Eloise at the Library

Once there was a 6-year-old who lived not far from Central Park. She had a dog that looked like a cat and a turtle named Skipperdee. Her mother was mostly absent. Her nanny drank. She skibbled around New York like she owned the place. But there was one marble edifice whose door she was not allowed to darken: She was shut out of the New York Public Library.

That's why I was so delighted to see that the red carpet was rolled out this weekend at the NYPL for Hilary Knight, the man who created those perfect black, white, and red drawings of Eloise, the eternal bad girl. Hilary was named a NYPL Library Lion of 2009. He donated his papers -- the notes, sketches, and biographical outpourings of an artistic lifetime -- to the Library's collection on November 2 of this year, just a day after his 83rd birthday. When I opened the Style section of the New York Times today, there was Hilary in his impeccable black tie with a gorgeous crimson sash, taking up his rightful position as a Library Lion.

But where was Eloise? Oh, she's in the children's collection now, now that it's safe to have her there, nestled among Gossip Girl and Heather Has Two Mommies, fifty-four years after her conception. But when Eloise was first released by Simon & Schuster in 1955 Anne Carroll Moore, the redoubtable head of the library's Office of Work with Children, deemed her unworthy. Not because the book wasn't a good book, nor because it was "for precocious adults," as Kay Thompson so brilliantly subtitled her work, but because it was a good book for bad children. And Miss Moore sanctioned only good books for good children. (Which is why Margaret Wise Brown's work didn't merit a place at the NYPL, either. Eloise, as always, was in the best company.)

All this I learned when I went on a hunt for original editions of Eloise, Eloise in Paris, Eloise at Christmastime, and Eloise in Moscow in 1998. That was the year Kay Thompson died, and her heirs felt that it was time to reissue all the Eloise books -- three of which Kay had decided, pretty much on a whim, to put out of print. My job was to match the reissues as closely as possibly to the original printings. I thought, maybe, there might be a few first editions squirreled away in the annals of the library. But did I find a first edition? No. Did I find any edition? Not one.

The Library had never added Eloise to their collection. She did not exist in the card catalog, on the shelves, or skittering through the hallways. (The irony is that she was in the Brooklyn Public Library's collection, but could not be found in any Manhattan branch. I don't think Eloise ever set foot in Brooklyn in her six-year-old life.) I ended up buying first editions on eBay, and Hilary and I worked on matching the new printings to those (though he liked the second printings of most of the Eloise titles better, but that's another story).

It was only after the resurgence of Eloise in the late 1990's and early 2000's that the NYPL finally and added these seminal New York books to its shelves. And now, the library will have the Eloise archive, too. Lucky them!

Here's the thing of it:
Saying no to Eloise is not allowed.

Oooooh I absolutely love a happy ending.

Poetry Friday: Disobedience

I have been intending to write about my semi-star-studded commute the other day, but that post is yet to be committed to this blog. But as it's poetry Friday, and in honor (?) of the new Winnie-the-Pooh book, which was published today, here is A. A. Milne's glorious "Disobedience," instead. It pounded through my head all the way home tonight, from 59th Street to the upper 100's.

It's an old favorite of mine -- I used to recite it to my daughter as I pushed her on the swings in Hippo Park. And I used it as a choral speaking exercise at the Vermont College of Fine Arts one summer (a young David Levithan was in the audience, I believe). So here's "Disobedience" for you. Try to keep it from lodging in your brain for just about ever.

James James

Morrison Morrison

Weatherby George Dupree

Took great

Care of his Mother,

Though he was only three.

James James said to his Mother,

"Mother," he said, said he;

"You must never go down

to the end of the town,

if you don't go down with me."

James James

Morrison's Mother

Put on a golden gown.

James James Morrison's Mother

Drove to the end of town.

James James Morrison's Mother

Said to herself, said she:

"I can get right down

to the end of the town

and be back in time for tea."

King John

Put up a notice,

"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!

JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER

SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.

LAST SEEN

WANDERING VAGUELY:

QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,

SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN

TO THE END OF THE TOWN --

FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James

Morrison Morrison

(Commonly known as Jim)

Told his

Other relations

Not to go blaming him.

James James

Said to his Mother,

"Mother," he said, said he:

"You must never go down to the end of the town

without consulting me."

James James

Morrison's mother

Hasn't been heard of since.

King John said he was sorry,

So did the Queen and Prince.

King John

(Somebody told me)

Said to a man he knew:

"If people go down to the end of the town,
What can anyone do?"

(Now, then, very softly)
J. J.
M. M.
W. G. du P.
Took great c/o his M*****
Though he was only 3
J. J. said to his M******
"M*****," he said, said he,
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"

-- A. A. Milne

Signs of the times

Let's hope so.

Poetry Friday: This fall, it's all about Keats

Jane Campion's Bright Star releases today. It tells the fevered love story of Fanny Brawne and (doomed) Johnny Keats. I was as in love with Keats -- or possibly more -- than Fanny Brawne could ever have been, or at least that's what I believed when I was about thirteen. At one time I had almost all his sonnets by heart, including the one that lends its name to Campion's film. My sister and I used to recite together "When I Have Fears," and I spent many a biology class writing out "Ode to a Nightingale" so I would be able to memorize it. (Now I turn it over in my head when I'm in the dentist's chair. Very calming.)

I thought about posting "Bright Star" here today, but I have to say it was never one of my favorites. So here's a little ditty that I have long loved, and that I'm even now working with a most-admired artist to turn into a picture book. It was written with a different kind of love by Keats for another Fanny, his younger sister, Fanny Keats. Now, in my dotage, this might be my most beloved Keats poem of all.

1

There was a naughty Boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be --
He took
In his Knapsack
A Book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels --
A slight cap
For night cap --
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New Stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This Knapsack
Tight at's back
He rivetted close
And followed his Nose
To the North,
To the North,
And follow'd his nose
To the North.

2

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry --
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a Pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And Postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm --
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one's nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one's nose
To the north!

3

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good-
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller's thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little Baby's
Little fingers --
O he made
'Twas his trade
Of Fish a pretty Kettle
A Kettle --
A Kettle
Of Fish a pretty Kettle
A Kettle!

4

There was a naughty Boy,
And a naughty Boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see -
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red --
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England --
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder'd,
He wonder'd,
He stood in his shoes
And he wonder'd.

-- John Keats, 1816

Shaving My Legs for Dan Brown

When I was growing up, shaving your legs was a political act. Shaving was one of the things we were liberating ourselves from. If we shaved our legs, we were on the side of the Establishment. Our consciousness was not raised. We had bought in.

Of course, I was picking up all this sloganeering from my older sisters, and was torn, so terribly torn. I wanted to shave my legs. Desperately. I remember convincing myself that I had super-hairy legs and that I couldn't be grown up until I had permission to savage them with a sharp object. This was back when we had parents who monitored these kinds of things.

A sweet little pink ladies' razor won out over politics: a harbinger of my later life. (My sister's the labor union president; my brother is the policy wonk.) I loved that little razor so much. I got it as a present for my 12th birthday. And I must have shaved my legs at least eight times before I realized what a sap I was for buying into this particular aspect of personal grooming. Shaving your legs wasn't political for me. It was just hard work (those cuts!) and relentless (it grew back!) and time consuming (I could have been reading Little Women!).

This morning, I forgot to shave my legs in the shower. I usually don't -- turns out I don't have such hairy legs and I have pretty much reduced shaving to Memorial Day and 4th of July. But tonight I was headed to the publication party for Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, which is represented by our agency. I thought that shaving my legs was the least I could do. That's when the little pink razor came back to me.

The party was elegant; the cake was fanciful (a replica of the Capitol); the speeches were polished; and nobody noticed what shape my legs were in, except me. We all got a copy of the book, signed, and I was home in time to start reading. Tonight, my politics will take the form of chasing around D.C. with Robert Langdon. Tomorrow, I'll air-kiss the razor goodbye till next summer.

And at some point, I'll tell you where I stand on lipstick.

Why SCBWI is like the changing room at Forever 21

My daughter got home from camp "desperate" for new clothes. And in fact, it was true: The camp decided, at the last minute, to ship her trunk back, which resulted in her having only two t-shirts and one pair of shorts until the cargo arrives. So today we made a date to go shopping at Forever 21, a store whose doors I had not previously darkened. I am not their demo: I don't like their music, I don't fit into their sizes, and I don't need a pair of black sequined track shorts. This season, anyway.

But I hadn't seen my daughter for weeks, so I couldn't think of a more happy-making way to spend a couple of hours at lunchtime today helping her find clothes and than telling her she looked adorable (she did!) and waiting in long dressing-room lines so she didn't have to.

Not a lot of people know that I was a shop-girl in another life, at the Laura Ashley that once existed on Bow Street in Covent Garden in London. I measured fabric, calculated yardage for curtaining (must take into account the drop!), hung smocklike dresses on hangers, and monitored the communal changing room.

That last was the job nobody wanted. The communal changing room, on the lower floor of the shop, was low-ceilinged, hot, and often smelly. We had to watch and abet as the women -- some sliding, some struggling-- wrangled the buttons and belts of Laura Ashley's signature Victorian-style wear. And today, sure enough, there was a beleagured (Dutch?) 20-year-old trying to keep some order in the Forever 21 dressing room, which was awash in discarded clothing.

But there is something very wonderful about a women's dressing room, especially in a place as chaotic as Forever 21 at lunch-hour, or Laura Ashley during the January sales. Women are extraordinarily generous to each other. They comment freely, and frankly, on each other's choices: Wow, what a great color on you! Or, Honestly, I think it pulls a little across the back. They zip one another's zippers. They pass garments from one person to the next. Friends make trips out onto the floor to find different sizes. And people come out of the rooms to look at themselves in the mirror in the most risky dishabille. Sometimes it's a little giddy. Brastraps are pushed down, pants are hiked up, jeans don't button, shirts are baggy or too tight. It's not sexual, it's not show-offy; it's the only way to get the job done.

Occasionally, a man braves his way in, either to try on things for himself (Forever 21 is multi-gender) or to advise on his girlfriend's efforts (brave, brave man!). And curiously, the climate in the dressing room does not change one iota when a man is around. If you're down in the trenches, Comrade, the women seem to say, you're going to fight the war with us.

And this is why the dressing room at Forever 21 today was like the 2009 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference in LA last week. In attendance were eight-hundred women and one hundred-forty men. People blogged, partied, gossiped, analyzed. The women were extraordinarily supportive, telling one another, in the kindest possible way, that a certain book idea was like a skirt that made you look hippy; or brimming with praise when another was like an LBD that turned you into a siren. And the men were bemused, indulgent, engaged, and surely getting something out of the conference that the women could only guess at.

Sherman Alexie made the observation that while adult-book authors circle one another at such events with the aggression of a cannibal, teeth bared for the kill, children's book writers greet one another with only the tiniest bit of self-preserving competition, nibbling away, at worst, a little toe.

So it is at Forever 21 and the SCBWI. I left each place with toes intact, happier for the communal experience, knowing that out of the racks of tangled hangers and crumpled sketches and piled dresses and sequined query letters, almost everybody unearthed a treasure.

Sidewalk art

Just a quickie tonight, so that the blog does not feel completely unloved.

There's a sidewalk artist who works in our neighborhood. His subjects so far have been Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (during the election), and Michael Jackson, after June 25 of this year. Today, I passed his handiwork, and am still guessing the identity thereof. I have an idea, but what say you?

And here's an easy one: Who'll be the first to make the connection to a children's book?