Activity books | Cotsen Children’s Library

Spoiler alert: this post is not about an obscure form of biblioclasty–or something even more unimaginable.

Cotsen has its fair share of picture book introductions to the ballet, many of them in the Diana R. Tillson collection. Of course there’s a copy of Noel Streatfeild’s The First Book of the Ballet (1956), complete with an inspirational story about a young girl who wants to be a ballerina, a glossary of steps, history of the ballet, and plot synopses of famous ballets (Streatfeild was also the author of the beloved 1936 Ballet Shoes).

Pages 29 and 87, Cotsen 85248. The image on the right reproduces notations for a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine.

For a quirkier approach by a certifiable balletomane, there’s Edward Gorey’s The Lavender Leotard: or Going a Lot to the New York City Ballet (1973). The page on the right includes a self-portrait of the author-illustrator in raccoon coat and tennis shoes. It was impossible to miss him on the nights he came to City Ballet.

Front board and page [1], Cotsen 152312

For those who prefer to see supple animals instead of trained classical dancers demonstrate an arabesque, entrechat or a pas de deux, there’s always author-illustrator Janis Mitchell’s The Hamster Ballet Company (1986) or Donald Elliott’s Frogs and Ballet (1979) illustrated by Clinton Arrowood.

Pages [4] and [12], Cotsen 86267

Pages 21 and 29, Cotsen 85247.

Then there is Dennis Knight’s Ballet, Patterson Blick Instant Picture Book number 5. It may be the only introduction to the ballet in the collection that is also an activity book. It comes with two leaves of “rub down instant pictures,” or forty-six Letraset transfers. For those of you with enquiring minds hungry for more information about this form of image-transfer technology, check out the webpage for SPLAT, the Society for the Preservation of Letraset Action Transfers.

In the Patterson Blick Instant Picture Book on the ballet, the sheets of Letraset transfers are divided into five sections, A-E, and each has been designed to complete a particular illustration in the text. B and D require about as much skill as filling in an outline drawing in a coloring book, while A, C, and E ask rather more of the reader. Each set of figures has to be arranged on the set of the correct ballet without any synopsis or photographs of an actual production to help visualize the scene. Perhaps this exercise was intended to engage young artists, who might yearn to design costumes or sets, rather than young dancers.

Luckily, Cotsen has two editions of Instant Picture Book number 5 and the 7th impression has all the transfers untouched on the inserted plates.

Unused plates of Letraset transfers, Cotsen 87411.

The illustrated directions for transferring the figures are printed on the rear wrapper. The earlier set of directions was illustrated with five pictures, but by the time the 7th impression was printed, the second and fourth illustrations were dropped and a cheery logo featuring a bee added in the upper left hand corner. A second good reason for keeping both copies in the collection!

Rear wrapper of Cotsen 16093 with fully illustrated instructions for transferring the designs.

Rear wrapper of the 7th impression with abbreviated instructions and logo, Cotsen 87411

Whoever filled in the scenes from the featured ballets in Cotsen’s “used” copy of Instant Picture Book Number 5 seems to have known something about classical dance. Notice the simpering White Cat (sans Puss in Boots) has been placed near the wings in the background of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. It could be the finale, where all the characters return for one last turn on the stage.

Page 10, Cotsen 16093

In the scene from Adolphe Adam’s Giselle, the reclining figure of Albrecht has been rotated so that he is balancing en pointe. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but I’m not so sure. It does make the romantic hero look a bit like Gene Kelly executing a jazzy move, so maybe it was done on purpose to juice things up.

Page 8, Cotsen 16093

And for the third ballet? I was expecting Stravinsky’s Petroushka. Instead it is Arthur Bliss’s Checkmate (1937), which was choreographed by Ninon de Valois, founder of the Birmingham and Royal Ballet, a work now considered a cornerstone of the modern British ballet repertory.

The ballet’s premise is that chess pieces come to life and act out human emotions (chiefly lust and blood lust) on stage. Whoever completed the scene arranged the figures so that one of the Red Knights is poised to stab a black pawn, while the Black Knight menaces his twin. The Black Queen, the femme fatale of the piece, looms ominously in the rear.

Page 13, Cotsen 16093

I wonder if Checkmate was chosen at the suggestion of the publication’s technical advisor, the great English danseur noble Michael Somes, who created the role of the Black Knight in the original production.

Publicity shot of the great British dancer, Michael Somes, the technical advisor for Instant Picture Book number 5.

Who transferred all the Letraset figures in Cotsen 16093? An older child studying ballet or an adult who was familiar with the repertory? Whoever it was, he or she seems to have taken the task fairly seriously, whether or not the scenes were composed from memories of choreography from actual productions. It’s evidence of a different kind of engagement with the book…

Olivia Bell as the Black Queen in the Australian Ballet’s production of Checkmate.

Respectively: Cotsen 2333, 1616, 14315 (Oldenburg : Gerhard Stalling, [ca. 1921])

Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch is not only a mouthful of German, it’s also the title of a wonderful slot book by Else Wenz-Viëtor. Literally translated as: Nuremberg dollhouse game book, the three books pictured above are consecutive editions (auflage in German) three, four, and five; all published in the early 1920’s.

Slot books (sometimes, unfortunately, referred to as “slotty books” in England) are part doll house and part book. While they are clearly a codex, pages or spreads feature illustrated backgrounds (often of a domestic nature) with little or no text. Each book is accompanied by any number of cut-out figures which can be fit into slots on the pages. These figures are often people and various objects which can be fit into the book in order to, by the powers of the user’s imagination, form scenes or narratives about the figures and their background environment. Essentially then, slot books serve as a kind of two dimensional (and much more transportable) doll house.

Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch features six household scenes, each occupying their own double page spread. The book runs through a middle class German household, from the front hallway, to a parlor, a bedroom, a nursery, the kitchen, and the backyard garden.

The parlor, spread 2

The nursery, spread 4

In addition to the obvious slots necessarily present in any slot book, Nürnberger also includes various flaps. Here, figures can be places behind doors, in ovens, in cabinets, etc. Since these flaps need to be manipulated in order for the figures behind them to be revealed, this kind of interaction allows for a sense of motion and time to be introduced into a particular scene.

a door flap and an oven door flap in the parlor, spread 3

The door flap and the oven door flap in the parlor, spread 2

We recently received a reference question regarding the figure cut-outs that belong to the different editions (sparking this blog post in the first place). As it turns out, there are some slight cosmetic differences between the three editions that we have here at Cotsen.

As you can tell from the picture at top, the fourth edition has a blue spine while editions three and five have red spines. Since this blue spine is so much worse for wear than the other contemporary editions, it might indicate that the publisher attempted to save money by cutting a corner in production. But with our sample size so small, we can’t be sure about the spine color or material of different editions or printings.

The editions have different figures as well. The varying number of figures between our different copies, however, has more to do with time than it does with production choices. Many cut-outs have simply been lost or damaged with use.

All the figures with edition 3, Cotsen 2333

All the figures with edition 4, Cotsen 1616

All the figures with edition 5, Cotsen 14315

As you can tell by comparing the pictures, some of the surviving figures from the third edition do look different from the later two editions. The little girl, the housekeeper, and the nanny have a different appearance.

While the fourth and fifth editions overlap in all but a few extra outfits and objects (though light and time have affected the figures differently), you’ll probably notice that the fifth edition includes some extra guests in the bottom left of the picture. These figures are from a different slot book and must have been introduced by a former owner. Besides the obvious coloring differences, they are made of much thinner paper.

Figures from other sources, replacements, and custom cut-outs were often introduced by savvy children more interested in play than collection. As a result, those who do collect slot books often find an array of outside material.

Now, with the technical exposition out of the way, what blog post about slot books would be complete without a little fun scene making?

Young Hans loses control of the parlor while babysitting his sister Helga.

Here little Odetta fails at quietly playing tea with her dolly and wakes the babes in the nursery.

With such a variety of backgrounds and figures slot books could potentially provide hours of imagination and fun. I, at least, had some fun making my own scenes and I hope you enjoyed learning about Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch.

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Category Archives: Activity books

A Patterson Blick Instant Picture Book on Ballet: Set the Stage with Letraset

Else Wenz-Vietor’s Slot Book: Nürnberger Puppenstubenspielbuch