The Caucus Race
Martha Scott, editor
"Children's Literature Special Collections and Online Exhibits"
by The Dodo (a.k.a. Martha Scott)
Dear Reader,
The Dodo welcomes you to the Caucus Race. The subject of today's
virtual tour is an exploration of the world of children's literature
special collections and online exhibits. Our tour is lengthy
and wide-ranging (we'll visit three continents), so take a deep
breath and let's begin.
As the Dodo, in her real-life incarnation as children's librarian,
is privileged to work in the same building as the Toronto Public
Library's Osborne
Collection of Early Children's Books, we'll start
here. Read about the history of the Osborne Collection, collection
highlights, current and upcoming displays and events. Follow
the links to Osborne Collection staff member Yuka Kajihara's
informative Lucy
Maud Montgomery in Ontario web page and the irresistible
Peter Rabbit website "The
Official and Definitive Site About the World of Peter Rabbit".
Hop back to the Osborne Collection page and under "Related
Sites" follow the link to the spectacular site of the De Grummond Children's
Literature Collection. This collection, located
at the University of Southern Mississippi, contains 55,000 children's
books dating from 1530 plus manuscripts
and illustrations representing 1,200 children's
authors and illustrators. There are online
finding aids for over 100 of these manuscript collections.
The De Grummond Collection has significant holdings of Ezra Jack
Keats, Kate
Greenaway, Randolph
Caldecott and H.A.
and Margaret Rey . Dodo's challenge: how many Peter
books did Ezra Jack Keats create? Find out on the Ezra
Jack Keats multimedia tour . You'll also see the Life magazine photo which was Keats' original inspiration
for Peter.
In a previous Caucus
Race column I discussed the De Grummond's Cinderella and Little
Red Riding Hood Projects. These sites allow the
reader to read versions of a story "vertically", i.e.
one version at a time or "horizontally", i.e. cross-textually
or episode by episode across the different versions. A similar
site is the Jack
in the Beanstalk or Jack the Giant Killer Project containing nine different versions of the Jack story. The Dodo
is partial to an 1848
version in which Jack climbs the beanstalk to learn
how a book is made. He visits a paper mill, a type foundry, a
printing press, a bookseller's and finally a school where he
learns to read. Says Jack, climbing: "Up I go, to learn
and to look. And to try to find out how they make a book."
You can even print out a copy of an uncut 16 page penny book,
fold and cut it to make your own "History of Jack the Giant-Killer"
chapbook. Prepare to be shocked when giants and giant-like creatures
meet a grisly end as Jack wields his trusty blade and cuts off
their heads! There's also an 1860 Jack
and the Beanstalk board game to print and play.
You'll find more fun and games at The Thomas Parry Library, University
of Wales Aberystwyth Games,
Puzzles and Frolic: Comics and Games from the Horton Collection.
The Lilly
Library, a rare book and manuscript collection at
the Indiana University, boasts an impressive and attractively
designed website. (The small arrow in the top right corner will
take you to page 2; it's easy to miss.) The Dodo enjoyed browsing
the Lilly
Library's Chapbook Index in which over 1,900 chapbooks
are indexed and searchable online. Perhaps the most sensational
of the twenty subject categories is "Odd Characters and
Strange Events", with titles such as "Account of a
Most Surprising and Savage Girl", "Life of the Princess
of Zel", "Visits from the World of Spirits" and
"Anecdotes of Little Dogs." Curious indeed! The Elizabeth
Nesbitt Room Chapbook Collection provides an online finding aid
for its collection of 250 chapbooks
which includes digital images of the chapbook covers. (The Elizabeth
Nesbitt Room in the Information Sciences Library at the University
of Pittsburgh houses over 12,000 books and magazine titles dating
from the 1600s). For more on chapbooks, see Biblio
Magazine's archived article, A
Chapter on Chapbooks.
Next we arrive at a fascinating site called Tiny
Tomes. This is an online exhibit of miniature books
at the University of Iowa Libraries. The accompanying descriptive
catalogue is divided into categories which include Abecedaria, Children's
Books and Dodo's favourite, Teeny,
Tiny Tomes. Just how small is teeny, tiny? The smallest
letterpress printed book in the world, a version of Three Blind
Mice, measures 2.1 mm x 2.1 mm.
Do you know your ABCs? How about your ZYXs? From
A to Z: An Exhibition of ABC Books Selected from the John O.C.
McCrillis Collection at the Watkinson Library, Trinity
College in Hartford, Connecticut includes 70 books selected from
a collection of over 350 dating from 1808 to 1986. Titles appear
in chronological order. ZYX:
An Exhibition of Selected ABC Books from the Jean Trebbi Collection hosted by the Bienes Center for the Literary Arts in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, groups its 66 titles into Children's
Alphabet Books ; Adult
Alphabet Books; The
Alphabet; and Pop-up
and Movable Alphabet Books Pop-ups. Pop-ups, also
known as movable books, mechanical books, harlequinades, peep
shows and dissolving books (there's something so "Cheshire
Cat-like" about a "dissolving book") have a presence
on the Internet. Visit The
Pop-up World of Ann Montaro created by the Rutgers
University Libraries; Moving
Tales: Paper Engineering and Children's Pop-up Books from the State Library of Victoria (Australia) ; and The
Great Menagerie: The Wonderful World of Pop-up and Movable books,
1811-1996 from the University of North Texas --
all "goodly" sites.
Jump to Texas for a look at the website of an exciting American
organization founded in 1996. The National
Centre for Children's Illustrated Literature organizes,
exhibits and tours shows of original art from children's picture
books. They also create educational programs around illustrators
whose work they exhibit. Featured illustrators are Diane Stanley,
David Diaz, William Joyce, Paul Zelinsky and Janet Stevens.
There's more, dear reader! Further intriguing and informative
on-line exhibits are the University of Delaware Special Collection's
Department's World
of the Child: Two Hundred Years of Children's Books and Picturing
Childhood: Illustrated Books from the University of California
Collections, 1550-1990. Don't miss the National
Library of Canada's delightful The
Art of Illustration: A Celebration of Contemporary Canadian Children's
Book Illustrators and The
Coming of Age of Children's Literature in Canada,
a chronology covering the years 1932-1997. For another look at
the history of Canadian children's books, see the online catalogue Canadian
Children's Books 1799-1939 in the Special Collections
and University Archives Division of the University of British
Columbia Library compiled by Sheila
A. Egoff. The University of Laval in Quebec maintains
a web-searchable online catalogue of its collection of French
school texts, 1765-1965. Manuels
scolaires québécois is searchable
by keyword. You can also look up illustrations by subject. Take
the homepage to the next page (use the arrow facing right), choose
"Illustrations Numérisées", then "thème"
(option 2) and you'll find the list of subject headings. The
Dodo enjoyed the illustrations of turkeys ("dinde"
in French). A rather beguiling bird!
I fear I have tired you out with this seemingly endless array
of astounding websites. One last site will serve as a point of
departure for even more online adventures relating to special
collections and historical children's books. Gather your energies
for the website of the indefatigable Kay Vandergrift. Kay Vandergrift's History
of Children's Literature page with its multitude
of links to Children's
Literature Special Collections, Antiquarian
Book Dealers (great fun whether you're in the market
or just window shopping) and Early
Illustrators of Children's Books from the 19th and 20th Centuries will provide many more hours of edification and enjoyment.
Your affectionate friend,
The Dodo
Martha Scott has been called many things including "Dodo". She lives in Toronto and works as Children's Resource Collection Specialist at the Toronto Public Library's Lillian H. Smith Branch.
Volume 3, Issue 2, The Looking Glass, 1999
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"The Caucus Race" ©Martha Scott, 1999.
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