Featured Author

Ruth Krauss is, perhaps, best known for her distinctive ability to capture a child’s point of view (and often a child’s vocabulary and language patterns) in her books. Two of her best loved books, A Hole is To Dig: A First Book of Definitions and The Carrot Seed, showcase her talent in this area. Although Ruth Krauss never studied writing specifically, she enjoyed writing from an early age and attempted many different types of writing in addition to children’s books, including poetry, novels, and even a “first book” of anthropology.

Krauss was born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 25, 1901. She enjoyed art, reading, and writing as a child and often entertained herself with these activities. Her father and grandfather also read to her frequently. She left high school after two years and went on to study art and violin at the Maryland Institute of Art. Several years later, she earned a bachelor’s degree from the Parsons School of Fine and Applied Art in New York City. Krauss states “I feel that much of my writing is tied in with training in the graphic arts – I am a graduate of an art school – and also with the study of music.” She attributes her understanding of children in part to her study of anthropology commenting “I have also had some education in anthropology, which, although not undertaken too seriously by me at the time at Columbia University, extended over a period of four years and broadened my understanding to the point where it fused with the understanding of many other things, including (I hope it includes) that branch of people categorized as ‘children.’” Like Margaret Wise Brown (Featured Author July 8, 2007), she was also a member of the experimental Writer’s Laboratory at the Bank Street School in New York during the 1940’s. This program emphasized the “here and now” in children’s literature; that is, writing about things in children’s every day experience and in language that would be familiar and accessible to children. Many of the writers associated with this program also approached their books attempting to capture a child’s point of view and a child’s sense of wonder at the world around them.

Krauss’ first book, A Good Man and His Good Wife was published in 1944. It was followed the next year by one of her most enduringly popular books, The Carrot Seed, which incidentally was illustrated by her husband, Crockett Johnson who was a cartoonist, illustrator, and children’s author in his own right (see Featured Author essay from July 1, 2007). The Carrot Seed is a very short, simple story about a little boy who plants a seed and waits for it to grow, despite the fact that everyone around him tells him that it won’t. In the end, the seed sprouts “just as the little boy had known it would.” This book won acclaim not only from those knowledgeable about children’s books, but from unlikely sources including a corporation who ordered one thousand copies to be distributed to its personnel.

In 1952, Ruth Krauss published the other book that she is particularly well known for: A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of Definitions. This book was the first time she collaborated with illustrator, Maurice Sendak. Sendak (who was not yet a well known illustrator) had brought a sketch book into Harper Collins that Krauss (who was looking for an illustrator) happened to see. She was very taken with his style and so began a collaboration that would span many years and many books. When A Hole Is To Dig was released, it was such a fun book with such an unusual approach that people actually lined up in bookstores to purchase a copy. It remains a well-loved book today, along with its companion book: Open House for Butterflies. Both these books capture the spirit and the outlook of childhood with definitions such as

“dogs are to kiss people” “ a lap is so you don’t get crumbs on the floor” “mud is to jump in and slide in and yell doodleedoodleedoo.”

Or observations like

“A little tree is not a good thing to be because you might grow up to be a telephone pole.”

Ruth Krauss continued to write children’s books throughout her life, the last one written five years before her death in 1993. Interestingly, the 1940’s and 1950’s seem to have been her most successful period; a number of the books that she wrote during this time are still in print. Perhaps these books are perennial favorites because they offer those of us who may have lost touch with the wonderfully fresh perspective of childhood the opportunity to re-experience it through her books or, even better, by sharing her books with a child. The following is a list of her books that are currently in print.

Picture Books

A Hole is to Dig A First Book of First Definitions by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

A Very Special House by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Bears by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Charlotte and the White Horse by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Mary Blair

I Want to Paint My Bathroom Blue by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Open House for Butterflies by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Crockett Johnson

The Growing Story by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury

The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Marc Simont

The Happy Egg by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Crockett Johnson

Plain spoken but artful, natively sophisticated but unpretentious, opinionated but not patronizing, E.B. White was a gift of a writer to America. His range of writing was narrower than some but his style connected with people in the fashion of a conversation rather than a lecture. His essays, for which he is perhaps most widely admired and appreciated, were spare meditations on common-place items and issues, delivered in such nominally plain prose that his readers could flatter themselves that his expressions captured their thoughts. These many decades later, even though the minutiae of daily life has changed so drastically, his thoughts and reflections still charm and entertain though that of which he spoke may have passed from our experience, rotary dial phones, nightly cocktail parties, transom windows, and the like.

Born July 11, 1899 in Mount Vernon, New York, the youngest of six siblings, Elwyn Brooks White had a comfortable upbringing in a well-off home afforded by his father (a piano manufacturer) and his mother.

An amateur writer from an early age, he attended Cornell University in 1917-21, there meeting a professor with whose name his would be inextricably linked down through the years, William Strunk, Jr., the author in 1919 of a little guidebook on writing style which E.B. White many years later updated and formalized and published as The Elements of Style in 1959.

His literary accomplishments are anchored on his reputation as an essayist, his authorship of three children’s stories (Charlotte's Web , Stuart Little , and Trumpet of the Swan ), his revised edition of what became so well known to generations of college students, Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style , and particularly his early involvement in the establishment of the New Yorker magazine and his on-going association with a whole generation of gifted writers, wits and bon-vivants, such as James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, and Alexander Woolcott of the Algonquin table.

After graduating from Cornell in 1921, White traveled with a friend out west in an old Model T till he reached Seattle where he worked for a year as a reporter. He later recounted these travel adventures in Farewell to Model T , which makes fascinating reading of a time before highways and interstates. A trans-continental trip of this sort was a physically arduous exercise of navigating endless rutted dirt county roads, interspersed periodically with the relief of a paved Main Street through some small town or city.

He bounced around between a number of jobs over the next three or four years, usually in some way related to writing, as a journalist, copy-writer, etc. In 1925 he had his first piece accepted by the recently founded New Yorker thus beginning a life-long association with that storied magazine so filled with distinctive and eccentric personalities. White’s early and close friend at the magazine, James Thurber, in a book called The Years with Ross , wrote a charming recounting of those early years when its’ unique voice and style were being established through the contributions of Thurber, White, Ross, Angell, and others. By 1927 White was a full-time employee of the magazine initially as a staff-writer but later in a range of roles sometimes more and frequently less suited to his talents until he settled into an unusual position of basically writer in residence, writing to his own schedule and proclivities.

In 1929 he married Katherine Angell, also of the New Yorker. Despite being born and raised in New York, urban, crowded living took a toll on White and in 1938 they moved to North Brookline, Maine, living year-round on a farm they had purchased a number of years earlier.

Stuart Little , the first of his three children’s books, came out in 1945. Apparently the idea originally came to him in the 1920’s, he developed a number of episodes and adventures for a niece in the late 1930’s and then wrote it over a number of years before its publication in 1945. Stuart Little is the story of the life and adventures of a mouse adopted by a New York family. Adopted, not in the sense of adopting a pet, but adopted as a son. Though strongly counseled against publishing the story by Anne Carroll Moore, one of the most influential people in children’s book publishing at the time, White proceeded simply because the story appealed to him. And as soon as it was published, it was quickly apparent that it appealed to many others as well.

Despite White shying away from awards, honors, and certainly the accolade of “classic”, Stuart Little along with Charlotte's Web published seven years later in 1952, have both become classics, easily meeting the criteria set by White. When his publishers released Stuart Little in 1945, they described Stuart Little in their catalogue as “a classic figure”, to which description White objected on the grounds that “nothing is a classic until generations of readers have proved it to be one.” Now, 62 years later with children still routinely reading and falling in love with Stuart, Charlotte, and Wilbur, I think it is fair to say that it is accurate to call both books classics.

Lesser known but equally appealing and equally deserving of the same appellation is White’s third children’s book, Trumpet of the Swan the tale of a Swan without a voice whose father helps him overcome this handicap by stealing a trumpet for his calls.

All three books are available on CD. White lived into his eighties and late in life recorded his reading of all three books though currently only Charlotte's Web and Trumpet of the Swan are available by him. All three of our children read all three books and loved them as literature. On a long road trip, we purchased Trumpet of the Swan read by White to listen to and all of us fell in love with that as well. White has a distinctive, gravelly grandfatherly voice that brings an additional quality to the story that is hard to put a finger on but is valued none the less.

These are the only children’s books that White wrote but he was batting 1000. All three are indeed classics.

Appropriate for older readers, are a handful of E.B. White books that are masterpiece examples of the art of the short essay. White’s second published book was a satire he wrote with James Thurber in 1929 Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do. Despite it’s titillating title, it is actually a satirical take down on the habit, courtesy of Freud, of self-indulgently over-analyzing one’s emotion’s as if one were overturning Copernicus and putting oneself at the center of the universe. It has dated a little but it is startling just how contemporary it can also sound.

As I mentioned above, Farewell to Model T is a marvelous snapshot back to a time in America’s history that most children wrestle with comprehending. Collections of his essays that are still in print include One Man’s Meat, Here is New York (another snapshot, in this instance, the heyday of New York in the 30’s – 50’s), and finally Essays of E.B. White. Essays of E.B. White.

Independent Readers

Charlottes Web by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams

Stuart Little by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White and illustrated by Fred Marcellino

Young Adults

Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White

Farewell to Model T by E.B. White

Here is New York by E.B. White

Is Sex Necessary? by E.B. White and James Thurber

One Man's Meat by E.B. White

The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White

Writings from the New Yorker, 1927-1976 by E.B. White

Despite some 140 children’s books and more to his name, Allan Ahlberg, a British writer is not perhaps as well known here as his talents warrant. It is quite remarkable when you think about it: how does such a damp island with grey overcast skies produce so many dry-witted people with such sunny good humor?

Allan Ahlberg was born June 5, 1938, and raised in England’s Black Country, the area north and west of Birmingham, so called, depending on your choice, either for its rich coal resources or for the smoke and smog prevalent in the area owing to its being an early location of industrialization in the 1800s, an early prototype of William Blake’s dark Satanic Mills.

Ahlberg was adopted and grew up in a working class family in very straightened circumstances. In his early years he had a variety of jobs including mailman, grave-digger, soldier, and plumber’s mate. He attended Sunderland College of Education to earn his teaching degree. It was while attending Sunderland that he met his future wife, Janet Hall. After graduating and marrying, Ahlberg did become a teacher for a number of years, stockpiling experiences that inform a good number of his stories and poems. Janet decided that classroom management was not her cup of tea and, instead, undertook studies in art and pursued a career in illustration.

Janet wanted a story to illustrate and it was at her prompting that Allan wrote his first tale, turning on a tap that has flowed continuously since then. He has been a fulltime author since 1975. Janet and Allan wrote thirty-seven stories together in a style noted for the close integration between text and illustrations. Having turned on the tap, Allan’s volume of writing was so great that he also worked with numerous other illustrators in those years.

In 1980, the Ahlberg’s daughter, Jessica, was born, providing further inspiration and material for incorporation into the flow of tales. Sadly, Janet Ahlberg died of cancer in 1994. Allan has continued writing for children working with a wide range of illustrators including his daughter who has taken to the arts as well.

Ahlberg’s books have received much attention in Britain and many awards. While he has ventured as far up the ladder as Young Adult, the preponderance of his stories are picture books for young children and stories for independent readers. His style is most notable for generally positive, cheery stories without a trace of saccharine and for taking an odd perspective or having a twist that makes you think about something in a different way than you are accustomed to.

One thing to note is that, thankfully from my perspective, Ahlberg’s stories are not “translated” from English to American idiom as some author’s have been. Consequently you will come across “lorry” for truck, a “plimsol” for a tennis shoe, “bin” for trash can and similar phrases. I think this is actually a valuable exercise for expanding children’s vocabulary as well as planting early the idea that things are not the same everywhere. Beyond language terms, there are also differences in cultural references. In England, schools, both public and private, used corporal punishment up into the sixties at least. So the reference to a cane or caning as a school punishment is still a very familiar one in England in a way that is not the case in America.

I happened to be living in England in the mid to late sixties and attended the local state school. I well recall the awe and fear established amongst the student body (this was essentially an elementary school going up to perhaps fifth grade) by the existence in Mr. Grey’s office (the Principal) of a dreaded Plimsol which was used instead of a cane. Monthly, we had to go in groups of four or five and read to Mr. Grey to demonstrate our reading comprehension and we would march in and line up in front of his desk. It was so terribly difficult not to glance backwards and stare at the lower cupboard door behind which, according to school lore, Mr. Grey kept The Plimsol. I never saw The Plimsol though my best friend testified to having been paddled by it for some infraction or other. Whether it was just talk or if The Plimsol even existed, I cannot testify. I do know that the idea of it was very effective in maintaining discipline.

While our children have especially enjoyed Allen Ahlberg’s books from Each Peach Pear Plum, a picture book for the very young, to Woof!, a fantasy story for independent readers, I have particularly enjoyed his poetry. I think the following poem from Please Mrs. Butler, captures his style of writing well: the story hung upon a few well chosen concrete observations, a deep understanding of the child’s world view, the spry humor, the little twist.

Please Mrs. Butler
Allan Ahlberg

The Cane

The teacher
had some thin springy sticks
for making kites.

Reminds me
of the old days, he said;
and swished one.

The children
near his desk laughed nervously,
and pushed closer.

A cheeky girl
held out her cheeky hand.
Go on, Sir!

said her friends.
Give her the stick, she’s always
playing up!

The teacher
paused, and then did as he was told.
Just a tap.

Oh, Sir!
We’re going to tell on you,
The children said.

Other children
left their seats and crowded around
the teacher’s desk.

Other hands
went out. Making kites was soon
forgotten.

My turn next!
He’s had one go already!
That’s not fair!

Soon the teacher,
to save himself from the crush,
called a halt.

(It was
either that or use the cane
for real.)

Reluctantly,
the children did as they were told
and sat down.

If you behave
yourselves, the teacher said,
I’ll cane you later.

©Allan Ahlberg

From another collection of his poetry, Heard it in the Playground, is this poem that I cannot help but add given that we had our own Billy McBone in the house to whom this was recited reprovingly for a number of years. Whenever he absent mindedly neglected some blindingly obvious task, this unnamed son was addressed as Billy McBone to alert him to the fact that he had overlooked something critical, perhaps not having on shoes as he went out the door to go to school, perhaps heading out to play tennis with a friend but without his tennis racket. Hearing the tales Sally tells from her scout troop, I know there are still lots of Billy McBones out there – perhaps you have one of your own.

Heard it in the Playground
Allan Ahlberg

Billy McBone

Billy Mcbone
had a mind of his own,
which he mostly kept under his hat.
The teachers all thought
that he couldn't be taught,
but Bill didn't seem to mind that.

Billy McBone
had a mind of his own,
which the teachers had searched for for years.
Trying test after test,
they still never guessed
it was hidden between his ears.

Billy McBone
had a mind of his own,
which only his friends ever saw.
When the teacher said, 'Bill,
whereabouts is Brazil?'
He just shuffled and stared at the floor.

Billy McBone
had a mind of his own,
which he kept under lock and key.
While the teachers in vain
tried to burgle his brain,
Bill's thoughts were off wandering free.

©Allan Ahlberg

Unfortunately many of my favorite Ahlberg books, notably his poetry collections, are not in print in the US but there are some good ones here. I hope you will try some of his works. I think you will find his writing refreshing and charming and, more critically, that your children will enjoy them.

Picture Books

Each Peach Pear Plum by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Janet Ahlberg

Half a Pig by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg

Peek-a-Boo by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Janet Ahlberg

Previously by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Bruce Ingman

The Cat Who Got Carried Away by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Katharine McEwen

The Children Who Smelled a Rat by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Katharine McEwen

The Jolly Christmas Postman by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Janet Ahlberg

The Jolly Postman by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Janet Ahlberg

The Runaway Dinner by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Bruce Ingman (not to be read in conjunction with the Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown)

The Shopping Expedition by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Andre Amstutz

Independent Readers

The Improbable Cat by Allan Ahlberg and illustrated by Peter Bailey

According to Else Holmelund Minarik, although she has degrees in psychology and education, her primary work has been done in her garden where she does her best thinking. In fact, her garden was the place where one of her most enduring ideas came to her: the idea of publishing some of the stories she had written for her daughter, Brooke, who had wanted to learn to read at a young age. Minarik (who was at the time a first grade teacher) recalls:

“I considered one day, while setting out the spring garden, that plants and children are alike in this respect – they flower beautifully if placed in the right setting, and subjected to no gaps of neglect, either by us, or by nature. I thought of my first graders, all as willing and marvelous as the plants I was tucking into the earth. They had learned the elementals of reading, and yet would, almost to a one, spend the summer without using this fine new skill, and would return in September to astonish their second grade teacher with a seemingly complete lack of memory. Here was a gap that needed mending! I submitted my books to Miss Ursula Nordstrom of Harper and Row, who said this was just what she had been looking for, and promptly began the I Can Read series with my first book Little Bear – so superbly illustrated by Maurice Sendak.” Third Book of Junior Authors, edited by Doris de Montreville and Donna Hill

Little Bear, published in 1957, was very successful and popular for a variety of reasons. The language was simple enough for a young reader to read and enjoy on his own, yet the stories were not overly simplified or full of repetition. Instead, they were interesting and offered a character (Little Bear) with whom young readers could identify as his experiences with his loving family and friends were similar to those of many young children: visiting grandparents, hearing stories about his parents when they were young, making new friends, going to birthday parties, playing and visiting with old friends, etc. The tone of the stories is gentle, yet humorous. For example, in Little Bear’s Visit, when Little Bear asks Grandfather to tell him a goblin story, the following exchange occurs:

“Yes, if you will hold my paw,” said Grandfather

“I will not be scared,” said Little Bear.

“No,” said Grandfather Bear. “But I may be scared.”
Else Holmelund Minarik ©

My mother read Little Bear read to me before I learned to read for myself. The stories were particular favorites and I loved poring over every detail of the illustrations. I clearly remember coming home from school one day, picking up one of the Little Bear books just to look at it and finding that I could read it. What a thrill that was!

Minarik’s success with early readers for children did not stop with Little Bear and the subsequent books in the Little Bear series. She has over forty five books to her credit and has continued to write books for young readers with the most recent being published within the last couple of years. Some, but not all, of her more recent titles are extensions to the Little Bear series. It should be noted that there was a 30+ year hiatus in the Little Bear series. The last of the original Little Bear books (written by Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak) was entitled A Kiss For Little Bear and was published in 1968. The Little Bear books published more recently (after the Little Bear television show came out in the late 1990’s) are still written by Minarik, but are not illustrated by Maurice Sendak, although there does appear to have been an attempt to make the characters look roughly similar to the way they do in Sendak’s drawings. They are often focused on a particular problem (Little Bear’s Loose Tooth, Little Bear’s Bad Day) and read more like a summary of a television show. Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer the originals.

No Fighting, No Biting! (another of my personal favorites) was published in 1958. Its appeal lies in Minarik’s ability to capture the little squabbles that young children have with their siblings in a very humorous way, comparing the children to little alligators. My mother frequently admonished my siblings and me with the phrase “no fighting, no biting!” when she wanted us to behave nicely and we knew just exactly what she meant.

Else Holmelund Minarik was born in Denmark in 1920, but immigrated to the United States at the age of four. She found learning English daunting and was rather put off by the language. In an autobiographical sketch done for the Third Book of Junior Authors, Minarik states “I hated the language immediately. Father coped by introducing me to cowboy movies. Mother took me almost daily to the park where she taught me to communicate with playmates. In time I became American.” Of course, anyone who reads her books will know that Minarik is particularly gifted in telling stories in simple, captivating language – a difficult feat for any writer.

Minarik went on to receive a degree in education New Paltz College of the State University of New York and a B.A. in psychology at Queens College (now Queens College of the City University of New York) in 1942. Both were no doubt useful during her brief career as a newpaper reporter during World War II and, later, as a first grade teacher on rural Long Island, NY. She married Walter Minarik in 1940 and they had one daughter, Brooke, for whom Minarik first began writing stories. She has moved south to North Carolina, but continues to write stories for children. I hope you and your children will enjoy her stories as much as we and our children have. Fortunately, there is a good selection of her work still in print.

Picture Books

A Kiss for Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Cat and Dog by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Bryan Langdo

Father Bear Comes Home by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Father Bear's Special Day by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Teri Lee

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Little Bear's Friend by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Little Bear's Loose Tooth by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Chris Hahner

Little Bear's Visit by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak

No Fight, No Biting! by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak