I was introduced to Ishii’s work through a footnote in an otherwise unremarkable book on postwar Japanese children’s literature. That note led me to Ishii’s 1947 children’s book Non-chan kumo ni noru (Non-chan Rides on a Cloud), with which I fell instantly in love. Since then, I have been obsessively gathering everything I can find about Ishii–much to the puzzlement of both my American and Japanese friends and several (very helpful and patient) American and Japanese book dealers.

The news of her death makes me wish that I had been more diligent in my efforts to turn my personal research into a published article or a useful Wikipedia entry (or, more importantly, a completed MA thesis). Perhaps, if there are not permissions restrictions (and LibraryThing resolves some of its East Asian language support issues), I will enter the catalog of Katsura Bunko, Ishii’s children’s library, into the LT legacy library project.

Although, sadly, I never met Ishii, I feel this week as if I have lost a great friend, a wise mentor that I always thought would be around. In some ways, she will always be around–in her writings and in the work of her successors. Rest in peace, Ms. Ishii.

Further reading:

• Japanese obituaries from Asahi Shinbun, Mainichi Shinbun, and Yomiuri Shinbun
• Ishii’s Hans Christian Andersen Award Nominee biography

I was not a huge Berenstain Bears fan as a child, but two Berenstain books hold a special place in my heart: The Berenstain Bears’ New Baby and Inside Outside Upside Down. The Berenstain Bears’ New Baby provided comfort and reassurance for me after my younger sister was born, while Inside Outside Upside Down is infamous in my family as being one of my favorite bedtime books. Many nights I cried for my parents to read that book to me once more.

J’s Scratchpad has a lovely post about her mother’s (and her own) appreciation for the many Berenstain Bears books.

Related links: The Official Berenstain Bears Website

As I am assuming most of you know, Terry Belanger, the founder and director of Rare Book School, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship this week. I heard the good news as soon as I arrived at work on Tuesday and was very excited to read about it on the RBS website.

Rare Book School has received many well-deserved honors this year. In June RBS received an IMLS grant to fund 50 scholarships for the upcoming year. So, if you have never been to Charlottesville, would like to learn about rare books and the book arts, and want to meet the “genius in residence”, you should consider applying for a scholarship. The application deadline is October 1.

And, since I am writing about RBS, I would also like to thank everyone there for helping me have an enjoyable and educational time in Charlottesville last March and the previous August. In the better-late-than-never category, I hope to finish posting my March dispatches to this blog soon.

According to a post on SHARP-L yesterday, contributions in memory of Rostenberg can be made to the Orchard House — Home of the Alcotts in Concord.

[via Ex Libris list and also seen on the Reading Room weblog]

I am glad that I chose to stay awake and watch that program. As a child, I had mixed feelings about Sendak’s books. Chicken Soup with Rice was a favorite, but In the Night Kitchen would have been banned from our household if I had any say. Where the Wild Things Are was strangely problematic. On the one hand, I felt obligated to love the book–it was given a Caldecott award, after all–but, on the other hand, I felt ambivalent about Max and his behavior.

Hearing Sendak speak last night gave me a different perspective of and new appreciation for his work. His honesty, sadness, and realism were both refreshing and painful. At one point, he became tearful, and I thought that I would start to cry, too. But, through the painful parts of his conversation with Moyers, I felt that I understood his work better.

His comments about Where the Wild Things Are were particularly informative. Responding to Joseph Campbell’s analysis of the story, he said:

“We’re animals. We’re violent. We’re criminal. We’re not so far away from the gorillas and the apes, those beautiful creatures . . . And then, we’re supposed to be civilized. We’re supposed to go to work every day. We’re supposed to be nice to our friends and send Christmas cards to our parents.

We’re supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it’s so against what we naturally would want to do. And if I’ve done anything, I’ve had kids express themselves as they are, impolitely, lovingly–they don’t mean any harm. They just don’t know what the right way is.”

After he said that, I no longer felt ambivalent about Max in his little wolf suit . . . I also learned quite a bit about the author–quirky things, the sort of things that make people interesting. He does not like J.M. Barrie, but he finds great comfort in Emily Dickinson, for example. The full transcript is available at the NOW website, and while I was searching for that, I grabbed a few more links that may be of interest.

More wild things:

• More from the NOW website:
  • Test your knowledge with a quiz on children’s literature.
  • Read about the tragic story of the children of Terezin and about Brundibar, Tony Kushner and Maurice Sendak’s adaptation of the Czech libretto.
• Rosenbach Museum and Library:
  • Home of the Maurice Sendak archives among many other things. The wild rumpus started and ended last year, but if you are traveling to Philadelphia between now and August 15, you can see “Alligators All Around” (in the museum’s Maurice Sendak Gallery).
• Where the Wild Things Are: Maurice Sendak in His Own Words and Pictures
  • An exhibit created by the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and currently traveling across the country.
• Wally Hastings’s essays and links on Maurice Sendak
  • An academic look at Maurice Sendak’s life and work. Includes some useful links if you have a reasonable tolerance for broken links since this site has not been updated in a while.
• Sendak at MIT last April
  • I am still despairing about not being able to get a ticket to his Arbuthnot Honor lecture, “Descent into Limbo” last year. *sigh*

I have not read much of the other works written about Milne and his life, but there are two that I have read and recommend. Ann Thwaite’s A. A. Milne: His Life (sadly, out of print, I believe) is a very detailed and useful account of Milne’s life and work. Jackie Wullschlager’s Inventing Wonderland: The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J. M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A. A. Milne, a book I read last summer, is an interesting study of British literature and its obsession with childhood, in which Milne’s story seems happy among the disturbingly troubled lives of authors like Carroll and Barrie.

On a happier and more cheerful note, more fitting for this day, I have gathered a few random but related links for you to enjoy:

• Visit the “real” Winnie-the-Pooh at the New York Public Library
• Drink tea and play poohsticks with the Winnie-the-Pooh Society (PoohSoc) at the University of Cambridge.
• Explore Ashdown Forest, home of Poohsticks Bridge and Cotchford Farm.
• Although it is most famous for its Winnie-the-Pooh connection, it has a very interesting history separate from that literary link. I, particularly, like this 1822 comment by William Cobbett, after his visit to the forest: “verily the most villainously ugly spot I ever saw in England.” Not a good tourism bureau slogan, but really funny.
  
• Hear A. A. Milne read from the 1926 classic Winnie-the-Pooh
• Last year the British Library Sound Archive produced a CD of children’s book authors reading their own works, including Milne reading from his classic book. Unfortunately, a sample clip is not available for the Milne reading.