To wish this blog a “Happy 2nd Birthday,” I’ve added a “Popular Posts” section – you’ll see a link, above.
Commemorating the blog’s first birthday, I posted a list of “Greatest Hits” from the first year.  This year, I would instead like to offer a glimpse into the future.  I have many more ideas for blog posts than I have time to write those posts.  So,… here are a few I’d like to write in the blog’s third year.
- The Purple Crayon’s Legacy, Part II: Picture Books. Â I posted Part I well nearly two years ago. Â Part II is long overdue….
- Mix for the Biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss.  In celebration of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (to be published Sept. 1st!).
- Fear of Flying. Â A post that will not include the word “zipless,” but will address how to manage anxiety at 18,000 feet.
- Gollies, Scriptive Things, and Childhood Play.  Inspired by both Robin Bernstein’s Racial Innocence and my own childhood, this post will serve as a rough draft of the introduction (or, really, part of the introduction) to a book I’m writing.
- Who Is the Dr. Seuss of Today? Â I often get asked this question. Â I have some answers.
- Barbara Lehman, master of the wordless picture book. Â IÂ love her work, and have been meaning to write about her since this blog began.
- The newspaper PM. Â I want to scan in and post an entire issue of this paper, which was published in New York from 1940 to 1948. (I have a few copies of it.) It’s a beautifully laid out, Popular Front newspaper that ran Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby and the political cartoons of Dr. Seuss. Â This project may sound unmanageable, but the paper was printed in tabloid format, and each issue wasn’t that long. Â (It’s not like scanning in a copy of The New York Times).
And there are several more for which I don’t have titles yet.
Thanks to all (both?) of you for continuing to read the blog. Â I’ll continue to try to make it worth your time.
Can’t wait to read these, Phil. And I’m especially eager to hear what you have to say about the Golliwogg. When I started the project that became Racial Innocence, I thought there would be a full chapter on the Golliwogg. That chapter turned into the one on Raggedy Ann, so I never wrote more than a couple paragraphs about the Golliwogg. But there’s a lot to say, and no one better to say it than you!
Looking forward to another year …
Thank you, both! And, Robin, I’m sure you’re more articulate on this subject than I am… but I’ll do my best! My sense is that the entire post (which I anticipate being of some length) will turn into nothing more than a couple of paragraphs in my book’s intro. But … we’ll see!
Barbara Lehman! Yes, lots on Barbara Lehman! She doesn’t nearly get enough attention. I went from knowing absolutely nothing about her to reading one book and falling completely in love. How does one of my favorite illustrators ever get so little attention? I can’t wait to see your post on the subject.
I concur about Barbara Lehman! As a teacher, her books were excellent to use in reading lessons. Best tool ever for teaching visual literacy and inferencing.