Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature
yalereview.org
yalereview.org
A detail I only mentally noted as an adult: the butchers in his books are always pigs themselves. A pig selling ham, sausages and, presumably, cuts of pork is a bit morbid (and also hilarious in a black humor sort of way), but it fits in with the world so much that I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
I still remember one of the books I had as a child—can't recall the title exactly—that had a bunch of urban scenes with various objects labeled. What really stood out were the little details and funny little stories going on. The stories and the humor got me to pay attention and actually care about the objects (and their labels!) far more than any generic vocabulary book for kids.
What I love about Richard Scarry is that he is never patronizing or condescending. Too many authors of children's books either try to write down to kids, try to write what they think kids ought to read, or both. But kids aren't idiots and they can tell! Well, I can't speak for everyone, but at least as a kid myself I found a lot of children's works either patronizing or unpleasant—works that were trying too hard to be childlike or, especially, works that were transparent morality plays.
Scarry's work is nothing like this at all. It's oriented for and accessible to kids, but it manages to be simple and silly in a genuine way. The art and stories are actually cute and funny rather than caricatures of what an adult thinks a child would find cute and funny. You can tell Scarry was making something he would enjoy himself. That's why I loved his books when I was five and why I still love his books now.
It's hard to find other children's books like that. I collect illustrated books and the majority I see in stores are awful. The most successful exception I've seen are books by Joe Klassen (of I Want My Hat fame) along with his common collaborator Mac Barnett. Their books are legitimately funny and visually attractive to adults, they're willing to write stories that aren't entirely saccharine, and children absolutely love them. I've seen that first-hand.
Also: every scarecrow has a crow sitting on it.
"Yes, that used to be a pig."
"OK!" and popped it into his mouth.
Kids really don't care.
The colleague keeps chickens for eggs so she’s exposed to them on a daily basis, so maybe that’s where the difference lies. A pig isn’t a common animal kept in a household or even most backyard farms so a child might not have much exposure to them.
Just a thought, dunno.
One day my son asked if we can go eat one of our neighbor's chickens.
I had to explain the difference between egg laying chickens and meat chickens.
Also I explained that it is rude to eat your neighbors' animals without asking first.
Sometimes he'll think up of a pairing and ask me to check online which animal eats the other. Yesterday it was praying mantis Ed VS spiders.
Turns out that can go either way depending on the spider.
First the farmer pets the bunny. Then the farmer feeds the bunny. Then the farmer gives the bunny some water. Then the farmer kills the bunny and eats him for dinner.
Kids care as much as their parents care and what they teach them. Don't overgeneralize this please. Some do care, maybe most don't but it is something that changes over time.
A more accurate statement would be "kids are really good at taking things as matter of fact".
They don't have very many preconceived notions yet.
How does one thought here follow from the other? I’m not saying that there aren’t egregious atrocities commited in the name of mental health treatment, but it seems that you don’t even attempt to argue that that happened in the case.
With some people in some situations the kindest and most humane thing imaginable is to transport them to a mental health institution and keep them there for 2 weeks. The fact that we have that as an option demonstrates that humans care about each other and are not treating each other as trash.
The baseline, without any systems in place, is that we leave people suffering a mental episode wreak havoc on their own life and the lives of those around them. Now that would be treating people like trash.
As i say it is perfectly possible that your colleague suffered an injustice, or were more harshly treated than would have been possible or reasonable. But then say that, don’t just insinuate it.
"What do animals do all day?": The division of labor, class bodies, and totemic thinking in the popular imagination (2000)
> Keywords: Animals; Totemism; Class body; Busytown; Symbolic domination; Division of labor
(36pp, not entirely serious, about which animals do what in Busytown; contrasted with Babar, etc.)
I think that the best children's books always have something in them that will be appreciated later. They can be read and re-read as one grows older. Probably the greatest prose exponent was Lewis Carroll.
If you haven't read it The Dark[1] (his collaboration with Lemony Snicket) is also great; my kids absolutely love the voices I do for the animals in I Want My Hat Back and for the titular Dark.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Bccb-Ribbon-Picture-Awards/dp/03...
Other cartoons "for kids" with an adult track in them:
SpongeBob (the first couple seasons)
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Another one we really like is the Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson. A classic, which is also really fun to read as an adult. I wish I know of more of these kinds of high quality children books.
Roald Dahl is another such writer who just doesn't care and writes what is fun for kids to read. I loved his books when I grew up. But its for a different age.
Also anything by Tomqi Ungerer or Mo Willems.
I have this in my son's room. It's called "Busy Busy Town".
I’ve been struck by how the world is depicted to my children in so many children’s books. “As you grow, you’ll be able to slot into a happy productive life, no matter what kind of work you like.”
No joke: every time I read my daughter a Richard Scarry book, I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
Think about what it would be like to grow up or to raise children in a world where the ramp to adulthood was incredibly wide and smooth and it was near-impossible to fall off a cliff into poverty, loneliness, or a life of work you hate.
Busytown isn’t a real place, but it was obviously designed to give children some sense of what the world is like or supposed to be like.
I don't disagree that young people (at least in the US) are told a lie like "Do what you love and the money will follow." I fell for that and tried to become research scientist, getting a far as receiving a PhD only to find that the funnel from there to a tenured research job was _extremely_ narrow. That's a giant waste of many motivated people's time. And it does need to be fixed.
But is the source of all this Richard Scarry books? I really doubt it. It's okay to give a rosy view of the world to children. Childhood is the longest and best vacation you'll ever take. But there does need to be an incrementally higher dose of "real talk" as children grow into young adults.
Even though the children's books lack nuance. There are no problems with pollution and climate change in Scarry's world. There are no jobs that people do not like to do. Malice and greed is very limited, sickness never really frightening.
But still, the overall vision of goodness from the perspective of a child's innocence is valid and accurate. Adults at some point either just give up or mechanically hold on to dystopic beliefs because they feel it is part of their identity.
But it might just be a lack of imagination. Which is why hope and change always come from new generations, and the best elders can do is gently support them and step out of their way.
Perhaps you have an issue with interpretation here. The pleasant story was the illusion here.
PS - I too loved the Richard Scarry books as a child and bought them for my children - and I'm not even from the US.
I think stories that describe better possibilities than what we have are useful cognitive and social tools.
The only way to solve collective action problems in the real world is via coercion. That is, government.
But they mostly seem to have found something that they like well enough and contributes to society. And perhaps that's an important lesson to take away. Part of living a happy, fulfilling life is finding joy in what's attainable.
I fully agree about all of this. The sad fact is that, in my country, a person with this humble and contented perspective is rolling the dice when it comes to housing, health, and autonomy, and many of them lead unnecessarily stressful and lives with no time/energy for community or creative development. That’s the part I would like to see fixed.
Exactly! It shows people being valuable to each other in small ways, having purpose, and being involved in each other's lives.
And it emphasizes the joy and texture of everyday life. The little things.
Fight for housing reform.
Fight for every YIMBY proposal that comes up.
Demand drastic zoning reforms.
80% of the problem of affordability in the western world is housing. In the US at least, there is plenty of space left in most major cities (outside of NYC) to dramatically expand and make housing affordable again.
The unaffordability of the modern world is a self caused problem.
People want their house to rise 5% in value every year but are pissed off when restaurant prices go up 10% a year and daycares cost 30k a year.
You know what, how about my house stays flat in value for a decade while wages catch up with housing costs, and in return I get to save 15k a year on daycare and eating out costs 5k a year less and property crime goes back down to reasonable levels?
Vote for change.
Almost every children's book that depicts a serious issue, such as racism, tells a complete story where the problem is solved and is no longer a problem. I believe this is a big part of why so many people think that racism (again, for example) isn't a problem anymore.
Because, they learned, from a very young age, and for many years, that such problems were solved.
There is a very strong and understandable impulse for children's books to be comforting, and to shy away from un-answered questions. This, as you point out, leads to a warped view of reality that parents then should correct.
I switched careers later in life after finding that it was difficult to make money in my initially chosen field, but I don't feel "fucked for life" by it. I actually feel a lot better about doing things I like outside of work. It's much more rewarding to be creative if I'm not trying to maximize profits or otherwise commodify what I'm doing. Sure I wish I didn't have to work and could do whatever I wanted all the time, but I work generally acceptable hours at a stomach-able enough job and have time outside work for family and fun and I've made my peace with that.
- born 1919
- upper middle class life in boston
- started illustrating 1949
- started writing original works 1955
- moved to switzerland 1972
- died 1994
You have a hand in shaping the world she will grow up in. If this is important to you, keep it in mind at least next Tuesday.
What's missing is all the bullshit jobs and awful management. But, even if you wanted to, you probably couldn't really convey that in a children's book... Hell, even most adult books fail to capture just how bullshit the bullshit is!
That aside, Busytown is set in a small town. The culture of towns vary of course, but _generally_, small town life is vastly different from urban or suburban life. There is far less social isolation. (Most) people help each other out without needing to be asked. You may disagree with your neighbor's political opinions but can still have a beer with them in the backyard. And so on.
Perhaps it's because I didn't grow up wealthy, but the financial facet of both my education and eventual career was front and center for myself and my friends.
It would have been nice for the adults in my life to have told me these things, but a competent 16-19 year old is also plenty able to ascertain these things themselves.
I'm in my late 40s. I still treasure the high-school graduation gift my parents got me: Richard Scarry autographed one of my well-abused childhood books. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.
But they got rid of the scarecrow (and the crow on it)! And a lot of little turns and phrases that were charming, as I recall. But take a look.
But they messed with the art in doing so. Want equal representation of women? Cool, don't care. Just put Dad in the kitchen alone. Don't get rid of the scarecrow just to make room for a woman, because it messes up the whole image. And their art is not up to the original standard.
Making it to the beach scene always feels like an accomplishment :D
I left the Old Country for my adopted country in part because it reminded me of "What do people do all day" – although I was not conscious of the resemblance until my father, having seen the not-a-pig dude from the city coming around with a little vehicle specially outfitted to water various geraniums, pointed it out.
Actually the modern publishing of What do people do all day removed a bunch of the jobs. I don't have info on why they did that, but if you want to read it make sure to get the original unabridged (uncensored?) version.
* every pose is pretty static, nobody's actively doing anything, they're just sitting or standing in the middle of their workplace - Scarry's folks are always running around doing something.
* lots and lots of wide eyes with the pupil not touching any part of the edge, which makes them look like a dead doll - I'm looking through some Scarry drawings and he almost never does this, and when he does it's with a much smaller, simpler eye that doesn't require any rendering.
* in general these drawings are much more detailed than Scarry's work, there's a lot of nervous repeated mark-making going on, and that would prove to be a hallmark of AI imagesludge a few years later.
* "cold and dead" might be something being deliberately aimed for here, "look at all these people who are dead inside" is a definite vibe I could see going for with a project like this - Scarry wants you to like everyone he draws and I do not think this artist wants you to like any of these people.
* Scarry's animal people all basically look like cute babies due to his choices of detail and stylization. These all look more like taxidermied animals in a clever pose, due to radically different choices in those domains. One of these things is cute and appealing on an instinctual level. One of these things is kind of creepy.
My kids, now grown, did not get to experience his books - are his books sold widely anymore?
They're still lovely books, but I think they're less popular mostly because they're a bit dated now; lots of obsolete jobs and few female animals doing any of the cool jobs.
Part of an education should be learning how other people live, whether it's in the past or in another part of the world. And of course, there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker today.
Is that a new copy or an old one?
The newer editions of Best Word Book Ever were updated to be less stereotypical (I think there's a gallery somewhere that shows the changes). Unfortunately the updated art is noticeably inferior (even to my untrained eye), and in some places kinda dumb (on one page I think they decided they needed more girls, so they phoned it in and slapped a big "LISA" on the shirt of some androgynous animal). Also they dropped A LOT of content, so the newer editions are something like half as long.
While they are dated, there are insights in some of them. If they had a bakery, they also had a mill where the flour was ground, and that required wheat which was gathered.
The houses had cross-sections showing the pipes and where water came into the house and distributed to the faucets/showers. It connected to the fireplugs outside.
There was an inter-connectedness to this world that is still simplified, of course, but so much deeper than anything else I can think of in that format. The only thing vaguely comparable would be the DK books which are packed with info. Most kids books are ultra-simplified and not meant for exploration, they are just a linear "show this".
"PUT A BANDAGE ON IT"
Come to think of it, a lot of children's authors seem to have lived in that area, western CT or eastern upstate NY. Some, including Judy Hawes and Jean Van Leeuwen, came to visit my school to talk about their books, reading in general, etc.
In college I referred to the textbooks used by Management Information Systems majors as "Richard Scarry books" because they were full of colorful, busy illustrations and light on technical detail.
My toddler is now obsessed with them and demands “CARS AND TRUCKS”, “SITE” or “HOUSE” every night at bedtime.
I didn't even know what a pickle barrel was, but it obviously made a mess when someone crashed into it.
I initially thought my 1.5 year old didn’t quite have the attention span for Cars and Trucks and Things that Go yet, but recently, after learning the word bus, he picked it up and dutifully started going through each page and finding all of the buses.
These days I prefer comics that are a little more poignant. I think Taiyo Matsumoto, Emil Ferris, Mariko + Jillian Tamaki, Kate Beaton, even Noah Van Sciver (bleak, but he can laugh himself) all write comics about lonely losers that I find a little less bleak. Still, bleak isn't bad.
I just love comics so much, though. Enough to rant on HackerNews about them.
There were some blobby looking ice-cream/sundae in it. And a picture story where someone made very tall icecream. So tall that a helicopter was putting scoops on top (or may be it was placing the cherry on top, but i remember that helicopter touching that icecream). It was a colorful cartoony style art in the book.
Having strong imagination as a kid, the pictures in this book always felt real (hard to explain). Then I remember looking at this book many years later as a grown up and not feeling them as real. It's been many many years since then and I want to have a glimpse again.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37044673 (47 comments)
Some things have not aged well in them though. Thinking specifically around the gender roles. Not matching Sweden of today. Basically all men are working and having a good time and the women are taking care of children and their husbands. But I sometimes make a lesson of that and tell them that it used to be more like that and ask them whom of my wife and I do different chores and takes care of them. Then we can laugh about it a bit together instead of me grinding my teeth. “Mom’s work is never done”.
ALWAYS he would say "Robber Book!" which was a Richard Scarry book that had a couple of robbers/burglars in it. In hindsight it was the cars he liked the most - cars are a major feature of Richard Scarry books and my little boy was car crazy from the moment he was born it seems.
Richard Scary's illustrstions were absolute favorites for myself, my siblings and all of our offspring when we were looking at books before we learned to read, and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster later became our favorite book as young readers.