I teach children’s literature, write books about children’s literature, and direct a graduate program in children’s literature. But I’ve never taken a single course in children’s literature, neither as a graduate student nor as an undergraduate student. I have no formal training in the field of my alleged expertise. So, in the words of David
In North America, those of us who are teachers or students are thinking about school. In August and September, the summer holidays end, and a new term begins. To commemorate (or commiserate?) this season last year, I posted Dark Sarcasm in the Classroom: A Back-to-School Mix. This year, I’m posting a mix about language.  Enjoy!
Often, media headlines highlight academic research in order to make fun of it – so that people can say, “look at how these eggheads spend their time!” or “They needed a study to prove that!?” Â My title (above) alludes to such media coverage, but my purpose here is to highlight a new article which argues…
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