The more things change (children's literature edition).

[rsadelle]

The July 21 issue of The New Yorker (the one with the controversial Obama cover) has an interesting article by Jill Lepore about the rise of children's literature and the publication of Stuart Little. Apparently Anne Carroll Moore, who was the arbiter of what constituted respectable children's literature and what did not ("Her verdict, not any editor's, not any bookseller's, sealed a book's fate. She kept a rubber stamp at her desk that she used, liberally, while paging through publishers' catalogues: 'Not recommended for purchase by expert.' The end."), was not a fan of Stuart Little: "Worse, White had blurred reality and fantasy - 'The two worlds were all mixed up' - and children wouldn't be able to tell them apart."

Tearing the pages out of books and rubbing out words that might worry their little one - it was just what Katharine White had been complaining about all along. In Stuart Little, her husband backed her up. And, in her next children's-books column, she, in turn, vindicated him, lamenting the pitiful state of a literature "careful never to approach the child except in a childlike manner. Let us not overstimulate his mind, or scare him, or leave him in doubt, these authors and their books seem to be saying; let us affirm."