Category Archives: Cotsen Curatorial

A Nigerian Thorn Carving of a School Room

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Cotsen 36485, 7.3 x 14 x 18.7 cm.

Cotsen 36485, 7.3 x 14 x 18.7 cm.

Above is a classic example of a modern Nigerian thorn carving from the early 1990’s. Made principally by the Yoruba people since the 30’s, these miniature folk art pieces (sometimes more appropriately referred to as “tourist art” depending on their intended market) usually feature scenes and aspects of everyday Nigerian life. This particular carving depicts a classroom scene where diligent pupils are learning their ABC’s.

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The thorns used for these carvings come from 2 varieties of trees: the ata tree and the egungun tree. The thorns grow up to 5 inches in length and their relative suppleness makes for easier carving. They come in three colors: cream, rose, and brown; all three of which are exhibited in our little classroom scene. Though the carving above is mostly composed of recycled wood, the thorn wood provides the color and life of the piece.

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Classroom scenes of all sorts are a collection interest of our benefactor Lloyd E. Cotsen. We find them all over the collection, in all sorts of mediums. For the occasion of Mr. Cotsen’s 75th birthday we published Readers in the Cotsen Children’s Library (Princeton : Cotsen Children’s Library, 2005). This accordion style pamphlet (available here in the gallery) included one such memorable classroom scene from our collection:

page 22, reproduction of Oranges and lemons : a book of pictures and stories for children (Cotsen 22656, page 18)

page 22, reproduction of Oranges and lemons : a book of pictures and stories for children (Cotsen 22656, page 18)

If your thirst for classroom-related material is still unsatiated, I’d recommend Jeff Barton’s blog post: School Days in Children’s Books about depictions of school scenes from 18th- and 19th-century children’s books.

 

 

A Tribute to Norton Juster (1929-2021): The Phantom Tollbooth’s Classic Cover Morphs

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This week marked the passing of one of America’s great fantasists, Norton Juster, the creator of The Phantom Tollbooth, the wickedly punny allegory about how to wake up a wasted mind,  illustrated by Jules Feiffer.  Juster’s generous gift of a collection of foreign-language translations of The Phantom Tollbooth in 2018 was the occasion of this post, which is being repeated this week to celebrate the vitality of his contribution to children’s literature,  The Cotsen collection also has Feiffer drawings of the Triple Demons of Compromise, the Man in the Ceiling, and Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Witch to go along with the books. 

Norton Juster’s 1961 fantasy The Phantom Tollbooth is that rare classic in which the text and original illustrations are inseparable, rather like Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. Mention Alice and some illustration of her drawn by John Tenniel probably pops into the mind. Is Milo ever anyone but the skinny boy in a black sweater Jules Feiffer drew? And there’s only one cover design for the book. This one.

But when a work becomes so famous that translations in other languages are called for, covers and dust jackets have a way of changing publisher to publisher, country to country..

Here’s the front board of the Korean-language version. The right illustration is on the turquoise background, but the shade of turquoise is not quite the same as in the original. Look carefully and you can see that the figures of Milo and Tock are shiny. They were printed on a material other than paper and applied to the dust jacket. American books almost never have a colored band that wraps around the boards, but it’s common in the packaging of Japanese books–and I assume elsewhere in Asia. And the raised white characters below the banner with the English title are interesting typographically whether they are legible or not.

The selection of typefaces are the most noticeable change in the design for the Lithuanian-language. The slate blue background is handsome, but perhaps a little dark, compared to the turquoise original. The color did not photograph true, so you’ll have to take my word that it’s quite dark..The cover artist for the Romanian-language edition substituted another illustration for the original one of Milo and Toc and colorized it. Some of the figures were also printed on the same shiny material and laminated to the cover just as in the Korean translation. Should Milo’s car be orange? Why does he have blue hair? By the way, the sea in the middle distance is actually turquoise and the sky slate blue.

Now for the covers that are completely different from Feiffer’s. All the familiar characters are there, but without making any reference to the original illustrator. The Hebrew and German covers are in a surrealistic style, which underscores the possibility that the journey was all in Milo’s mind. The German translation has no text illustrations except for road signs, a concept that works very well.

The brightly colored cartoony covers for the Japanese- and Serbo-Croatian-language editions impose themselves on Juster’s world, rather than bringing out different dimensions of it. It’s unclear why Tock was given the teeth of a human being instead of a dog, unless the change was to make him look more friendly.

The French Livre de Poche paperback is unique in placing Tock and the Humbug center stage, with Milo and his car floating in the background along with the author’s name in an extremely small sans serif type. The French translation is, incidently, completely unillustrated except for Juster’s map. Last but not least is the Polish translation with a cover design by Grzegorz Kierzkowski. The title set in a wild mixture of different typefaces hints that what is to come may violate rhyme and reason! Kierzkowski deserves credit for having the confidence to reimagine Juster’s story without reference to Feiffer.

Norton Juster himself presented to Cotsen this delightful tasting menu of modern cover design on the translations of his celebrated fantasy. Thanks, Norton, for this very welcome and unexpected addition to the collection! You can hear Cotsen’s Outreach Coordinator Dana Sheridan’s interview with Norton on the Bibliofiles.