Dr. Seuss and P. D. Eastman
Jul. 21st, 2008 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinI was just thinking about how P. D. Eastman seems to be underappreciated as a major figure in children's literature. It appears that many people incorrectly think he was a second pseudonym for Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, even though their drawing and writing styles are completely different.
The slightly mysterious authorship of The Cat In The Hat Dictionary, which Eastman illustrated but which has the Cat in the Hat credited as co-author and prominently featured on the cover, may be part of the reason as that article suggests. But another thing that contributes is that Geisel did have at least one other pseudonym: some of the books he wrote but didn't illustrate are credited to "Theo. LeSieg".
Eastman's Go, Dog. Go!, which takes place in a strange world of primary-colored dogs with party hats and little racing cars, was a favorite of mine when I was a little kid, and it's a favorite of Jorie now. Reading these books again gives me a whole new appreciation for Eastman's low-key, straight-faced surrealism, which could be as peculiar in its way as Seuss's soft and wobbly biomorphic style, though it wasn't immediately obvious. Eastman was fond of drawing complicated machines (this particularly shows up in The Cat in the Hat Dictionary). In the Ferris-wheel spread in Go, Dog. Go! he carefully draws in the belts, cogs and electric motor of the drive mechanism for the wheel, controlled by an operator dog down in the corner.
Looking back, it's amazing to me what Geisel and Random House managed to accomplish with Beginner Books. They were actually creating a largely new genre of kids' books: wacky and entertaining simplified-vocabulary primers for beginning readers (which also work as parental bedtime reading, though that wasn't the original intention). And not only did Geisel (who already had a long career as a major children's author at this point) write a bunch of classics of his own for the line, he also helped develop this amazing stable of other talents like Eastman and Robert Lopshire and Roy McKie. The result is that Jorie's still using these wonderful kids' books that largely date from the 1960s.
Also, apparently there's a stage adaptation of Go, Dog. Go!
The slightly mysterious authorship of The Cat In The Hat Dictionary, which Eastman illustrated but which has the Cat in the Hat credited as co-author and prominently featured on the cover, may be part of the reason as that article suggests. But another thing that contributes is that Geisel did have at least one other pseudonym: some of the books he wrote but didn't illustrate are credited to "Theo. LeSieg".
Eastman's Go, Dog. Go!, which takes place in a strange world of primary-colored dogs with party hats and little racing cars, was a favorite of mine when I was a little kid, and it's a favorite of Jorie now. Reading these books again gives me a whole new appreciation for Eastman's low-key, straight-faced surrealism, which could be as peculiar in its way as Seuss's soft and wobbly biomorphic style, though it wasn't immediately obvious. Eastman was fond of drawing complicated machines (this particularly shows up in The Cat in the Hat Dictionary). In the Ferris-wheel spread in Go, Dog. Go! he carefully draws in the belts, cogs and electric motor of the drive mechanism for the wheel, controlled by an operator dog down in the corner.
Looking back, it's amazing to me what Geisel and Random House managed to accomplish with Beginner Books. They were actually creating a largely new genre of kids' books: wacky and entertaining simplified-vocabulary primers for beginning readers (which also work as parental bedtime reading, though that wasn't the original intention). And not only did Geisel (who already had a long career as a major children's author at this point) write a bunch of classics of his own for the line, he also helped develop this amazing stable of other talents like Eastman and Robert Lopshire and Roy McKie. The result is that Jorie's still using these wonderful kids' books that largely date from the 1960s.
Also, apparently there's a stage adaptation of Go, Dog. Go!
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 02:41 pm (UTC)I never much liked The Giving Tree either. Silverstein's silly poems are great, but that book has a decidedly creepy subtext, almost as if parents with passive-aggressive martyr complexes are supposed to identify with the tree.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 06:47 pm (UTC)I also had the Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary in French, which I believe has Eastman illustrations, and I always got the two artists mixed up. Maybe I assumed Dr. Seuss had a 'fancy' art style and a 'simple' one, I dunno.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 09:06 pm (UTC)I was never a big fan of Seuss or Eastman, but I also didn't spend much time on beginning books since I read at quite an advanced level. That's not bragging, because having reading as a super power caused me more trouble than it was worth. Why couldn't I have a useful skill, like a really bendy thumb?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 11:22 pm (UTC)Part of it was that I was a compulsive rule-follower, and my school library had the shelves segregated by age level. I had been told, explicitly, several times, that this did not apply to me and I could borrow books from the older kids' shelves if I wanted to, but it still felt wrong to me because I was violating those age labels on the shelves. Then I had a real explosion of more sophisticated reading when I went to another elementary school where the books weren't shelved that way.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 05:20 am (UTC)"Never mind," says Mr. Bird. "He's happy. And just look at him swim!"
I can't think of a healthier parable to inflict on a young child.
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