Category Archives: Cotsen Curatorial

Outtakes from First Impressions: The Print Trade in Children’s Books

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“Children, for this small book some thanks are due,

The Printer made it purposely for you.”

From William Darton, Little Jack of all Trades (1804).

The curatorial staff of the Cotsen Children’s Library is proud to announce the opening of the exhibition, First Impressions: The Print Trade in Children’s Books. This exhibition explores the representation of the print trade in children’s books and toys from the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.

Our exhibition cases are filled with engaging illustrations of printing techniques, engravers, xylographers, bookbinders, and a wood-engraving block, electrotype plate, and even a child’s hobby printing press from the 1930s. However, not every book that we initially selected for this exhibition made it into our cases. Some weren’t selected simply because they didn’t fit the case or because another book had a better illustration depicting an aspect of the print trade.

George Dodd. Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

Others, like George Dodd’s Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]) were excluded from the exhibition because the book is not stable enough to display. As you can see from the above photo, even closed you can see that the pages of the book are loose though the binding is relatively strong.

George Dodd. “Printing Machine.” Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

Unfortunately, we were not able to display this detailed image of a Koenig “Printing Machine” because the foldout has completely detached from the binding. This image, like many others in this book, seems to have been pasted into the book after it was sewn. Normally when an image is “tilted in,” it is printed separate from the text, collated, and sewn directly into the book.

George Dodd. Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

What appear to be dried paste can be seen on the printed image and the adjacent page, leading us to think that the image was pasted into the book after it was bound.

George Dodd. Days at the Factories, 1843 [Ctsn Eng 19 95926]

A book in this condition would never be able to handle a display cradle for very long. It would only exacerbate its delicate state and would cause more damage. It should be carefully handled and properly cradled with foam book cradles to prevent stress on the spine and binding, as shown above.

Kosai Miki. Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children), vol. 1, 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383

Kosai Miki’s Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children, vol. 1), 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383] was also removed from the final selections for the exhibition, but for an entirely different reason. This book is structurally sound and would have made a wonderful addition to the display, if only the images of the bookbinder, bookseller, and paper manufacturer were more prominent.

Kosai Miki. Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children), vol. 1, 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383]

Meant to teach English to Japanese children, each page contains nine, colored illustrations of a tradesman performing his trade.  The images are accompanied by both, the English word and the Japanese characters for the name of the trade. When held in the hand, this book is easily understood as the reader slowly moves their eyes over each panel, connecting the word and characters to the picture. However, if this were displayed in one of our exhibition cases, the intended images of the bookbinder, bookseller, and paper manufacturer would be overwhelmed by the other objects.

Kosai Miki. Eigaku dokansho makio no ichi (Learning English for children), vol. 1, 1873 [Ctsn Pams/NR/Japanese/Box 88 98383]

Be sure to visit the Cotsen during our normal business hours to see the books and objects we’ve selected for our exhibition, First Impressions: The Print Trade in Children’s Books. The exhibition is open to the public until January 3, 2020. And make sure you visit this blog next week for more outtakes from our current exhibition.

Banned Book Week 2019: Strega Nona

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DePaola, Tomie, Strega Nona: An Original Version of an Old Tale. 1st Little Simon board book ed. New York: Little Simon, 1997. Cotsen Collection, Moveables 37931

In 1975, Tomie dePaola published the wonderful Strega Nona, a story of a kindly strega, or witch, from Calabria who helps the townspeople with their troubles; after all, as dePaola says, “Strega Nona did have a magic touch.” The story centers around her magic pasta pot and her young helper, Big Anthony, who gets into some trouble when he tries to do magic, himself.

Strega Nona is the first in a series of pictures books featuring Nona and Big Anthony; however, none reached the acclaim of the original. In 1976, it was awarded the Caldecott Honor and it was voted one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time in a 2012 poll sponsored by the School Library Journal. It is not hard to see why this book is so beloved. The story is a timeless lesson in following the rules or risk punishment, and the illustrations are beautifully graphic and delightfully charming.

DePaola, Tomie, Strega Nona: An Original Version of an Old Tale. 1st Little Simon board book ed. New York: Little Simon, 1997. Cotsen Collection, Moveables 37931

However, despite these honors, Strega Nona also has the distinction of being a challenged and banned book. It was banned from a number of children’s libraries in the United States for depicting magic, witches, and witchcraft in a positive light. It takes its place with other challenged and banned books whose plots focus on supernatural or magical worlds, and whose characters are often witches and warlocks. According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, Ronald Dahl’s The Witches, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, have all been challenged or banned for the same reasons as Strega Nona.

DePaola, Tomie, Strega Nona: An Original Version of an Old Tale. 1st Little Simon board book ed. New York: Little Simon, 1997. Cotsen Collection, Moveables 37931

So what’s all the fuss about? Strega Nona, or Grandma Witch, is an old, wise woman who uses her magic to help the townspeople get rid of headaches, find love, and get rid of warts. She has a magic pasta pot that boils up a good, hot meal for dinner. One day, Big Anthony sneaks a peak while she says her pasta incantation:

Bubble, bubble, pasta pot,

Boil me some pasta, nice and hot,

I’m hungry and it’s time to sup,

Boil enough pasta to fill me up.

And watches as she ends the spell with:

Enough, enough, pasta pot,

I have my pasta, nice and hot,

So simmer down my pot of clay,

Until I’m hungry another day.

Of course Big Anthony misses Nona blowing three kisses to the pot to end the spell. The next day, he goes to town to tell everyone about the magical pasta pot. No one believes him and tells him to confess to the priest for lying.

DePaola, Tomie, Strega Nona: An Original Version of an Old Tale. 1st Little Simon board book ed. New York: Little Simon, 1997. Cotsen Collection, Moveables 37931

When Strega Nona leaves to visit a friend, she tells Big Anthony to continue his chores and not to touch her magic pot. He doesn’t listen and proceeds to conjure a pot of pasta to show the townspeople that he was telling the truth. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to make the pot stop because he didn’t see Nona blow three kisses to it at the end of her spell. The town is overcome by pasta until Strega Nona returns and stops the pot from cooking. The townspeople are ready to “string him up,” but wise, old Nona replies, “The punishment must fit the crime,” and gives Big Anthony his punishment in the form of a fork. He has to eat all of the pasta!   

DePaola, Tomie, Strega Nona: An Original Version of an Old Tale. 1st Little Simon board book ed. New York: Little Simon, 1997. Cotsen Collection, Moveables 37931

DePaola depicts Strega Nona as a good witch who is more concerned with helping people than devouring children and doing harm. At the end of the story, she is the hero and teaches Big Anthony, and the children who are reading the book, a valuable lesson. Yet, her good magic and grandmotherly ways have been challenged. Granted, there is a line in the book that states, “Even the priest and the sisters of the convent went [to Strega for cures], because Strega Nona did have a magic touch.” This one line and the images that accompany it could very well offend the Catholic Church. But enough to challenge or ban the book? As Amy L. Campbell from the blog “A Librarian’s Life in Books” said in a September 30, 2010 post:

… if you’re against the magic of Strega Nona, are you still telling them about the magic of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, babies coming from the stork? … Do you still take them to see Disney movies and allow them to play pretend? 

As she points out, childhood is a magical time filled with wonder. And let’s be honest, what Mom or Dad wouldn’t want a magical pasta pot on those busy school nights filled with soccer practice, piano lessons, and homework? I sure would.