|
recent posts
----------
Some Flickers of Interest
Well Spoken
Beached
Tiptoe Through the Living Room
Switching Reels
Rails
Sparks
Totally Insane First Paragraph
Museum Going
Just Found
|
 |
You've got questions, she's got answers. Be among the first to read Elise Mac Adam's new etiquette guide.
Pre-order from:
- Simon & Schuster
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
Everything Old is New Again
One of the ways I denied the realities of having a baby (now babies), especially in the early most sleep deprived days, was in dreaming about the library of children's books I would collect for Felix, and like everyone I tended to embrace the things I had when I was little.
It was something of a disappointment to discover that a lot of my favorite books had fallen out of print (shocking, I know, and how insulting to be reminded of one's advanced and advancing age). Among my favorites are two books by the same author. The titles:
No Kiss for Mother and The Beast of Monsieur Racine.
The author: Tomi Ungerer.
So it was thrilling to see in the New York Times today that Mr. Ungerer is coming back into the picture. Another one of his stories, The Three Robbers, is an animated movie and I am excited and a bit concerned about it because I stil have strong fond memories of a favorite babysitter reading The Three Robbers to my brother and me when we were very little.
The article, if you read it, elaborates on how subversive Ungerer's text and images appear to some people. Maybe this is the case, but what I love so much about all of his books is that they drift very close to themes and topics that are worrisome and then proceed to undermine the unhappiness with a joyful ending. Consider Alumette, Ungerer's revisionist Little Match Girl story in which the Poor Little Match Girl ends up becoming a great philantrhopist.
So it is with great pleasure that I read about Ungerer's return and I hope there are more, because the latest of his works that I discovered when my first child was only a few months old, is Flix, the story of a pug dog born to cat parents who goes on to become a famous politician and uniter of dogs and cats everywhere. Now that's a successful child.
posted by Elise at 12:07 PM
........................................................
gef said...
I too was pleased to read the NYT piece about Ungerer. I'd never heard of him till I picked up a fairly pristine copy of his "Moon Man" last year at a library sale held on the county fairgrounds in a small town in the Texas Hill Country. Why do libraries get rid of such great books? Anyway, Dale loves it--especially his images of a masquerade ball that she would just pore over--and I love finding out-of-print scores like that. Here's hoping the lame chain book stores can get over their qualms about selling his work...
7/29/2008 7:52 PM
........................................................
<< Home
........................................................
|
gef said...