S
Number 7
(March 2005)
“It is the function of some people to be a lamp and some to be a mirror. I have
been very pleased to function as a mirror of others’ work.” – Arne Nixon
2 “Tales & Tidbits”
Curator’s Corner
Just say Fresno!
The art of illustration
The Gift of Loss
And the winner is . . .
3
4
6
7 Donations
THEMAGIC MIRROR
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Secret Garden Party planned –
in Wonderland!
Arne J. Nixon taught children’s
literature and storytelling for many
years at California State University,
Fresno. In 1995, he gave 22,000 chil-dren’s
books to the Henry Madden
Library and when he died, in 1997,
he left the Library a generous be-quest
to endow the Arne Nixon
Center for the Study of Children’s
Literature.
Save the date—Sunday, April 10, 3 to 5 p.m.—for the third annual
Secret Garden Party to benefit the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of
Children’s Literature. Celebrate your un-birthday at the Mad Hatter’s Tea
Party and the Queen of Hearts’ Croquet Tournament!
Join us for tea in a beautiful Fresno garden that is truly
Wonderland. The location is not a secret this year: we are returning to
the 10-acre Willow Bluff garden of Bill and Lise Van Beurden. Stroll
through their fragrant lavender field, see spring reflected in the ponds,
stop to smell the roses, admire 32,000 daffodils on the woodland walk,
and sip champagne in the underground wine cellar. This spectacular
garden is beautiful every day of the year!
This Alice in Wonderland themed event celebrates the recent
purchase of a world class Lewis Carroll collection for the Nixon Center,
made possible in part by proceeds from the two previous garden parties.
Early sign-up is strongly recommended to ensure your place at this
event. Underwriters, either businesses or individuals, are needed. Under-writers
receive complimentary tickets to the party, and their gifts will be
acknowledged at the party and in the Magic Mirror newsletter.
Individual tickets may be purchased for $50.
To request an invitation, to be a sponsor of this event, or to receive
additional information, please call the Library Development Office at
(559) 278-5790 or send an E-mail message
to kelliew@csufresno.edu.
2
The Arne Nixon Center for the
Study of Children’s Literature
Henry Madden Library
California State University, Fresno
5200 North Barton Ave. M/S ML34
Fresno CA 93740-8014
Phone: (559) 278-8116
Web site: www.arnenixoncenter.org
Open weekdays 1 – 4:30 p.m.
and by appointment.
Angelica Carpenter, Curator
E-mail: angelica@csufresno.edu
Jennifer Crow, Library Assistant
Matt Borrego, Student Assistant
Maria Carrizales, Student Assistant
Denise Sciandra, President
Phone (559) 229-5085
E-mail: deeceebee@psnw.com
Jessica Kaiser,
1st Vice President, Programs
Jackie Sarkisian,
2nd Vice President, Membership
Audry Hanson,
Corresponding Secretary
Angelica Carpenter,
Recording Secretary
Nancy Hill, Treasurer
Laurel Ashlock
Audry Hanson
Ruth Kallenberg
Cynthia MacDonald
Jo Ellen Misakian
Richard Osterberg
Ellis Vance
Angelica Carpenter, Editor
Janet Bancroft, Designer & Co-editor
Michael Gorman
Michael Cart
Maurice J. Eash
MAGIC MIRROR
MAGIC MIRROR
by Denise Sciandra, ANCA President
Tales & Tidbits
from ANCA
(Arne Nixon Center Advocates) Published by
Staff
ANCA Board of Directors
ANC Governing Committee
Magic Mirror
I travel all over the country and beyond in the name of children’s
literature. Call me crazy, but I love it.
When my children were young, we searched Los Angeles for
early editions of “Oz” books for my daughter Lisa. We visited places
and events named in Leo Politi’s books such as the monarch refuge
in Pacific Grove from The Butterflies Come, The Blessing of the
Animals from Juanita, and Las Posadas from Pedro, the Angel of
Olvera Street.
As a Beatrix Potter fan, I attended a meeting of the Beatrix
Potter Society in 1999 at the Philadelphia Free Library where the
largest Beatrix Potter collection outside of England is housed. While
there, I visited my sister who lives in Etters near Harrisburg. My
brother-in-law asked why I had come to Pennsylvania. When I told
him, he rolled his eyes, looked incredulous and said, “I guess you
really like Peter Rabbit.” As an adult who loves children’s literature,
I’m used to that kind of abuse.
On the other hand, my children’s library committee takes me
seriously. They took me to Beatrix Potter’s Hilltop home (“Denise’s
mecca” according to Gerry Hughes) in the Lake District of England
in 2000.
We imitated Beatrix Potter who was known for sitting on the
floor to create her drawings in order to get the same perspective as
the animals she drew. At Hilltop, the setting for The Tale of
Samuel Whiskers (also known as Roly-Poly Pudding), three of us
mature women got down on our hands and knees in order to get
the same rat’s-eye view that Samuel Whiskers had at the top of the
stairs as he boldly entered the main house to get ingredients to
make Tom Kitten into a “kitten dumpling roly-poly pudding.” A
Kodak moment and no cameras were allowed!
My association with professed Oz-nut Angelica Carpenter has
expanded my consciousness of L. Frank Baum’s 14 Oz stories. I
attended “Oz 2000,” the centennial celebration of The Wizard of Oz,
in Bloomington, Indiana. This extravaganza had everything from a
real hot air balloon to the actors who played Munchkins in the 1939
movie to a man trying to set a world record for most consecutive
hours reading aloud the Oz stories.
Dee Michel’s talk at Oz 2000, “The Appeal of Oz for Gay Men,”
left me with a new appreciation of how everyone in Oz is accepted
as they are.
I’ve already met Winkies and Oogaboos in Pacific Grove,
California. Next summer, I hope to meet Munchkins in Harrisburg,
Pennyslvania. I wonder what my brother-in-law will say about that?
The opportunities are there. If only I had more time to travel for
children’s literature.
by Angelica Carpenter
CORNER
CURATOR’S
Happy reading!
3
Greetings from England where I am on sabbatical, studying children’s literature
collections on this side of the pond. My husband, Richard, and I have rented a small house
in Kingston upon Thames, a London suburb, as a base for our travels.
Setting up housekeeping in a new place, with stores and systems we do not understand,
proved frustrating. We have given up trying to open a bank account. It took two weeks to
get dial-up Internet service.
The easiest place to deal with, I’m happy to report, was the Kingston Public Library,
where we are now card holders. It was there that I saw a flyer about a talk by children’s
author Jacqueline Wilson, speaking for the Tiffin Girls’ School Fire Appeal.
Jacqueline Wilson, who lives in Kingston, is a huge name in British publishing. Her 70 books have won every
major award. One book, The Story of Tracy Beaker, inspired a popular television series and Jacqueline herself has
won an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to literacy in schools.
Before the talk, I read The Suitcase Kid, about a girl named Andy, an only child devastated by her parents’
divorce. Both parents have remarried and Andy alternates, spending one week with Mum, Bill the Baboon, and his
three kids, and the next with Dad, his hippie wife, and her twins, Zen and Crystal. This is a perfect novel, told in
first person. Andy’s one consolation is a tiny toy rabbit named Radish. When Radish falls down a hole in a hollow
tree, a crisis ensues.
On a cold, rainy night, Richard and I took the bus to Tiffin Girls’ School where 364 girls, ages 8 to 18, and their
parents, mostly mothers, were filling tables in the school hall. Many girls clutched books to be autographed and the
younger children were very excited. All the girls had changed from school uniforms into casual clothes; the mums
were dressed for work or leisure. Mothers and daughters wore long scarves, looped or knotted creatively and left on,
even after coats had been taken off. There was a licensed bar for parents and a children’s bar with soft drinks. The
event was sold out, but the kind assistant headmistress had extra chairs brought for us.
Then the headmaster walked Jacqueline Wilson in from the back of the room, to breaking applause. She is a tiny
person, with short, straight gray hair. Apparently she always wears black, in this case, a black dress, and laced up
boots, with small spike heels. The headmaster told us what I had also read: for the second year in a row, Jacqueline
Wilson is the author most checked out of British libraries.
“I’ll stand up, so you can see me,” she said, “and so I can flash my rings at you,” and she did. Big silver rings are
her trademark; she wears at least one on every finger. Her talk was about how she became a writer.
As a child, she wrote constantly, filling Woolworth’s notebooks with stories. Bad at
math, she dropped out of school (she recommended against this) and began a secre-tarial
course, where she proved equally bad at shorthand and typing. Upon learning
the duties of a junior secretary (bringing coffee to the boss at all times and making
reservations for his holidays), she knew that she did not want to become one.
At this same time she saw an ad seeking teenaged authors to write short, ro-mantic
stories for a new magazine. Unable to think of anything romantic, she
wrote an account of her disastrous first high school dance, where she was a
wallflower. The magazine bought this for £3—not a lot of money, even in the
1960s, she pointed out, but gratifying just the same. After a few more articles, she
was offered a job as a junior staff writer and at age 17 moved from Kingston to
Glasgow, where the magazine was based. The publisher named the magazine
Jackie, after her, and her career was launched.
Jacqueline Wilson has a lovely voice and a perfect sense of comic timing. The
audience hung onto her every word and waved their hands wildly when the time
came for questions. I was thrilled to learn that the character of Radish is based on a real
toy rabbit that belonged to Jackie’s daughter.
Sitting in that warm cafeteria, with waves of laughter from the girls and their mothers washing over us, Richard
and I felt right at home.
British children’s
author Jacqueline Wilson
4
(This article was written by Mark Burstein, Vice President
of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, for the
society’s newsletter. It appears here with his permission in
an edited version.)
The 2004 fall meeting of our Society took place in
California’s lush Central Valley, in the fast-growing
metropolis of Fresno over the weekend of October 23rd.
The subtext of this meeting might be “The
Wonderful Wizard of Wonderland,” as the meeting was
hosted by Angelica Carpenter, the current president of
the International Wizard of Oz Club, and included as
speakers the Club’s past president (Peter Hanff) and two
authors whose previous and quite successful books were
about Oz (Linda Sunshine and Robert Sabuda).
The convention began Friday with a Maxine
Schaeffer Memorial Reading at the Bullard TALENT
School, whose students were very well prepared, having
done a production earlier this year. The entire audi-ence,
including several teachers
and the principal, were
fully costumed as Alice
characters. The class
of fourth graders
came prepared with
a list of questions,
some of which
almost stumped
the presenters
(“How did Alice
die?”). Each stu-dent
received the
Books of Wonder
edition of Looking-
Glass.
In proper Carrollian
style, Saturday’s meeting
was held in the dining hall, and
our dining was to be in a meeting room. The campus
Kennel Bookstore (named in honor of the Fresno State
Bulldogs) had stocked Carrollian titles, as well as the
works of our two featured speakers, both of whom were
happy to sign copies.
Angelica Carpenter, author of the delightful Lewis
Carroll: Through the Looking Glass, a biography for
children ages 9 to 14, welcomed us to the Madden
Library and to the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of
Children’s Literature, of which she is the founding
curator. Her talk, “Accelerated Reader in Wonderland,”
was frightening: California school libraries are ranked
50th of 50 states; our standards have been dumbed
down and children subjected to scripted lessons with
one goal in mind—to raise standardized scores. The
bugbear is named Accelerated Reader (AR), a
commercial product now entrenched in 50% of all
public schools, teaching children not how to read, but
how to pass computerized tests. Reading books that
don’t have associated tests is discouraged. Children no
longer know how to browse, or how to use other library
skills. There are fewer and fewer librarians—now
budgets call for AR “councilors.” Multiple-choice tests
do not encourage reading for pleasure, nor test the
grasp of the material in any depth. One even gets equal
points for reading abridgements.
Next, Peter E. Hanff, Deputy Director of the Bancroft
Library at UC Berkeley, gave a fine talk accompanied by
slides: “Full Leisurely We Glide: Origins of Alice.” His
focus was the earliest editions of Wonderland. He
spoke of his 35-year voyage in the bibliographic world,
wherein he has had the good fortune to examine 15 of
the 23 copies of the 1865 Wonderland listed in the
Goodacre census. He discussed the printing practices of
that period—typesetting by hand, and stereo- and
electro-typing—and the special folding and gathering
techniques and case-binding.
Following Hanff was a tribute to Hilda Bohem
(properly pronounced as the first two syllables
of “Bohemian”). On this “occasion to celebrate
the arrival of her collection in the Arne Nixon
Center, to grieve, to remember, and to
celebrate our friend Hilda Bohem, rare book
librarian, bookseller, longtime Carrollian,”
several of her friends and family took the
podium. Hanff talked about their long
friendship, having met her nearly 40 years ago
at the UCLA library school where she was
studying book conservation and preservation. He
read from some of her “inimitable” E-mail messages
in which she shared her thoughts on food, bib-liography,
her grandson, politics, dogs, restaurants,
collecting, and movies (her husband wrote for silents, a
somewhat oxymoronic calling). Carpenter contributed
some warm anecdotal reminiscences, and Bohem’s
niece, Gillian Garro, read a moving poem written for
the occasion. A slide show of pictures of Bohem con-cluded
a sweet tribute to our friend.
After lunch in the Alumni meeting hall, Linda
Sunshine (yes, her real name) enchanted us with the
story of her newest book, All Things Alice. (This was
the official launch party for the book—the publishers
had moved up the date to accommodate this meeting.)
Sunshine is the author of fifty-some books, among
them All Things Oz.
Just say Fresno!
5
Robert Sabuda, creator of the pop-up book Wonderland, a most
extraordinary feat of paper engineering, spoke on his process and
on the way his books are produced. Over two million copies of
his Oz and Wonderland have been sold and have won
numerous awards. He works in 3-D, with only scissors, ruler, a
pencil, glue, and a stack of white cards. The primary focus is that
it pops up—and, more problematically, folds back up—correctly. A
single image can take him a few weeks to finalize in paper. He then
adds a drawing, other artistic touches, and colors in 2-D. Popup
books are made by hand—no machine can fold and glue with the
precision required. Specialized factories exist in South America,
Southeast Asia, and Mexico. Each factory assembles 10,000-15,000
books per week. After playing part of a video documentary on the
process, Sabuda ended the session with questions from the audi-ence.
The reception at the Henry Madden Library that evening
featured a lovely buffet. Afterwards we had a chance to examine
the Arne Nixon Center and the Bohem collection at our leisure,
particularly the rare volumes on display in glass cases in the library
entry and solarium.
Mingling with us that evening were Alice, Humpty Dumpty (in a
cowboy hat), and the Tweedles—all students from the Bullard TALENT
School’s January 2004 production of Wonderland, who later treated
us to a most amusing sampler of that show. The show-stopping
number—the rockin’ “I Was a Good Egg, But Then I Done Went
Bad”—revealed that Humpty Dumpty jumped off the wall to become a
country-western singer!
Angelica Carpenter put together a fantastic program. She and her
colleagues were most generous and hospitable—praises to all who put
these events together!
Robert Sabuda next
to one of “The Art of
Alice” Library exhibits.
The Alice characters shown on
these two pages are cleverly disguised
Bullard TALENT School students.
Grace Pengilly
6
The art of illustration
by Rosie Arenas
Do you remember looking at Max’s world in Maurice
Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, or Shel Sil-verstein’s
peculiar line drawings giving life to the very
words in his poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends?
These are well-known names in the field of children’s
literature—for they not only wrote the stories that we
commit to memory now, but they also illustrated their
own books. We recognize books by the pictures and yet,
if we tried to look for a book by the illustrator, we
would have a difficult time since children’s book titles
have traditionally been catalogued first under the
author’s name and then under the illustrator’s name.
With the advance of technology, it is much easier to
look for books by the names of illustrators, but they
still have not been given the recognition they deserve.
Illustrations are the source of visual stimulation in
picture books for children and open up the imagi-nation
in a way that words cannot for many children.
Sometimes illustrations enhance the story in the text
with details that were not written, and in other cases
they visually describe what is not expressed in the text.
Writers paint pictures with words, but illustrators tell
stories through pictures. Occasionally, illustrations may
even tell their own stories. If you look through the
illustrations of Chato’s Kitchen, illustrated by Susan
Guevara, you will find illustrations that enhance the
text written by Gary Soto about a cat and his friends.
Yet, Guevara once shared with a conference audience
that if you look carefully at the illustrations, she wrote
her own story about a family of tiny birds getting
married within her bold and colorful illustrations.
Illustrators of children’s books have always had a
“voice”—a visual voice in the books they have
illustrated. Nonetheless, this voice has been obscured by
the powerful text it might accompany, or the illus-trations
were given little or no recognition in the
reviews that were published in various children’s book
journals, so they went unnoticed. But in the eyes of the
children who see them, illustrations are the windows to
other parts of the world and to other experiences that
allow children’s minds and spirits to open up to a
myriad of possibilities. We need to give illustrators an
opportunity to communicate their stories and thoughts
about their life and work by allowing them to voice
their thoughts about art in children’s literature. We may
be enlightened.
Rosie Arenas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Literacy and Early Education in Fresno State’s Kremen School
of Education and Human Development.
Congratulations to Grace Pengilly on her recently
published book entitled The Gift of Loss: How to
Raise Emotionally Resilient Children. Pengilly, who
writes under the pen name Grace E. Davis, wrote this
book to help parents teach children how to deal with
many types of loss. From the separation of weaning, to
the devastating death of a loved one, Pengilly believes
that helping children cope with their feelings will
strengthen them for the inevitable changes that will
occur throughout their lives. Her first book, published
in 1986, Helping Your Young Child Face the Reality
of Death, is also a guide for parents during traumatic
times. Pengilly, a regis-tered
nurse and local
author, made extensive
use of the Arne Nixon
Center to compile her
bibliography of chil-dren’s
books relating to
loss and thanked both
Angelica and Jennifer
for their help on the ac-knowledgement
page.
The Fresno Area Reading Council, the local chapter of
the California Reading Association, has awarded the
Arne Nixon Center its prestigious John Martin Literacy
Award for 2005. An association dedicated to improving
literacy and literacy instruction, FARC held its annual
conference on February 5. The annual award, named in
honor of past CRA president (1972-73) and Fresno State
professor (1959-86) John Martin, recognizes outstand-ing
effort in the support and promotion of literacy. It is
given alternately to an individual in the field of edu-cation
and a community organization or member. Arne
Nixon Center Advocates President Denise Sciandra was
honored to accept the first award ever given to the Arne
Nixon Center. She was presented with an engraved
plaque by FARC president Nydia Mendoza. After thank-ing
the council members, Sciandra shared with the
audience some of the many accomplishments of the
Center and its Advocates. Her statements served to
affirm the decision that the Arne Nixon Center was
truly deserving of the John Martin Literacy Award.
The Gift of Loss
And the winner is . . .
7
Donations of books and materials
SIGN ME UP!
I/We would like to join the Arne Nixon Center
Advocates and enclose a donation. (Donations
are tax deductible as allowable by law.)
Make check payable to CSUF Foundation.
Mail to: Angelica Carpenter
California State University, Fresno
Henry Madden Library
The Arne Nixon Center
5200 North Barton Ave. M/S ML34
Fresno CA 93740-8014
Phone: (559) 278-8116
FAX: (559) 278-6952
E-mail: angelica@csufresno.edu
Name (s)
Address
City/State/Zip
Phone
E-mail
(Please circle one) Ms. Mr. Mrs. Mr. & Mrs.
New membership Renewal
1,000 Life membership
Patron membership
Sponsor membership
Advocate membership
Sustaining membership
Student membership
Other amount
$
$ 250
$ 100
$ 50
$ 25
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Beverly Hills Public Library: 34 periodicals
Michael Cart: 750 picture books
Roslyn Deinstein: 1 book
Pamela Harer: 53 books and 13 posters
Houghton Mifflin: 66 books
Susan James: 1 book
Rosellen Kershaw: 3 books
Dorothy Kupcha Leland: 1 book
Lerner Publications: 14 books
Blossom Norman: 1 book
Random House: 75 books
Scholastic: 60 books
Denise Sciandra and Lisa Sciandra:
4 posters and other Oz-related materials
Vince Smith: 14 books
John Taylor: 62 books
Clara Touya: dolls and display items
Tricycle Press: 13 books
Barbara Troisi: 58 books
Vivian Yee and the Oakland Public Library:
38 boxes of books
Thanks to all our donors!
September 2004 through January 2005
Angelica Carpenter and Ruth Sanderson,
who donated the original oil painting used as the
cover for A Treasury of Princesses: Princess
Tales from Around the World.
AAnswers to quiz:
1 Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie
2 101 Dalmations, by Dodie Smith
The Tale of Peter Rabbit,
by Beatrix Potter 3
The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis 4
California State University, Fresno
The Arne Nixon Center
for the Study of Children’s Literature
Henry Madden Library
5200 North Barton Avenue M/S ML34
Fresno CA 93740-8014
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
Non-Profit
Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
Fresno, California
Permit No. 262
Can you identify book titles from these famous lines?
Q 1“Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping
in your silly bed you might be flying
about with me saying funny things to
the stars.”
(Answers on page 7)
Q 2Not long ago, there lived in London a young married couple
of Dalmatian dogs named Pongo and Missis Pongo.
Q 3Once upon a time there were four little
Rabbits, and their names were—Flopsy,
Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.
Q 4“And may I ask, O Lucy, Daughter of Eve,” said
Mr. Tumnus, “how you have come into Narnia?”
“Narnia? What’s that?” said Lucy.
