Nine Children's Classics

I've taken to re-reading books lately that I read as a child.  After all my downsizing over the years, I still have enough to fit on a shelf.  I've kept them dusted and have sometimes taken one, opened it, glimpsed through it ... to find that whole era instantly popping up before me as I read birthday or Christmas wishes written in my mother's hand along with the date--1945, 1946, 1947.  The books then seemed especially handsome ... more so than today's.  Well-made, beautifully illustrated, nicely bound, good paper, sturdy.  My brother and I accumulated two splendid collections--he got the Scribner's Illustrated Classics editions, often illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, including such adventures of The Deerslayer, The Scottish Chiefs, Kidnapped.  And I received the Grosset and Dunlap Illustrated Junior Library editions.

Whatever the selection, the books seemed to have soul.  Rather than following the Conflict and Resolution formula publishers now seem to require, these stories simply told a good tale.  Now, even if you're a little pig, you need to have some sort of problem that is then resolved by the end of the book.  And then no children's book today would think of using such a "difficult" word as "soporific"--as Beatrix Potter included in The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, thinking it a perfectly good word, totally appropriate for a child.

After not having read many of these stories for something like sixty years, I wondered how I'd feel about them from an adult (even old-age) perspective.  Here, then, in the order read are the nine I've re-read so far.

1.  J. M. Barrie:  Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham.  This has always been one of my favorite books--for its large type, the feel of its binding, its absolutely splendid illustrations.  Of course, with the name, Wendy, I have a kinship with the story of Peter Pan.  But, lo, this proved to be a totally different animal.  Here, Baby Peter, all of a week or two old, leaves his home and goes to an island in London's Kensington Gardens to live with the birds who, we are told, are the ones who deliver human babies to their mothers.  Finding that he can't fly, he's stranded until he finds a way to maneuver himself around the park where he meets a new playmate, a little girl named ... Maimie!  Ever heard of Peter Pan and Maimie?  He finally decides to go home only to find a new baby in his crib so he leaves again.  Though I've been dusting this book all these years, even thumbing through the illustrations, I'd totally forgotten the story line--an odd mix of being both sad and rambling.

"Peter Pan is the fairies orchestra."

2.  C. Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini):  The Adventures of Pinocchio, illustrated by Helene Carter.  Of course, Walt Disney usurped this story, so our image of Pinocchio doesn't match the illustrations, here almost stick-figure-ish.  But no matter.  Though the tale is very moralistic, assuming all little boys are scoundrels unless they are properly reined in, I was able to find it good fun.  Originally a tragedy in which Pinocchio is hanged for his many faults, on his editor's prompting, Collodi introduced the Blue Fairy in the latter half of the book--someone who helped Pinocchio at strategic points thus producing a happy ending and making the book suitable for children (or so the editor said).  (Jiminy Cricket got that role in the movie.)

3.  Johanna Spyri:  Heidi, color illustrations by Edna Cooke Shoemaker.  As the others, I had not read this in ages but had often thought about Heidi up on that Swiss alp, eating her bread and cheese, drinking goat's milk, and looking out at the stars from her straw bed.  That simple life, to me, always seemed totally charming.  On re-reading it, I was surprised to find just how religious the tale is--how her life only achieved its happy ending through prayer and the grace of God.  But, it is a book of beautiful descriptions of a beautiful place and an engaging child.

4.  Hans Christian Andersen:  Andersen's Fairy Tales, illustrated by Arthur Szyk. Oh, golly.  Except for a rather small collection of his truly great classics, I found the tales surprisingly insipid.  Sorry.

5.  Kenneth Grahame:  The Wind in the Willows, illustrated by Arthur Rackham.  Confession:  I believe this was the first time I'd read this book.  I remember giving it a go as a child, only to find it too difficult.  But now, joy of joys, it turned out to be the prize-winner of the lot.  It was funny, delightful, all about golden afternoons, amusing conversations, and rather sweet adventures.  Plus a beautiful description of pastoral England.  I'd no sooner finished it than I wanted to start all over again.

6.  Mary Mapes Dodge:  Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, illustrated by Louis Rhead and Frank E. Schoonover. This is a dear story about a young impoverished Dutch boy and his sister, Gretel, who take part in a skating competition to win a pair of ice skates.  By the end, everyone is happy and the father, an amnesiac in bed for years, has regained his health.  In doing her research, however, the author (a 19th century New Yorker) incorporated great wads of travel-guide-type information, almost as if she were paraphrasing some source chapter by chapter.  Here's a description of Dutch houses.  Here's one of porcelain stoves.  Here's some Dutch vocabulary.  So one does get an education ... but an overabundance tends to disrupt the story line.

7.  The Arabian Nights, illustrated by Earle Goodenow.  These are mostly unrelated ancient and medieval tales from Persia, India, Turkey, Central Asia, Egypt, India, etc.--tales of artifice, stratagem, jewels, robberies, beautiful women.  The lead story about Scheherazade is a Persian tale.  (And the Persian language and people, of course, are not Arabic.)  And contrary to Disney's rendering, Aladdin is Chinese.  With such a wide geography under its belt, the name "Arabian" is something of a misnomer.  But, again, no matter.  They're wonderful tales.

8.  Rudyard Kipling:  The Jungle Book, illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg.  This is also a compilation of separate, independent stories with the central one focusing on Mowgli in India and featuring anthropomorphized animals who teach him the ways of the jungle (and hence, the world).  Kipling, as always, is a master story teller.  No complaints. 

9.  Rachel Field:  Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop.  I read this book at least twice as a child and enjoyed it just as much again now.  It's an appealing story (not always P.C., though) about a small wooden doll's adventures from the 1820's to the1920's.  After leaving her home in Maine--as she's left behind here or picked up there--she's worshiped as an idol in the South Seas, stuffed for years down into a horsehair sofa, featured as a fashion model for a New Orleans cotton exposition ...  You get the point.  It's great fun and sweet in its way.

More to come ... after I've re-read the others.