Category Archives: American children’s books

Run, Run, Run as Fast as You Can! Gotta Get Away from the Gingerbread Man…

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When I was fooling around with the idea of a Christmassy post about gingerbread, I was expecting to include “The Gingerbread Man,” the American version of the tale type about some kind of food (usually a pancake) that runs away from the people who made it for their meal, then a whole succession of other hungry creatures, only to be outsmarted by a fox   The most interesting stories I found featuring gingerbread men weren’t cut out with the same cutter, so I decided to let them out of the cookie jar after the holiday season had come and gone.  And for good reason…

Oh no, it’s Mr. Bill’s cousins!

In Northern Europe, molds and cutters for gingerbread cookies are available in more  sizes and shapes than the all-American little man with short chubby arms and legs.  Some of the gingerbread cookies that turn up in Scandinavian children’s books like Ottilia Adelborg’s Bilderbok (Stockholm: Albert Bonnier, 1907) are the stuff out of bad dreams, not visions of sugar plums.  The illustration below shows a brother and sister dreaming of a gingerbread troll after helping their mother with the Christmas baking.

The Brown Book or The Story of the Gingerbread Man illustrated by Florence Hardy (London: Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, 1909) looked perfectly innocent on the outside.  Little Timothy Brown so lusts for the gingerbread man in the village shop, that he asks the proprietress if he can have it and pay in three weekly installments.  When she refuses the offer, he goes home and throws a tantrum.  Suddenly a giant gingerbread man appears and says, “As you want me so much, you see I’ve come…But as you can’t pay in pence, you must pay me some other way.”  He marches the boy home, where he is forced to do hard labor, along with a band of forest creatures.  One night when his oppressor is fast asleep, the boy escapes from bondage, just ahead of the Gingerbread Man’s bullets.   But it’s all a bad dream and Timothy is presented with the coveted gingerbread man by his mother.  Wonder why he eats it immediately…

The Royal Baking Powder advertising brochure, The Little Gingerbread Man (1923), takes place in the kingdom of Jalapomp where there’s nothin’ lovin’ is comin’ from the oven, the royal cook being so incompetent that the king has banished all baking, including birthday cakes.  Informed of this draconian measure by the Flour Fairy, the Queen of neighboring Cooky Land calls for volunteers to airlift light, fresh, hot cakes and buns made properly with Royal Baking Powder to Jalapomp.  The smells alone are enough  to convince the king to restore the delights of baked goods to him and his subjects.  The motley posse of volunteers–a sugar cookie, buckwheat cake, doughnut, and muffin–led by Johnny Gingerbread do not look especially toothsome.   The simplest explanation for the heroes’ unappetizing appearance is that the artist Charles J. Coll could draw fairies, but not sweets.  Would a child see  every cookie on the dessert plate with hideous wrinkles and staring eyes?

But the piece de resistance is John Dough and the Cherub (1906).   M. Jules Grogrande, the French baker, goes into the shop at 3 am to make a nattily dressed gingerbread man as big as a fourteen-year-old boy to put in the window in honor of the 4th of July holiday.  He accidentally mixes diluted Elixir of Life, which his wife left in a bowl on the counter, into the dough.  I think you can figure out what happened next…

Gary Trousdale and the team responsible for Scared Shrekless, eat your hearts out. You thought you were the first to retell Frankenstein with gingerbread people?  L. Frank Baum, creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and its Royal Illustrator John R. Neill, beat you to it in John Dough…

Gingy examining the freshly baked Sugar from “The Bride of Gingy” section of Scared Shrekless.

 

Interpreting and Reinterpreting Mikhail Ilin’s How the Automobile Learned to Run in Pictures

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1931 edition, front wrapper, Cotsen in process

While processing a new group of early Soviet children’s books, I came across two editions of Mikhail Il’in’s Kak Avtomobilʹ Uchilsi︠a︡ Khoditʹ. The second edition, pictured above, was published in 1931 by Molodai︠a︡ Gvardii︠a︡, an imprint of the State publishing monopoly OGIZ (unfortunately we do not have the first edition, published in 1930). The third edition, pictured below, was published in 1934 by another OGIZ imprint: Detskoi Literatury.

1934 edition, front wrapper, Cotsen in process

Mikhail Il’in isn’t a household name for a variety of obvious reasons. Though many of our readers weren’t raised on Soviet picture books in the 30’s, Il’in’s other name might ring a bell: Il’ia Marshak. Il’ia Marshak was the younger brother of the perhaps better known Samuil Marshak; another early writer of Soviet children’s literature. Mikhail Il’in is the pseudonym that Il’ia Marshak used when engaging with scientific and technical subjects meant for his young readers.

Kak Avtomobilʹ Uchilsi︠a︡ Khoditʹ translates to How the automobile learned to run. Crammed full of factual information, this book is about the history of the automobile, from the earliest propelled steam engine to the present day.

But at this point you might be wondering: “Say Ian, I know you don’t speak any Russian (you’ve told us already here and here), so how do you know what this book is about?”.

Well lucky for all of us, while processing this new material I came across a book we already had in the collection: How the Automobile Learned to Run (New York: International Publishers, 1945); a later American translation of this Soviet classic.

Miraculously International Publishers (which specialized in publishing and translating Soviet, Marxist, and Leftist material) managed to produce books during the height of the Red Scare and make it through a Dies Committee hearing.

Front board (ex-library copy), Cotsen 51732

While all three editions deal with the same subject, each book was executed by a different illustrator.

The 1931 edition was illustrated by Natalii︠a︡ Lapshina, who choose to use mostly photo illustrations for the sake of realism:

1931 edition, Spread [2-3]

1931 edition, page 5

The 1934 edition, was illustrated by V. Tambi, who choose to create simple monochrome illustrations:

1934 edition, page [3]

1934 edition, page [21]

1934 edition, Spread 4-5

The International Publishers edition was illustrated by Herbert Kruckman, using more color and a lot more space. Although this edition is attributed to Il’in, a substantial amount of material was added in order to make the book current for 1945 and speak to an American public. But perhaps for obvious reasons, our translator and writer is never attributed:

Each book begins with this introduction about Cugnot’s “Fire cart”, the Grandmother (Babushka) of both the automobile and locomotive. Page [2], Cotsen 51732

Cugnot’s “Fire cart” Page [1], Cotsen 51732

Spread [23-24], Cotsen 51732

Though each illustrator has a distinct style, they all seem to enjoy illustrating one scene in particular: a very explosive episode in 1834 that we might describe as the first major car accident:

Page [7], Cotsen 51732

1934 edition, vignette page 9

1931 edition, page 9

Page [8], Cotsen 51732

Not only do our three illustrators seem to gleefully enjoy this image (Lapshin even drew it twice), but the authors point out that the “picture of the accident” was “printed in all the newspapers”. Although the popularity of this original image might be because of its cautionary power, as our authors contend, we might suppose that folks in 1834 enjoyed a good head rolling as much as the rest of us.

After some web perusing, I managed to find what might be the original image (unfortunately I couldn’t pin down a source). You can judge for yourself about the moralistic virtues of this image appearing in all the newspapers of the time. . .

More cars here…

The Perils of Steam-Coaches