Childcraft: Animal Friends and Adventures

Animal Friends

For some reason, I never got around to reading out of this book and no one ever read it to me. I was never very good about sitting and listening to a story. Mom couldn’t read to me at night because as soon as she got me in bed I fell asleep. And if it was daytime, then I wanted to be outside or doing something. Once I could read on my own, however, I became addicted.

Reviewing the list of authors, I only recognize one name: Rudyard Kipling. But I also see that there’s a Dr. Dolittle story. My third grade teacher read to us from those books after recess every day. I’m ashamed that I didn’t know that Hugh Lofting wrote those books. And there’s a story from Justin Morgan Had a Horse. I loved other stories from that book. It’s too bad I didn’t know that another one was on my very own bookshelf.

The lead story in this volume is a Hindu tale, “Bunny the Brave,” about a young rabbit that outsmarts a hungry tiger. Every culture must have a story like this, about a small and brave child or creature who outsmarts the larger and cruel oppressor, about the trickster. I bet you can name other small heroes and stories: Ber Rabbit, coyote, Anansi, Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse.”

The next story is by a Czeck author, Josef Kozisek, who wrote A Forest Story. “Bidushka Lays an Easter Egg” was influenced by the Bohemian girls Elizabeth Orton Jones, the author, knew growing up. There are several stories set on farms or ranches. There are stories by authors famous in the 1930s and 40s. It’s like I’m on a literary archeological dig. Several of these stories are worth bringing back.

Wheels, Wings, and Real Things

I think they did a great job naming this section.  But it might have been the reason why I wasn’t interested in this book as a child. Stories about trucks and planes just didn’t interest me. I think Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel turned me off to such tales. Even a story in which the machine is female, “Susie Stock Car,” wasn’t enough to draw me in.

Now if I’d just noticed the wonderful story of “The Family Who had Never had Roller Skates.” It’s a tragic tale of little girls being forced to be little girls and not allowed to skate. But finally the family doctor comes to their rescue. “Their petticoats grew mussed and torn, but their cheeks grew rosy.” Pa-pa and Ma-ma Pettingill were won over. It’s a tale that says “Yes, join in. Try out the latest thing.”

MORE on the Childcraft collection:
Poems of Early Childhood
Storytelling and Other Poems
Folk and Fairy Tales
Animal Friends and Adventures
Life in Many Lands
Great Men and Famous Deeds
Exploring the World Around Us
Creative Play and Hobbies
Art for Children

Childcraft: Folk and Fairy Tales

I’m not sure where I learned most of my traditional children’s tales. Now, when someone mentions “Sleeping Beauty,” I think of Disney’s version. Don’t you? For “Cinderella,” I think of the TV version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Lesley Ann Warren. And then I think of Disney. I don’t think of the stories in this volume.

Now if you mention “The Three Little Pigs,” that’s a different story. I immediately remember the unusual illustrations by Shirley Spackey. Then I have a more contemporary memory of changing the story slightly when re-telling it for my nephews. I liked to make it the story of the three pittle ligs and tell how the big wad bolf would threaten to “puff and huff or I’ll hoe your blouse in.” (I learned to use spoonerisms by watching Grandpa Jones on “Hee Haw.”)

The other illustration that I vividly recall is of Tom Tit Tot. That “little black thing” scared the pee-wadding out of me (to use a phrase I learned in childhood.)  I now realize that “Tom Tit Tot” is basically the same story as “Rumpelstiltskin.” The story is scary, too. Just because you did something stupid, your parent’s vanity or some big man’s greed could lead to you being locked in a room with only a spinning wheel and some flax.

The stories in this volume are the canon of English literature for children. Our shared knowledge of these stories allows authors to make use of the tales in new ways. I actually think I enjoy Fables, the graphic novel series, much more than I did the stories I heard as a child. Niel Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” story is deliciously thrilling and disturbing. Stephen Sondheims’ Into the Woods is like a candy cane treat. But they wouldn’t be so enjoyable if I didn’t get all the references.

I got into a fight once about one of the stories I read in here. I was wrong, but so were my friends. We fought over a drawing I made of the Rapunzel story. I remember the lead character’s mother starting out pregnant and with a desire for rutabagas. It was her husband’s journey into the witch’s garden to get her some that earned her the witch’s ire. My friends insisted there was no pregnant lady in the story. Well it’s implied that she is pregnant. She believes that she’ll soon have a child and everyone knows pregnant women have strange cravings. But it wasn’t for rutabagas, it was for rampions. I’d never heard of such an herb so I must have changed it in my head. For some reason, the risk the young husband took for his wife and his willingness to sacrifice his future child, was the heart of the story for me. Not the hair thing in the tower.

Sometimes I’m amazed that children don’t have a greater fear of step-mothers. In these stories they never want to feed or clothe their step-children. And fathers, while in nursery rhymes always strong and helpful, have no power in the face of the fairy tale step-mother. My mother, who married a widower with two children, was terrified of her new role because these stories haunted her.

I’m sure there are tales in this book which don’t frighten or alarm little kids. But I think it’s notable that I don’t remember those. Those didn’t capture my imagination. So what if Rose Red and Snow White were the closest of sisters, kind to everyone, and end up with lots of treasure? That does not make their story memorable. It’s the evil dwarf who makes that story worth reading.

I just read the Jack and the Beanstalk story and it’s not the same as I remember. I thought the goose that lay the golden egg was in it; I didn’t know that was from Aesop’s Fables. The giant’s fowl with an oviduct problem was a hen. I don’t recall anything of a fairy who lost her powers and allowed the giant to kill Jack’s father. I don’t recall Jack making three visits to the giant’s house. I think I know the story from old cartoons instead of this book.

The volume ends with Aesop’s Fables. I remember these stories, but not with the same intensity as the fairy tales. I only liked them because they were short, had animals in them, and you could always guess the moral.

A while back my husband read a few of Grimm’s fairy tales out loud to me. He picked ones we didn’t know and they seemed totally outlandish and ridiculous. I wrote my own modern versions of two of them:

• The cell phone, the universal remote, and the spider plant

• The Facebook application

Fairly tales just beg to be re-told.

MORE on the Childcraft collection:
Poems of Early Childhood
Storytelling and Other Poems
Folk and Fairy Tales
Animal Friends and Adventures
Life in Many Lands
Great Men and Famous Deeds
Exploring the World Around Us
Creative Play and Hobbies

Childcraft: Storytelling and Other Poems

For me this was the Childcraft book. This is where I found the best poems to memorize. This volume was the reason I bought an old set of the encyclopedias. To me these first two volumes were nourishing and homey, like a good spaghetti casserole. (Substitute tater tot hotdish if you live in Minnesota.)

Poems for Everyday

Isn’t it great to think that there are everyday poems, like Melmac dishes, that you can recite or read at almost any time? No special occasion necessary.

The illustrations above and below are by Meg Wohberg who illustrated advertisements for baby-care products in the 1930′s and then worked on over 70 children’s books in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. So her work might look familiar to people of a certain age and even younger.

I read these poems without concern for their messages. I’d read “When Young Melissa Sweeps” and want to go grab a broom. I don’t think I ever did it though, being a rather lazy child. But I’m sure some of my understanding of what it meant to be a girl came from these poems.

Yet Gentle Will the Griffin Be
(What Grandpa Told the Children)

The moon? It is a griffin’s egg,
Hatching tomorrow night.
And how the little boys will watch
With shouting and delight
To see him break the shell and stretch
And creep across the sky.
The boys will laugh. The little girls,
I fear, may hide and cry.
Yet gentle will the griffin be,
Most decorous and fat,
And walk up to the Milky Way
And lap it like a cat.

- Vichel Lindsay

So I learned how the world saw little girls but I learned a few vocabulary words, too.

Poems introduced me to elements of culture I never experienced myself. There were poems about the circus, the popcorn man, streetcars, and the sea. There was even one about telegraphs — a little outdated for the 1961 edition of Childcraft — but I knew what telegraphs were because I watched Westerns on TV.

I think everyone my age remembers a bit of such poems as “When the Frost Is on the Pumpkin.” Many of us probably wondered what a shock of corn was when we’d read the poem in school in the fall. I’m sure that there’s something more contemporary that has replaced these poems. I know that I never read or heard most of the poems that my father learned in school and would recite to me on long drives. Classic poems like James Whitcomb Riley’s provide a shared experience with other Americans my age.

Humorous Poems

This was the section where I found the best poems for memorizing. These are the poems I can still recite. I was disappointed that one of my favorite poems had no author noted. It must be a “traditional” poem, although I’ve never heard anyone but my sister or me recite it. I love the romanticism and surprise ending.

A Farmer’s Boy

They strolled down the lane together,
The sky was studded with stars.
They reached the gate in silence,
And he lifted down the bars.
She neither smiled or thanked him
Because she knew not how;
For he was just a farmer’s boy
And she was a Jersey cow!

I remember my father bringing home a reel-to-reel tape deck and recording that poem on it. Mom recorded the poem “Eletelephony” which I thought was hilarious. Both the poem and Mom’s voice coming out of a machine sent me into fits of giggles.

The famous “Purple Cow” poem is also in this collection. I’m so sorry it caused Gelett Burgess, the author, so much grief.

Storytelling and Ballads

Sometimes the illustrations really made the poem. That was the case for “The Potatoes Dance,” I thought. The illustrator’s taters were so much better than dull old Mr. Potato Head. Samuel Armstrong gave those spuds life. I had dreams about those potatoes. The burnt matchstick legs scared me.

In my previous post I told you that my sister and I had competitions for who could memorize more poems. Since she was eight years older, I had a real challenge. I have a fond memory of sitting in the back of the neighbor’s station wagon waiting for fireworks to begin and my sister telling us a story she made up about Squidgicum-Squees. She got the idea from “The Raggedy Man” which was too long for me to memorize. It took up two entire pages!

I was talking with my younger husband about how exciting it’s been to re-read all these poems. I then discovered that he had never heard of The Song of Hiawatha. How can a man who frequently drives Hiawatha Avenue, has been to both Gitche Gumee and Nokomis lakes, has probably walked past the Longfellow House at Minnehaha Park, not know this poem? I thought all native Minnesotans would have been forced to read it at some time or other. I guess not. Or not any more.

After I read him the poem tonight I might try to memorize The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. It should be a task made easier by Loreena McKennitt’s rendition as a song, although she leaves out several verses. Her song makes me cry. The poem is just lyrically satisfying and a good Gothic tale.

I’ll end with another favorite from the humorous poems section.

A New Song to Sing about Jonathan Bing

O jonathan Bing, O Bingathon Jon
Forgets where he’s going an thinks he has gone.
He wears his false teeth on the top of his head,
And always stands up when he’s sleeping in bed.

O Jonathon Bing has a curious way
Of trying to walk into yesterday.
“If I end with my breakfast and start with my tea,
I ought to be able to do it,” says he.

O Jonathan Bing is a miser, they say,
For he likes to save trouble and put it away.
“If I never get up in the morning,” he said,
“I shall save all the trouble of going to bed!”

“O Jonathan Bing! What a way to behave!
And what do you do with the trouble you save?”"
“I wrap it up neatly and send it by post
To my friend and relations who need it the most.”

- Beatrice Curtis Brown

I always found it interesting that Jonathan Bing and Old Father William looked like the same man. They were drawn by someone with the initials of RL. For some reason Childcraft didn’t give credits for illustrations.

Thank you for letting me share these with you. It’s been so much fun for me. Although, It does make me feel really old. And I’ve gone a little bit crazy trying to decide which poems are epic enough to warrant italics instead of quotes for their titles.

Childcraft: Poems of Early Childhood

I grew up with the orange set of Childcraft encylopedias. I’m not sure what edition that was but a few years ago I purchased a 1960 set with tan covers. I bought it for the poems and probably paid about five dollars. I’ve seen a 1948 orange set on eBay for $75. That set probably has the “Little Black Sambo” story which was removed from later editions.

I loved the first two books in Childcraft set, especially after I could read on my own. I had very little reading material since our town’s library had only a single short bookshelf for the primary grades and I whipped through that pretty quickly. The words of Angelo Patri, the editor for Poems of Early Childhood, are still true.

You can give a child very little that he can keep as his own. You can give him a good book. There is no finer gift within your power.

The volume begins with Mother Goose stories which have always confused me. Why would you want to keep your wife in a pumpkin shell? Did Peter carve it like a Jack-o-lantern? Why would Jack’s crown be fixed with vinegar and brown paper? But I loved the repetition and symmetry (or lack thereof) in “There was a Crooked Man” even though I had no idea what a stile could be.

After Mother Goose, there are poems by others with names you’ll recognize, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, and others who you might not. I especially enjoyed poems by Christina Rossetti and Walter de la Mare. And I had no idea that a poem I had recited to me often because of my curly hair — “There was a little girl — was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. That’s the same guy who wrote The Song of Hiawatha.

Mix a Pancake

Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;

Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake—
Catch it if you can.

- Christina Rossetti

I don’t think there’s a single poem in this collection that was copyrighted after 1945. I do hope that the current edition has kept some of these lovely old poems. Maybe not the ones that are terribly sexist, but the others. And I’d like them to correct a few poems that I remember with different words than are printed here. The poem for remembering the number of days in a month should end with “except February in fine, each leap year twenty-nine.” I fervently believe this even though “in fine” makes no sense.

The photo above of Mary Middling and her pig is from an illustration by Mary Royt. I find it sad that this artist hasn’t garnered a Wikipedia entry yet. I love the look on that pig. Eloise Wilkin was another of the illustrators. She created the most innocent looking little girls.
And it was Roger Duvoisin who did that terribly cute illustration of the gingham dog and the calico cat.

I would lose myself in the poems and illustrations in this book. It was a favorite of mine and of my older sister. In fact, we used to have poem competitions to see who could recite the most. We loved to run through then entirety of “The House that Jack Built.” It’s probably something we should go apologize to our mother for.

I have to leave you with one more poem. This is a new favorite and not one that I remember from childhood.

Funny Animals

The kangaroo said to her son,
“I wish you would get down and run.
We don’t have a car
And I’ve packed you so far —
Now try out your legs, just for fun.”

Said the bear, with a growl, “I refuse
My company manners to use.
I’ve saved them so long
That I get them on wrong,
But I can be quite nice when I choose.”

Said the donkey, “They jeer me a lot.
Something funny about me I’ve got.
I bray and, of course,
I’m not built like a horse.
But still, I’m a donkey — so what?”

- Elizabeth Newell

OK, just one more. I think I need to memorize this one and bring it out next spring to amaze my friends or annoy my husband.

The Willow Cats

They call them pussy willows,
but there’s no cat to see
Except the little furry toes
That stick out on the tree.

I think that very long ago,
When I was just born new,
There must have been whole pussycats,
Where just the toes stick through—

And every spring it worries me,
I cannot ever find
Those willow cats that ran away
And left their toes behind!

- Margaret Widdemer

MORE on the Childcraft collection:
Poems of Early Childhood
Storytelling and Other Poems
Folk and Fairy Tales
Animal Friends and Adventures
Life in Many Lands
Great Men and Famous Deeds
Exploring the World Around Us
Creative Play and Hobbies
Art for Children

The cell phone, the universal remote, and the spider plant

Another retelling of a Grimm’s tale–just for Peggyj. This time it’s of The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage.

The cell phone, the universal remote, and the spider plant

Once upon a time a cell phone, a universal remote, and a spider plant shared an apartment in perfect peace and prosperity. It was the job of the cell phone to order pizza. The universal remote provided them with daily entertainment, and the spider plant kept the air in their apartment clean and fresh.

But no one is ever content and everyone judges their prosperity against their neighbor’s. One day the cell phone overheard another making reservations at an exclusive night club and resolved that he and his friends should have more than simple pizza and bread sticks.

The cell phone spoke to his friends about how, in the apartment down the hall, the occupants lived in a much grander scale. The neighbors were going out that very evening to a French restaurant, followed by drinks and dancing, while they were going to spend a night at home watching reality TV. Weren’t they just as deserving of a fine evening on the town? Was if fair for his talents to be wasted on calling only Domino’s and Papa Johns?

The universal remote and the spider plant had felt content with their lives, but were persuaded by the cell phone’s continuous arguments. Let us see what happens to these friends.

The cell phone made reservations for three at downtown’s finest restaurant. The three of them put on their finest clothes and took a cab into town. The cell phone complained that he’d had to take care of both the reservations and getting the cab. His roommates reminded him that he was best suited for the task, but the phone still felt taken advantage of and the end of the trip was taken in silence.

After their evening out, during which they mostly spoke of the TV shows they were missing, the plant offered to go outside and hail a cab so the cell phone wouldn’t have to do it again. His friends paid the bill. (They wouldn’t be able to afford bread sticks for over a month.) And then they walked outside expecting to find the spider plant and a waiting taxi. But the plant was nowhere to be found.

The universal remote eventually found a cook who was outside smoking and had seen a squad car pull up and take off with the spider plant. The cell phone called the station and found out the spider plant was being held for questioning. The phone and remote pooled the rest of their money and took a cab to the station to try and learn more and to help out their friend. But the spider plant had not been able to prove citizenship and his green card had expired months before. So he was being deported.

The cell phone and universal remote were considerably upset and began walking home together. They no longer had enough money to even pay for a bus, plus they were not familiar with this part of the city. The cell phone was mugged and critically injured. The remote ran off to save his own life, but in his haste he ran across the light rail and was hit by a train.

===

If you’d like to read another tale see Grimm’s The Turnip: My version, or a good tale at “Uncle Chortle” by Robert Gray.

Grimm’s The Turnip: My version

Sometimes Hab Moo will read to me at night. I love it. It’s hard when he reads Grimm’s Fairy Tales, because they always set him off into fits of laughter and confusion. Really there are some rather odd stories out there. So far our favorite is The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage. You can probably guess which one gets it in the end. Here’s my modern telling of The Turnip.

The Facebook Application

There once were two brothers who both worked as tax advisers, and one was rich and one was poor. The poor one, wishing to better himself, left his practice and played on his Facebook site. He posted items, became a fan of many odd things, and tried his hand at creating an application to create a virtual bakery.

The virtual bakery became wildly popular in his network. People were leveling up their ingredients and adding their own recipes. They were gifting each other cakes for weddings and cupcakes for virtual parties. The Facebook fanatic could not imagine what would come of this, whether it would bring good luck or bad.

At last he said to himself, if I sell it what shall I gain? The best thing will be to show it to the venture capitalist and offer it to him. So that’s what he did.

“This is extraordinary!” exclaimed the venture capitalist. “Did you create this marvel? Does it belong to you?”

“Oh no,” said the Facebook fanatic. “It was an idea only. I am but an unfortunate tax adviser who could barely earn a living. I have a brother who is rich and well known to you. But I have nothing. Not even a blog. Just a Facebook page.”

The venture capitalist pitied him and said, “Your poverty shall be at an end and you shall receive from me such rich presents that your wealth will equal you brother’s.”

Thereupon the Facebook fanatic received an iPhone, Wii, large flat screen TV, stocks and bonds, a house on the beach, and a yacht.

Now the rich brother heard what his brother with a single Facebook application had acquired; he envied his brother and pondered how he might gain a like treasure for himself. But he wanted to show himself much more clever, so he took Flash games and widgets and photo sharing applications and presented them to the venture capitalist, feeling certain that he would receive an even finer gift.

The venture capitalist accepted the presents, saying that he had something wonderful to give the brother in exchange. There was nothing in his opinion greater than the Facebook virtual bakery application. So the rich brother had to download the application.

Frustration and evil thoughts came to him and he decided that his brother should die. He hired gang members from a neighborhood several miles away, had them make ready an ambush, and went to his brother. “Dear brother, I know where we can buy the next Powerball lottery ticket.”

The poorer brother set off with his brother without suspicion, but when they reached the seedy gas station the gang members sprang upon him, gagged him, and threw him in the trunk of their car.

While they were so occupied they heard a siren which frightened them and they ran off. The brother lay in the trunk until he heard voices. He banged hard against the trunk and moaned and gasped. The voice he had heard turned out to not be a police officer, but rather a young man in baggy pants.

He worked his way out of his hastily tied bounds and called out, “You’ve come in the nick of time. May you be as lucky as I.”

The young man looked around and asked “Did you say something to me? Where are you?”

A voice from the trunk answered, “I am here in the trunk and believe me it’s the best experience I’ve ever had in my life. You know auto-erotic asphixia? It’s so much better than that. I’m exhausted from the last ten orgasms I’ve had. I don’t think I can survive another. If you were in my place you’d know what I mean.”

The young man grew excited. “Can I try it? How do I get in there? How does it work?”

The other answered, “I will let you try it because of your youth, and for the price of that Starbucks in your hand for I have grown thirsty. But wait just a few minutes. I think I’ve recovered enough to experience just one more or two more.”

The young man waited a bit but grew impatient. The man in the trunk pretended to give in and said, “Release the trunk latch and then you can get in.”

So the young man released the latch, helped the man out, and put a foot into the trunk. “Stop. That’s not quite the way,” said the other and bound him, gagged him, and tossed him inside. Closing the trunk he said, “How are you feeling? You will soon feel sensations you’ve never before experienced.”

Thereupon he drank from the youth’s coffee cup and walked away. But he called the station an hour or so later and told the attendant to check for an abandoned car in his lot.