My favorite song off of Laurie Anderson‘s most recent record (Homeland, 2010) also happens to be the most apt song to describe where America is at this moment in history.  It begins “Now only an expert can deal with the problem / Cause half the problem is seeing the problem” – a sentiment quickly ironized as
The title of this post is deliberately silly. Â Children’s books are written (and edited and marketed and agented, etc.) by alleged grown-ups, and so — as Perry Nodelman points out — there is always a “hidden adult” in children’s literature. Â This is one of the central paradoxes of a literature defined primarily by its audience.
What was high school like 90 years ago? This Newtown High School Handbook provides some sense of what it was like in Newtown, Queens in 1921, when Crockett Johnson (a.k.a. David Leisk) was a student there. No yearbooks from the Newtown class of 1924 (Johnson’s graduating class) survive, but plenty of things do: The Queens Public
This piece appeared in Comic Art in 2004. As the magazine is now (sadly) defunct, I’m posting the article here. Until The Purple Crayon and a Hole to Dig: The Lives of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss appears in 2012, this essay is the most thorough account of Johnson’s life available. Enjoy! Philip Nel, “Crockett
They were hits. They were available on vinyl. But you can’t buy them now.  They’re unavailable on CD or in digital form.  Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes (Special Mix),” Opus’s “Live Is Life,” the English version of Nena’s “99 Luftballoons” (“99 Red Balloons”), the English version of Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom (Coming Home),” the American
The 2011 Francelia Butler Lecture: “Radical Children’s Literature Now!” by Julia Mickenberg and Philip Nel
At the risk of further alienating this blog’s modest readership, here is the second of four appendices cut from The Purple Crayon and a Hole to Dig: The Lives of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (forthcoming from University Press of Mississippi, 2012). Â As is true of Appendix A, this one also registers Johnson’s alliance with
Crockett Johnson studied typography from Frederic Goudy, Ruth Krauss learned about anthropology from Ruth Benedict, and they both knew Ad Reinhardt (who was a particular friend of Johnson’s). Â Their acquaintances with the influential typographer, anthropologist, and abstract impressionist are all in the book – The Purple Crayon and a Hole to Dig: The Lives of
Looking back on the first year of Nine Kinds of Pie (this blog)
To support President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 re-election campaign, Syd Hoff, Crockett Johnson, Lynd Ward, Hugo Gellert, William Gropper, and fourteen other artists illustrated this booklet. The text is FDR’s speech made before the Teamsters Union on September 23rd, 1944 – also known as the “Fala speech,” since it features his dog, Fala. Here is