idea and it might work.

The book quiet acknowledges and affirms children’s need for friendship, empathy, and a simple rest from the demands of their busy lives. Veerkamp and Verstegen also raise subtle questions in a way which children will understand.  The difference between language and music, the complementary nature of solitude and friendship, and the need to establish boundaries are all implicit in the story. Even the imaginative contrast between the endpapers opening and closing the book gives a hint.  A crowd of animals outdoors precedes the story, while the back endpapers feature a teapot and cups sitting on a hill in the same outdoors.  The domesticity of Bear and Zebra’s new friendship and shared love of reading does not compete with their natural surroundings. Maybe Bear will return to the stage refreshed and renewed.

Ye Cannae Shove Yer Granny off a Bus: Favourite Scottish Rhyme – illustrated by Kathryn Selbert
Floris Books, 2018

Actually, you can. That is, you can throw her off the bus if she is your paternal grandmother, but not if she is your maternal one.  That’s the message of this brightly illustrated board book, which includes “lift and slide” and “lift the flap” elements.  While Scottish culture is not the only one to mock mothers-in-law or make a distinction between your two grandmothers, this book is a specifically Scottish production; the back cover encourages us to “PUSH granny…SING ALONG to the much-loved Scottish rhyme, in this brilliantly bonkers board book.”

Aside from the clever alliteration, the message seems to be that the book is all in good fun. No one really expects children to internalize its message and take action based on its silly recommendation. That’s why it’s “bonkers!” In fact, one might assume that the book is really for adults; I would certainly not read this to my grandchildren, although I’m not Scottish.  Again, I want to reiterate that the book’s message is broadly encountered in many other cultures across the globe. This book, however, packages it in an appealing and funny way, if you’re willing to overlook its repugnant misogyny. 

The bus in question has plaid seats, a recurring Scottish motif in the book. The children on board are multicultural, which, in an insidious way, implies that the message is up to date.  We see a young mom with glasses and red boots, tending to her child in a spiffy stroller.  Then we see Granny, the nice maternal one whom we’ve been warned not to eject from the vehicle. She is wearing a red tartan, and the same glasses as her daughter, emphasizing her lineage to the grandchild sitting on her lap.

Then the paternal granny appears. She also has grey hair, but no glasses.  She is not wearing a tartan plaid, but rather blue jeans and a lilac-colored cardigan, making her indistinguishable from any ordinary person. She may be old, but is not particularly grandmotherly, in the supposedly maternal way. Then, some ambivalence on the part of the illustrator surfaces. Father and daughter happily wave and smile (the girl is actually laughing) as they watch the father’s mother all from the bus. Don’t worry. When we lift the flap we watch her magically spring up into the air on bouncy coils. She is unharmed. 

The next scene shows what might happen if the child ignored the book’s recommendation, and actually pushed the wrong grandmother off the bus.  Granny’s arms is twisted around the pole on the bus door, in what looks like a painful way, but she is smiling.  There seems to be a double message.  Don’t do this, but, since the book is “bonkers,” no actual grandmothers have been harmed in its creation.

In the final pages, the family is seated together on the bus, with the maternal granny standing. Again, everyone’s face is happy. Lifting the flap, we see her arms become magically elongated. With one arm she is embracing her granddaughter, and with her other she is able to reach her toddler grandson in his stroller at the other end of the seated group.  Granny is giving him a tiny book on a keychain; it represents “Ally Bally Bee” another book in the publisher’s series based on Scottish nursery rhymes.

Why am I calling this harmless board book misogynist? Maybe it’s just a humorous acknowledgement of a broad prejudice against paternal grandmothers, a phenomenon which has been noted and analyzed by anthropologists and psychologists. (If you google the topic, you will find many examples, such as this article.) Of course, individual families don’t necessarily subscribe to these expectations. There may well be maternal grandmothers who are tossed from the bus and don’t smile at the insult.  Some paternal grandmothers are privileged to have close relationships with their grandchildren, even when they don’t wear plaid.

What about grandfathers? Do they share the privileges and the stigma based on their lineage? Historically, since they were generally less involved in providing childcare, perhaps the difference seemed less important.  Yet their control of financial resources was generally greater than that of grandmothers.  Maybe the beloved nursery rhyme just reflects deep seated suspicion and hatred of women.  If your child is older than the book’s intended audience, it might be interesting to share it with her and generate a productive discussion. 

Cathy Leonard Calling – written by Catherine Woolley, illustrated by Elizabeth Dauber
William Morrow & Company, 1961

Cathy Leonard, from A Room for Cathy, is back. This time she has a job. In the era before “Intern Nation” she actually gets paid.  Even grownup writers often don’t today.  Her salary may not be much, but it’s enough to take her family out for a day of entertainment in New York City.  Cathy is only in fifth grade.  This is a big step up from her excitement at having her room painted, or making a new friend whose mother is a children’s book writer.

Cathy had been inadvertently networking. When the society reporter for the local paper decides to take a trip to Florida, she needs a temporary placement, and she thinks of the girl who seemed to be in the know when the editor, Miss Hobway, would call local residents looking for stories.  She explains the rudiments of the job to Cathy, along with some fun journalism lingo, like the meaning of sending in a “string” of articles.  There is a warning from Cathy’s mother. She can’t let the job interfere with schoolwork. There’s also a crusty editor named Mr. Stark, whose off-putting last name communicates how he feels about child reporters.

Here is the best part about Cathy’s ambitions. She’s a mid-twentieth century-child growing up in a small town, straitjacketed by the gender norms of her time. She wants to be a journalist and she wants to get paid for her work, although she feels hesitant to even admit that: “To her the money part of the job was unimportant.”

          Writing was a thrilling, wonderful thing to do, Cathy thought, and it opened doors
          of the whole world to you.  She could not get over the miracle of having this opportunity
          to write fall into her lap.

The “money part” may be trivial, but when that paycheck arrives, Cathy is pretty excited. The accompanying picture shows her racing down the stairs in her pleated skirt, holding the letter in one hand and its envelope in the other.

          There was only a thin pink slip inside.  Slowly she drew it out, gazing at it with a puzzled
          frown.  Then suddenly Cathy gave a shrill squeal, headed for the door, and flew
          downstairs, waving the paper…
          ‘This is my pay!…’
          ‘It’s a check!’
          ‘I’m going straight upstairs and telephone some people and earn lost more money!’

The lots more money won’t happen for a while. Eventually, even as she saves an old woman’s life and becomes herself the subject of newspaper articles, Cathy concedes that her job is interfering with getting good “marks” in school. She voluntarily resigns.  I couldn’t help but wonder if, as an adult, maybe with a husband and family, she would indeed be allowed to pursue her dream. Might she start a job, only to be told that her duties were interfering with housework and childcare?  By then, the second wave feminist movement would be underway. Maybe she would be able to be a journalist, and maybe even earn “lots more money.” (unlikely)

Cathy Leonard has ambitions, as did her creator, Catherine Woolley.