(3)

Once upon a time our planetary neighbors--and the rest of the cosmos--were still a huge, imagination-tweaking mystery.  We had not yet landed on the moon.  Sputnik 1 was still a few years away.

We only knew what we could see and what we could imagine.

And as so often happens with humans, our imaginings, fears and guesses became muddled up with bits of science and a lot of theory and boom--you have books like these written by hopeful people yearning for that GREAT CONNECTION.

I discovered this treasure where I discover so many of my vintage book treasures--at a Half Price Books Store.

You'l find no sketches of space people here.  No faux luxurious binding.  Just a simple book, inexpensively printed, documenting a collection of quasi-scientific, undoubtedly earnest explorations into the existence of intelligent  extraterrestrial life.

Enter the authors.

(4)

Chicago born George Hunt Williamson began his fascination with mystic phenomena as a teenager, shifting it into the field of archaeology as an adult (2).   He studied archaeology at the University of Arizona, centering his interest on Native American  history (2).   In "The Saucers Speak!" he delves into  Native American folklore and tales across a variety of tribes that describe  "flying boats" and  "little wise people". George was convinced that these tales served as a  kind of  proof of early extraterrestrial visits (3).

George's fascination with extraterrestrial life, mysticism and the occult grew rather than diminished.   He became a devotee of cult leaders William Dudley Pelley and George Adamski, using supposed telepathic communication via a homemade Ouija board to contact what they came to call the "space brothers"--an interplanetary group of space beings who evidently had learned enough English to engage in telepathic chats. (2,3)

(1) George H. Williamson (left)

Unlike George Hunt Williamson, Alfred C. Bailey was a bit more difficult to research.   George seems to have been the front man in this extraterrestrial-searching duo, with Railroad conductor Alfred Bailey (as well as his wife)  serving as George's main partner in Ouija-informed communications (2,3).

It should come as no surprise then that "The Saucers Speak!" is a "documentary" primarily relying on George and Alfred's copious Ouija-board sessions detailing repeated and at times lengthy "conversations" with "space intelligences" from our neighboring planets  as well as from  distant planets (Andromeda, Planet 15 of Solar System 22, the Toresoton Solar System, among many others*). (3)  Tucked in here and there amid the Ouija-based findings are tales of interstellar contact made by  ham radio operators, space being visitations made to remote  areas, often at night, and  reports of saucer sightings from around the globe.

However it is the transcripts of the Ouija-style "contacts" that are the most engaging--and there are plenty of them.

"Good and evil forces are working now.  Organization is important for the salvation of your world.  Contact us as soon as you can."  (Message from Masar (Mars) to Saras (Earth))  (Pg. 44)(3)

"'To apples we salt, we return.'  You may not understand this strange saying now, but someday you will.  It is from one of our old prophecy legends." (From Zo on Neptune to Earth. Pg. 50)(3)

"Kadar Lacu, my brothers.  I am several hundred years old.  A mere youth.  The time has come to reveal these things to you. If man would only realize that he should love his brother." (Pg. 75)(3)

Here and there George and Alfred also share various radio contacts made with our space brethren, mostly comprised of strings of numbers or letters with jumbled messages tossed in the middle:


"450 TE SA AFFA SWAP YOUR R 450 K SWAP T I ARE YOU APPEAR TO YOU LATER WHEN AS OR SHIP COMPREHEND DA DA K SE WID26 EE WID26 Q QRA WID26." (PG. 68)(3)

So what exactly is "The Saucers Speak!"?  A documentary as the authors claim?  A sci-fi spoof like "War of the Worlds"?  The obsessed fantasies of grown dreamers who are convinced that correlation really is causation?

I don't know.

As I read this book I realized how easily intelligent, well-meaning people can be led astray--led astray by a charismatic leader, or an engaging idea, or by their own minds.   Even now, over 60 years after this book was first published, we have a sizable swath of people who view scientific fact as optional--people who believe that   climate change is a hoax and that evolution is a theory.

Now, I'm not saying that I believe we are entirely alone in the universe with our big brains and opposable thumbs.   I think it is only a matter of time before SETI stumbles upon something mind-blowingly real that will put us in our place.

However I highly doubt that life forms living in distant galaxies would choose to communicate with us via Ouija board or  ham radio.

But you know what?  I may be wrong.

And that's the beauty of the unknown--you never know.

















*Don't bother looking up the names of these distant planets.  They resided exclusively in the head of George H. Williamson, Alfred C. Bailey and all their fellow Ouija-board loving interstellar enthusiasts. 

Sources

1. http://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ufo-history6.htm
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hunt_Williamson
3. "The Saucers Speak!" by George H. Williamson and Alfred C. Bailey. New Age Publishing Co. 1954. 
4. http://rr0.org/people/h/HuntWilliamsonGeorge/

ぞうのホートンひとだすけ (Horton Hears a Who)

(3)

Last week I was once again huddled on the floor in the vintage books  corner of "Half Price Books".

My eye caught sight of a familiar orange-spined children's book.   The corners of the front and back cover were predictably soft and rounded.  Inside on the front end paper a name was printed in bold, decidedly adult handwriting and a large, faint ball point "X" had been scrawled across the smiling elephant face on the front cover.  I got a strong, happy vibe that this may have once been a teacher's book.

Aside from these signs of age, the book was in very good condition.  I levered myself off the floor and sat in a chair, "Horton Hears a Who" gently cradled in my arm.

"Horton Hears a Who!", written and illustrated  by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)  is just one of Dr. Seuss'  many iconic, instantly-recognizable and, indeed, universally beloved creations.  Dr. Seuss' works have been translated into over 20 languages (2) including, of course, Japanese.

And yes, there is a reason I am fixating on Japanese.

(3)

I looked at the copyright date inside the front page--the year "1954" hovered  near the bottom. Not quite trusting that I was holding a first edition book, I pulled out my iphone and after about 15 minutes of poking at the tiny screen, I ascertained I was indeed holding perhaps a 1965  or 1966 edition, based on the back cover details and the fact that the list  Other Books by Dr. Seuss in the front of the book ended with two books published in 1965: "I had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew" and "Fox in Socks" (10).

 As a student I must have read this book--or had it read to me--countless times.  As a Early Childhood/Kindergarten teacher I must have read it aloud to students a hundred times more--at least--over my 25 years as a teacher.  I recognized each picture. I recalled each turn of phrase.

(3)

But there was one thing I did not recall noticing.  Not once.

The dedication.

"For My Great Friend,
Mitsugi Nakamura
of Kyoto,
Japan."


How was it that I had never noticed this before?  I lived for coincidences like this.  I had lived in Japan for 8 1/2 years--5 of those years in Kyoto.  And here was a detail in a beloved children's book just screaming coincidence.  Even more perplexing was the fact that I always, ALWAYS pointed out the dedications in the books I read aloud to my students.  Doing so not only brought us closer to seeing the author as a real person, but sometimes also planted a tiny seed in many students about who THEY would dedicate a book to, if THEY were to write a book.

So how did I miss THIS dedication?


Before I could try to discover the identity of Mitsugi Nakamura I had to step back a bit, before "Horton Hears a Who!" was written, back to World War II. Back to the years 1940 to 1948, when Theodor Geisel was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM. (4)

(8)

Throughout World War II Theodor Geisel turned his talents, not to writing and illustrating whimsical tales of cats and elephants, but to creating scathing political cartoons and newsreels  that caricatured and demonized those people and countries against whom the United States was fighting in the war--namely Germany and Japan.(5)   While many sources I could find described Geisel as a supporter of civil rights, women's issues and labor unions (5, 6), at the same time he was creating anti-German and anti-Japanese political cartoons which he considered to be part of the defense of his country in wartime. (4)  He, like so many other Americans, felt it was his patriotic duty to stand against Germany and Japan--a duty carried out as much through  his art  as through his 1943 enlistment in the Army as part of Frank Capra's Signal Corps unit.(4,8,11)


So if Theodor Geisel was so anti-Japanese, how is it that he dedicated  "Horton Hears a Who!"  to his "...Great Friend, Mitsugi Nakamura, of Kyoto, Japan"(1)?

Simple.  He went to Japan.

On March 23rd 1953 Theodor Geisel visited Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe Japan (4,7,8).    He went there on assignment by the Ford Foundation to investigate the effects of World War II upon children and to ascertain the effects of the American occupation. (8) Geisel's friend from Dartmouth, Professor Donald Bartlett, arranged for him to meet with teachers in each city, who then had their students draw pictures to give Geisel of what they hoped to become in the future. (8)

I don't think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that his trip to Japan was life changing.

It is as true now as it always has been:  it is much harder to demonize people once you get to know them. Once you see the world through their eyes.

It was during that trip that Professor Bartlett  introduced Geisel to  Mitsugi Nakamura, who was then Dean of Doshisha University in Kyoto. (8)

According to sources I could find, a close and lasting friendship grew between Geisel and Nakamura-san, with multiple trips made to visit each other over the years and Nakamura-san's daughter even being sponsored by Geisel and his wife to attend college in California. (8)

Geisel's trip to Japan ultimately fueled his desire to write "Horton Hears a Who!"--a book that
has been interpreted to represent Geisel's desire to offer protection and guidance to Japan as they tried to heal from the war, and more specifically, from the bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (12)  Across all the articles I read, there was a general consensus that "Horton Hears a Who!" was written as both an apology of sorts for Geisel's earlier, war-tainted views against the Japanese people, as well as a cautionary tale for all of us, countries, governments and individuals alike.

In the course of researching for this post, I came across many academic papers, opinion pieces and blogs that asked multiple versions of the same questions:  How can we reconcile that Dr. Seuss, creator of so many powerful, beloved children's books, was the same man who once drew such painful, racist and dangerous political cartoons? And can we forgive him?

This is perhaps a question wrongly put.

It is not for us to forgive.   Theodor Geisel chose to re-evaluate his beliefs rather than allow himself to stagnate in his former fear and hatred of former enemies.  He kept growing, not towards perfection (a human impossibility), but towards greater understanding.

"Horton Hears a Who!" may have been partly written as an apology. However as I re-read it now, it seems instead to  reflect Geisel's attempt to share the lessons he learned, perhaps with an eye towards building a better future.

The question  is not "Can we forgive him?" but rather "What can we learn from him?"

As it turns out, we can learn perhaps a great deal, and not just through his words and pictures.

Sources

1. http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Horton-Hears-a-Who-Japanese-Edition-Dr-Seuss-/162150032379?hash=item25c0e523fb:g:kn8AAOSwTZ1XmMHG

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss

3. "Horton Hears a Who"  Dr. Seuss.  Random House. New  York.  1955.

4. http://www.openculture.com/2014/08/dr-seuss-draws-racist-anti-japanese-cartoons-during-ww-ii.html

5. http://www.history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war

6. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/14765-radical-reading-the-progressive-dr-seuss

7. https://derwombat.net/2015/08/06/after-visiting-hiroshima-dr-seuss-atones-with-a-book/

8. http://www.drseussart.com/horton-60/

9. http://1stedition.net/blog/2007/01/horton_hears_a_who_1954.html

10. http://www.best-books-for-kids.com/list-of-dr-seuss-books.html

11. http://masshumanities.org/about/news/f04-pds/

12. https://seussblog.wordpress.com/tag/dr-seuss/page/7/

Troubling Tales of Children of Other Lands

And lo last week  I found myself at one of my  favorite bookstores, "Bookends and Beginnings" in Evanston, Illinois.

So of course I bought some books, including this intriguing tome--"Children of Other Lands".

(1)

This was no pristine collectors item...which only intrigued me more.  Published in 1933, this copy of "Children of Other Lands" had clearly been a hands-on book.  Nearly every page includes what seem to be determined graffiti by a child--from the pencil scribbles on  the cover to the random additions of orange crayon on nearly every illustration.   Pages are ripped and the once sturdy red binding is feathering.

 I didn't have to look far to find the identity of the child.  He proudly wrote his name 3 separate times on the end papers:  Herbert Benjamin Nechin.

At first I wasn't sure how I felt about little Herbert embellishing such a lovely book--did the book bore him and he felt he had no alternative but to turn it into a coloring book?  Or did he love the book so much that it was his go-to resource for artistic inspiration?

Hard to say.


After reading this book, however, I found myself hoping that Herbert was expressing his distaste for the text, rather than sharing his approval.

The book is divided into twelve separate stories that tell the tales of representative children from lands around the globe.

(1)

Each story gives an overview of the specific country including geography, transportation, boats, customs and a smattering of history.  Individual children from that country are then described in terms of dress, food, entertainment and personality.

I can't put my finger on what precisely makes my skin crawl about these descriptions.    While I can forgive some of the ignorance of global cultures indicative of the 1920's and 1930's, I'm not sure I can so easily let go of the patronizing comments and rhetorical questions, such as in the second story about Japan, where the author points out about the Japanese people "Their skin is not white like yours, but light yellow.  Like the Chinese, they belong to the Yellow Race. Their eyes do not open as widely as yours, which makes them appear to be slanting."  And at the end of the story "How hard it is to say sayonara, which means good-bye in Japanese, to such an interesting country as Japan and to such pleasant little companions as slant-eyed Togo and Yuki-san!".

(1) 

Nearly all of the twelve stories contain at least one shudder-worthy description.

Which brings us to the author--Watty Piper.   Who was this Watty Piper?

Well, Watty Piper did not exist.

"Watty Piper" was the pen name of Arnold Munk (yes, the "Munk" of the publishers Platt & Munk.) (2)     Arnold Munk/Watty Piper is perhaps best known for writing "The Little Engine That Could". (2)

Arnold Munk (3) 

I wasn't able to find much satisfying information about Arnold Munk, aside from his daughter's apparent disapproval of his pen name. (3)    I found this curious, since Arnold Munk/Watty Piper authored several well-known children's books that have stood the test of time (although "Children of Other Lands" is not necessarily one of them).

The illustrators, however, were another story.

Lucille Webster Holling and Holling Clancy Holling were a husband and wife illustrating team who met while attending the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois. (5)

(4)

Holling C. Holling was an avid naturalist and science-lover as well as an amateur ethnographer. (5) Lucille shared many of his interests (5) which leads me to wonder how much of the text of "Children of Other Lands" was influenced by Lucille and Holling.

The illustrations in "Children of Other Lands" are rich and detailed.  The elaborate watercolor pictures are thought to be Lucille's work, while the black and white ink drawings are believed to be those of Holling. (5)

(1)

(1)

It pains me to see such beautiful--although at times stereotypical--illustrations paired with text that includes  such cringingly dated and even ignorant descriptions of world cultures.

Which is why I find I must step back from this book in order to view it as a time capsule rather than a resource.

"Children of Other  Lands" gives us a peek into how people in the early 1900's viewed the world and the people around them.  While this book does contain interesting factual information, at the same time it is replete with dated, superficial stereotypes about people and cultures.

The sad thing is that I cannot say with certainty that we have left all of these stereotypes behind--
which makes this  book is a poignant reminder that many times beauty, truth and ignorance are often intertwined and can fool us unless we take a closer look.







Sources

1. "Children of Other Lands"  by Watty Piper, Illustrated by Lucille W. and H.C. Holling.  The Platt & Munk Co. Inc. 1933. 

2. http://plotnick.people.uic.edu/littleng.htm

3. http://www.npr.org/2014/07/08/329520062/in-little-engine-that-could-some-see-an-early-feminist-hero

4. http://hollingcholling.blogspot.com/2015/05/who-was-that-writer-with-odd-name.html

5. http://www.dbdowd.com/illustration-history/2015/11/13/the-hollings-lucille-webster-holling-holling-c-holling

Between the United Nations and Conspiracy: Unexpected Discoveries on William G. Carr

One World in the Making by William G. Carr. Ginn and Company. 1946.

In  One World in the Making, author William G. Carr states the purpose for this book in no uncertain terms, right there in the Foreword.


"THIS BOOK HAS BEEN WRITTEN WITH JUST ONE SIMPLE PURPOSE: to make it as easy as possible for anyone, young or old, to understand the United Nations Charter."

And as you can see, William G. Carr added the capitalization himself--today's textual equivalent of screaming.

William G. Carr is listed on the title page as a United Nations consultant and Deputy Secretary-General for the educational and cultural arm of the United Nations Conference

(2) William Guy Carr  R.D. Commander R.C.N

In photos of Mr. Carr, he looks  every bit the part of a United Nations expert.  And so he should.

Born in England and educated in Scotland, Mr. Carr chose the seafaring and military life at the young age of fourteen. (1)  He served as a navigating officer in the British Navy, seeing extensive combat action serving aboard submarines.(2)  During World War II he worked for the Canadian Intelligence Service, afterward retiring from the Navy in 1950. (1)

Amid and between his active service Mr. Carr wrote and published books about his battle experiences, including By Guess and By God  (1930), Hell's Angels of the Deep (1932) and Checkmate in the North  (1944). (1)  

So One World in the Making  would seem to fit in neatly with Mr. Carr's military experience. 

I'll return to the story of William Guy Carr shortly--and believe me there is much more story to tell--but let's turn to One World in the Making  first.

This book starts off well in fulfilling its goals of making the United Nations understandable for anyone.

The front end paper features a bold red and black diagram of the main historic events leading to the formation of the UN.   It's eye-catching, simply labeled and festooned with adorable little icons for each geographic place listed.

 The first 14 pages are equally effective, including illustrations, photographs and explanations written in a conversational style  using easily accessible language.

On the 14th page is a tidy paragraph that neatly lays out who would be eligible to belong to the United Nations.  It is written in almost a storybook style, with repetitive phrases and easy descriptions.

Most unfortunately, this is also where nearly all the clarity of this book ends.

 Starting on page 15 and continuing on for the next 75 pages, Mr. Carr introduces a complex series of charts, analogies and icons that had me flipping back and forth repeatedly as I tried to make sense of them.   After 3 or 4 head-scratching tries I found the logic within the seeming madness, and while it was ultimately rather elegant, it did nothing to fulfill the goals of the book to make the UN accessible to anyone and everyone.


 The last approximately 50 pages consist of seemingly cut-and-pasted mock ups of the actual UN charter, the contents of which are explained and discussed using little pull out boxes, much like side bar editing features in today's word processing programs.

The descriptions themselves are clear, but the design of the pages, coupled with the presence of icons designed to refer back to branches of government, created an overwhelming whole on which I eventually gave up.

At the end, right before a section entitled "Study Helps", are two pages of signatures of the fifty nations that signed the UN Charter in San Francisco on April 25th, 1945.  These two pages of signatures had greater impact on me than the previous seventy five.  As my eyes scanned down the list of countries and signatures, noting countries that were included and those that were not,  I was able to clearly reflect on the history of the time, the complexities of politics and geography and war.   These signatures added a human stamp to a book that, for all it's hopes, made the creation of the United Nations seem dry, distant and impossibly complex. 

And at least one young reader seems to have agreed with me, for on the last end paper was this editorial remark:










But wait!  We must return to William Guy Carr.  After writing this very proper book about the United Nations and subsequently retiring from active military service, Mr. Carr abandoned his writings of war memoirs and delved deeply and permanently into the world of conspiracy theories.

And he didn't just dabble in conspiracy theories.  As quoted on Goodreads and other websites, William Carr was  "the most influential source in creating the American Illuminati demonology", (American folklorist Bill Ellis) (3)

Mr. Carr's books began to take a decidedly different turn.  He churned out multiple books detailing an Illuminati conspiracy: Pawns in the Game (1955),  Red Fog over America (1955),  Satan Prince of this World (1959)  and published posthumously, The Conspiracy to Destroy All Existing Governments and Religions (approx. 1960).  (1).  In addition he published numerous papers and articles, all focusing, laser-like, on a vast conspiracy in which Christianity, the Illuminati, our country's founding fathers, countless nations around the world, money, war and power are all tied up in a vast and terrifying racist/anti-semitic bundle in which Mr. Carr passionately believed until his death in 1959. (1)(4)

To say I was shocked to discover this hidden truth behind the author of my $5 vintage book discovery would be an understatement.  However as I have discovered time and again in my vintage book quests, you really can't judge a book--or an author or an illustrator--by the cover.  Sometimes the most unremarkable book can hold secrets--either divine or diabolical--which we least expect.

Now when I see One World in the Making on my shelf, I won't see a mild-mannered history book, but the conspiratorial madness behind the eyes of an unassuming retired military man for whom the brutal impacts of battle and world politics may have left too deep of a mark.  











Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Guy_Carr

2. http://educate-yourself.org/cn/carrglobalistsaresatanists27feb13.shtml

3. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/238948.William_Guy_Carr

4. http://www.michaeljournal.org/pawns.asp

Telling It Like It Is on Mother's Day

My dear, equally book-crazed friend Sue gifted me a vintage book in honor of Mother's Day.

The Wonderful Story of HOW YOU WERE BORN by
Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg. Illus. by Hildegard Woodward.
Garden City Books. Garden City, NY. 1959.

This particular book is especially well-suited to Mother's Day as it is all about where babies come from--yes, that parentally-dreaded, all-important question to which parents know the answer, but don't know how to say the  words.

Considering that this book was first published in 1952, I at first rather expected it to either offer the standard stork/cabbage patch variety of explanation, or perhaps hide beneath vague euphemisms (neither of which, I might add, a child particularly needs or wants when asking this very important question).

The author, Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg  was born in Austria in 1881 and educated in Germany and New York (1).

From 1906 until 1961 she worked as a world-famous parenting and child expert, serving as director for the Child Study Association of America, conducting parenting lectures, serving on editorial boards for Parent's Magazine and Child Study and working on various White House subcommittees on behalf of children and parents. (1)

In addition to these achievements, she authored over 15 books on child issues and parenting aimed at both children and parents. (2)

What all this boils down to is that the book I hold in my hands was written by someone with considerable clout--so if this is the way Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg answers the question "where do babies come from?", then chances are this is a good way for most of us to answer the question.

 And just how does she answer this question?

Honestly.
With precocious and splendid honesty.

I was first struck by the cover.  Ms. Gruenberg and illustrator Ms. Woodward started right away visually reinforcing that how YOU were born is how EVERYONE was born.  Pretty much.

Now, Ms. Woodward could have drawn a few little adorable babies and left it at that--a few little 1959-ish white babies in bonnets and bibs. I may be generalizing a bit, but not by much I feel, based on the many, many illustrated covers of vintage 1950's children's books I have seen with my very own eyeballs.

But Ms. Woodward's  cover illustration offers a selection of children from obviously different backgrounds (delightfully enough, depicted from the front as well as the back on the book covers).   Both the cover art and the title page art seem to exude a kind of  idealized multi-ethnic spirit of childhood that appeals to the idealist in me.  The illustrations throughout the book are just soft and ambiguous enough to represent people from any number of countries.

And paired with these gentle, lovely illustrations is Ms. Gruenberg's carefully crafted text.


Ms. Gruenberg starts right off acknowledging how parents try to avoid answering the "Where did I come from?" questions and covers the gamut of standard answers:  babies are found under cabbage leaves (this explanation illustrated in rather disturbing detail at the bottom of page 3), are ordered from stores via mail order, are delivered by storks or brought by fairies.

The rest of the book is then dedicated to telling the REAL story--beginning with a gentle foray into the fact that  all living creatures--including humans-- come from eggs.







Ms. Gruenberg describes how the egg grows in the mother's womb (in the case of mammals) and describes the key changes that happen as the baby grows.

"A baby lies in the womb with his head near a passage in his mother's
body that leads to the outside.  This narrow passage is called the
vagina."   (pg.13)

There is then a description of childbirth itself that is in equal parts careful and blunt.  Ms. Gruenberg is careful to avoid absolutes:  "Most babies are born in a hospital because this is a convenient place for mother and baby to get all the attention they need." (pg. 17).   And while she mentions the pain of childbirth, she does so with reassurances for a young child listening to this book  and learning about this topic for the first time.
                                                                                         

On page 22, in the second half of the book, the father's contribution to the creation of a baby is explained--again in careful, honest detail using specific vocabulary.  

"In the mother's womb the egg is ready to begin
to grow into a baby.  But only if it is joined by
something else.  This very important something
is called a 'sperm', and it comes from
the father's body."  (pg. 22)

At this point the book seems to sigh with a bit of relief, having  succesfully navigated the murky waters of introducing the terms  "vagina" and "sperm" (or perhaps the sighing I hear is the collective timeless sighing of thousands of parents reading this book to their children.)

At any rate, the rest of the book is straightforward, discussing how the baby grows from an infant into a child, from child to teenager, from teenager to young adult.




The last few pages of the book skirt just a bit timidly  around the topic of puberty, the leap into a final technicolor celebration of family which while abrupt, is pleasing never the less.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book--by it's honesty, by the illustrations that sought to represent many different kinds of people, by the way it offered an easier way for parents to introduce a challenging topic to their children.

A final new edition was published in 1970.  This new edition included an enlarged  format and updated  text and  illustrations  (some of which, according to one Goodreads review, they "wouldn't want a younger child accidentally coming across." (3))

(4)

This is one vintage book that I feel has weathered the passing years quite well, even in its original edition.  Of all the lessons and information parents must pass on to their children,  the most difficult are those that strike the closest to our emotional hearts--birth and death, love and loss, pain and passion.

There is something  in this book, with its  gentle, pastel-tinted treatment of reproduction, parenthood and family, that is timeless and appropriate.

Especially for Mother's Day.

Sources

1. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_07935.html

2. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/672138.Sidonie_Matsner_Gruenberg

3. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2691722-wonderful-story-of-how-you-were-born

4. http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Story-How-Were-Born/dp/0385036744

Imagining the Moon: Moon Landing Fictional Non-Fiction

You Will Go To The Moon by Mae and Ira Freeman.
Illustrated by Robert Patterson. Beginner Books Inc. 1959. 

 I wonder if there was a first human to look up into a moonlit night sky and wonder what it would be like to walk upon the faraway moon.

I can't help but feel that it had to have been a child.

I happened upon this children's book wedged into an overcrowded bottom shelf at Half Priced Books (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite book haunts).   It was an easy book to overlook--the spine is an unremarkable brown with white block letters spelling out the equally unremarkable title.  

But I slid it out anyway, and I am so glad that I did.

This book feels like a non-fiction book.   Easy vocabulary aimed at a 1st or 2nd grade reading level.   Specific scientific vocabulary such as "gravity", "centrifugal force" and "inertia" are discussed  in the text and then defined and described in detail in a brief, simply written glossary in back.

And perhaps in 1959 this was considered a non-fiction book of sorts--a scientific inspiration-sparker for young starry eyed someday astronauts designed to whet their whistles for the future of space travel.

But reading it now in 2016, 57 years after it was written and 47 years after the first actual moon landing, it seems almost campy--like a written version of early science fiction TV dramas.

Clearly the seeds for the actual moon landing in 1969 had been planted and informed by the Russian space endeavors, starting with the first ever earth orbiting satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957. (1).  This was followed closely by Sputnik 2 which sent the first living creature into orbit--a dog named "Laika". (1)

The gauntlet had been thrown down and the race was on between the USSR and the United States--who would get to the moon first?

Vostok 1 (4)

By 1961 the Russians had sent the first human (Yuri Gagarin) into orbit around the earth.(1)   Gagarin's spacecraft--named "Vostok 1", did not resemble the sleek rockets dreamed up by science fiction writers or even forward-thinking scientists. But the fuel for dreams was there--and I can't help but feel that images of these early Russian spacecraft fueled the illustrations for this book, at least in part.  And since the concept of multi-stage rockets has been around since between 1300-1350 AD in China (5),  both the authors Mae and Ira Freeman, and illustrator Robert Patterson must have had ample source material upon which to base the story and drawings.

But this book was written and published before Yuri Gagarin made his historic trip into orbit--and it shows.

Authors Mae and Ira Freeman must have been aware of where this book would stand--straddling science fiction and science fact.   To bridge this, they wrote the book in second-person future tense.  It reads like a narrator directing you through your particularly detailed and realistic dream and is reflected in the title You Will Go To The Moon.  






Take for example how space travel is depicted in the illustrations--the young main character and the "rocket man" (as he is called in the book) are shown wearing regular clothes, reclining in modified airline seats.










Also note the presence of a space station--depicted in the book as a kind of roadside rest stop at the halfway point between earth and moon.

*Please notice the obvious lack of women in space.  In fact the only woman
shown in this book is the boy's mother (accompanied by his father)
as they walk the boy to the rocket to see him off on his trip to the moon.

*Also space travel is not only devoid of  women, but also of any kind of
diversity.   Space travel in 1959 was evidently imagined as being solely
a "white guy" thing.   This makes me crazy.

In this space station, the young space traveler and his "rocket man" friend are able to enjoy various types of recreation while they wait for their "moon ship" which will take them the rest of the way to the moon.

The glossary  handily provides scientific definitions of "gravity" and "centrifugal force" to explain the presence of gravity on the space station.

The moon ship is shown as a 2-story vehicle encased in a dome of clear glass.

The text goes on to describe the three-day trip between the space station and the moon as a kind of weightless vacation in a space-age rec room replete with a tv showing a baseball game broadcast from earth, floating books to read, a magnetic chess set and various refreshments to enjoy.















Finally, one of the last pages in the book shows a "moon house", where evidently people will be able to live once they reach the moon.


When I read this book I ended up feeing rather wistful.  Once upon the time the idea of scientific endeavor and space exploration fired our imaginations and even built bridges between nations--shaky and perhaps short-lived bridges, yes, but bridges nonetheless--as we collectively tried to expand our understanding of the universe.

Now, in 2016, it seems that we humans have lost a lot of our curious spark, and have drawn away from imagining any kind of future except the kind we can peek at on the tiny screens we hold in our hands.

I admit my cynicism.

However I do take comfort in imagining the child who once owned this book.

Maybe a little boy or girl ("Ebward"?  "E.B. Ward"?) who read this book with a parent or a grandparent or a teacher and dreamed of going to the moon and living in a "moon house".

Maybe a little boy or girl who grew up and lived up to these dreams.

Who knows?








































Sources

1. http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/soviet-union-first-moon

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

3. http://ezinearticles.com/?Critique-Of-Ira-M-Freemans-Book:-All-About-The-Atom&id=6123395

4. http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2011/03/yuri-gagarin.cfm

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multistage_rocket#History_and_development

Pampeliška (Dandelion)

Dandelion by Ladislav Svatos. Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1976.

Finding a splendid vintage book with a complex history is so very satisfying when achieved in a bookstore.   However finding a splendid vintage book is infinitely MORE satisfying when you stumble upon it.

And when it comes to stumbling upon books,  I will blushingly suggest that I am a fantastic klutz.

I stumbled upon this treasure-- Dandelion by Czechoslovakian artist and writer Ladislav Svatos--in a Goodwill store in Wheaton, Illinois.

This particular Goodwill store has become one of my favorites.  Thrift stores depend on donations, and this particular Goodwill store seems to be fed a rich diet of library castoffs, attic evacuations and downsizing diamonds in the rough.

Much to my dysfunctional delight.

Finding out more about author Ladislav Svatos proved to be as eye-opening as it was challenging--primarily because most of the information about Svatos is in Czech.  And unfortunately I cannot read Czech.  However I AM quite skilled at plugging  Czech words into translator internet search engines.

And so I did.

Even with the inevitable garble of trying to read computer-translated Czech,  I immediately sensed that Ladislav Svatos was a man with a story to tell.

Ladislav Svatos (2)

Ladislav Svatos was born in 1929 in the Czech Republic. (2)  I wasn't able to dig up much on his early years, mostly I suspect because I cannot read Czech and thus cannot hopscotch between Czech-langauge websites to follow clues and hints as I do in English.

But I was able to uncover one bit of information on a Czech website that seems to be dedicated to former Czech political prisoners of the communist regime. (1)  This regime stretched from 1948 to 1989. (3)  Under this regime, those individuals deemed "dissidents"--including members of the Catholic church of which Svatos was a member (1)-- were removed from society. (3)

According to this website, in 1951 Svatos and a fellow church member were accused of being "agents of the Vatican" and were sentenced to imprisonment. (1)  Svatos was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, while the other man was sentenced to 24 years. (1)

After being released from prison Svatos went on to have a family and to become a well-known designer and graphic artist (1), evidence of which I hold in my hands in the form of Dandelion.





The book Dandelion itself is visual poetry.   The stark black ink drawings on white with just touches of yellow and green  are graceful and  perfectly complement the clean botanical descriptions of the life of a dandelion.

As I read through this book several times, I was strongly reminded of Japanese ink drawings, where the simple elegance of black ink designs on white paper tells a story as much in what ISN'T there as what IS.

The empty spaces are nearly as beautiful as the illustrations.









At times, in fact, there seems to be hidden qualities in some of the drawings.  Take, for example, the drawing below of a dandelion sprout just starting to take root.  The shape of the root itself seems to take the form of a tiny human body, arms outstretched.

Similarly, in one of the last illustrations in the book, of a fully white dandelion flower just starting to release its seeds to the wind, there is something expressive in the way the dandelion is posed--almost like it is standing, tiny green hands perched on hips.  The releasing seed parachutes almost look like tiny outstretched hands.







Dandelion is a beautiful book, melding plant science and poetry in nearly perfect balance.   It celebrates one of the most ubiquitous and humble flowers--a plant that is usually uprooted as a troublesome weed and seldom held up for its simple beauty and usefulness (dandelions have traditionally been used as  food as well as to help treat various disorders). (4)

As far as I can find, while Svatos' work can be seen in various other areas, such as on book cover art, postcards and  in illustrations, Dandelion may have been his only children's book.

I find myself wishing this were not so.

Sources

1. http://www.kpv-praha15.wz.cz/kpv_SOVF_clanek51.htm

2. http://www.isabart.org/person/4129

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Czechoslovakia_(1948%E2%80%9389)

4. http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/benefits-of-dandelion-greens-zmaz08amzmcc.aspx

The Subjectively Objective World of the Encyclopedia

Children's encyclopedias seem to me a curious thing.  Even as a child I approached children's encyclopedias with suspicion--how could one book, or even a collection of 8, 10, 12 books or more, possibly begin to explain everything in  the world?

The children's encyclopedia that is now open before me is one I cannot take credit for finding.  It was a gift from a dear, book-loving friend who is well acquainted with  my passion for vintage children's books.

The Golden Encyclopedia.  Dorothy A Bennet.
Illustrated by Cornelius De Witt.
Simon and Schuster.  New York. 1946.

The Golden Encyclopedia was an expansion of Little Golden Books--a series of children's books conceived by George Duplaix, Lucy Sprague Mitchell and Lucille Ogle to be low-cost and using a new color technique. (1)  Bennett joined Duplaix, Mitchell and Ogle in 1943 and soon became instrumental in both authoring as well as editing Little Golden Books and Golden Books. (1)

But let's back up a bit, back to focus on Dorothy Bennett.  Unlike so many authors/illustrators of books I explore on this blog, Dorothy Bennet was not an author who published then vanished.  Far from it!  Dorothy Bennet was a renaissance woman who graduated from the University of Minnesota (and from the grasp of her over-protective parents) and pointed herself firmly towards adventure. (1)  Among her many achievements--beyond authoring--she served as an astronomer, anthropologist, was a radio personality, and was deeply involved in science education, often taking "junior astronomers" on camping trips to see stellar phenomena (1).

Needless to say, I could go on and on, but I won't (although I highly recommend you read her Minnesota Alumni bio listed below!)

So Dorothy Bennett knew her stuff.   However, she knew her stuff in the mid 1940's.   Which brings me back to my long-standing suspicion of children's encyclopedias.   Anything written by humans is biased, subjective and irrevocably stamped by time.  True objectivity, in my experience, is rare, if not nigh on impossible.  So as amazing as Dorothy Bennett was,  this encyclopedia is most certainly a product of its time.

Take for example the section on "Man".  In the mid 1940's, science classified people into watercolor boxes of skin tone.  We would rightfully consider this to be offensive  nonsense today (although vestiges of this classification certainly remain today in discussions of race--if we have moved beyond referring to people in terms of yellow or red skin, why do we still use "black" and "white"?  I have been asked this endlessly by my young students over the past 25 years and I have not yet found a satisfying answer.  But I digress.).  

However, in reading this section, I could tell that Ms. Bennett did work hard to present as balanced and scientific an explanation of racial differences as she could based on her background in anthropology.   I would argue that her  efforts in fact created their own subjectivity--for the mid 1940's, perhaps not everyone would've necessarily agreed with  her efforts to present  matter-of-fact, fairly reasonable-sounding information.

As I read this encyclopedia now, in 2016, I can easily point out the dated information--and at times flaws-- in Dorothy Bennett's descriptions.  However throughout the book Ms. Bennett's inner scientist shines through.  Her descriptions resonate as well-crafted lectures, enhanced and embellished by the intricate illustrations.

Which brings us to the illustrator, Cornelius De Witt.   Unlike Dorothy Bennett, Mr. De Witt IS something of an enigma.   

While the internet is replete with samples of his work, finding information about the man himself is nigh on impossible.  I could only find the most basic of information.  Cornelius De Witt was born in 1905 in Germany and passed away in 1995 in Massachusetts. (2)   However, where the man may have become inaccessible, his work lives on, and anyone who grew up in the United States Between 1940 up to the 1980's has most certainly run across Mr. De Witt's brilliantly colored and fascinatingly detailed illustrations.

When my friend handed me this book I ran adoring fingers over the brilliant colors and details on the cover, examined the binding and carefully opened it to the title page.  Then I did what I always do with vintage books:   I held it loosely in my hands and just let it fall open.

Most of the time these vintage books simply open to reveal text and illustrations for me to examine.   But once in a while the book will open up to reveal a hidden, long-forgotten treasure.

Such is the case with this encyclopedia.  When I first let it fall open, tucked into the "N" section was this paper:

It was an abandoned World History assignment, completed by a student in 1957.   My brain of course kicked into a heap of questions:  Who was this student?   What grade was he in?  The subject area would seem to point to a junior or senior high student.  If so, was this book once in his classroom or in the library?  Or was it a book he found laying around his house and he simply referred to it so he could  get his assignment done as quickly as possible?

Perhaps the most endearing part of finding this paper is that it reminded me of the assignments my own son tried to rush through when he was younger--the handwriting crammed together, the answers given in fast-forward bits instead of complete sentences.

And this is the essence of my love for vintage books.  Biased, dated, subjective, even sometimes offensive as they may sometimes be, they remind me where we used to be and where I used to be, and inspire me to keep looking forward, even as I peek back.

















Sources

1. http://www.minnesotaalumni.org/s/1118/social.aspx?sid=1118&gid=1&pgid=3685&cid=5996&ecid=5996&crid=0&calpgid=3654&calcid=5955

2. http://www.askart.com/artist_keywords/artist/24291/artist.aspx