Inside Picture Books, Outside of History

In her preface Ellen Handler Spitz explains, "This book is for mothers, fathers, grandparents, teachers, therapists, and scholars" (xiii). Though Inside Picture Books names scholars among its intended audiences and has been published by a university press, it does not appear to be directed at those who study children's literature. Rarely does it acknowledge any critical work on the subject and, in Jennifer K. Ruark's Chronicle of Higher Education profile of the author, both Spitz and Ruark convey the impression that taking picture books seriously is a new and courageous idea.¹ Indeed, Spitz's study never once mentions Barbara Bader, Perry Nodelman, or virtually any of her predecessors.

If Inside Picture Books has not been written for scholars, perhaps one should adopt the perspective of an imagined "general reader"—say, the parents, teachers, and therapists mentioned in the preface—and evaluate the work from that viewpoint. Acknowledging the "subjectivity of [her] criteria," Spitz says that she has chosen texts based on their "psychological richness" (13) and "staying power" (8), and a casual fan of children's picture books should enjoy her analyses of well-known works. For example, her perception of Holocaust imagery in Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen (60-61) and discussion of gender in several works—including Russell Hoban's Bedtime for Frances (25, 55-56) and Dr. Seuss's Horton Hatches the Egg (177-80)—invite readers to think about the cultural knowledge that children absorb from what they read. Indeed, should Inside Picture Books encourage even a few more readers to consider children's books with the same thoughtfulness often reserved for adult books, it will have done a great service.

Most reviewers in major newspapers appear to agree. Writing in the Times of London, the illustrator Quentin Blake calls Inside Picture Books "a valuable contribution to a subject which asks for serious consideration." Though Marina Warner's New York Times review does note the absence of Nodelman's Words About Pictures, the piece concludes by noting that Spitz "speaks up vibrantly for the importance, complexity and place of shared reading and picture books in young lives and their future." True, the subject is important, and Spitz's decision "to advocate for the practice of reading aloud to young children" (Spitz 2) is definitely worthy of praise. Yet, I wonder if critics would rush to applaud a study of American literature (for adults)—let's call it Inside American Literature—in which the author does not convey a deep knowledge of the subject and who, in a breezy, anecdotal style, suggests changing the ending of a book to make it more exciting.² I rather doubt that an Inside American Literature would receive accolades merely for writing about American literature. Reviews praising the very fact that Spitz addresses picture books suggest either that studying children's literature does not require scholarly rigor or that the reviewer's praise is lukewarm.

Whichever the case, Inside Picture Books tries to present its indifference toward research in the guise of open inquiry, a move that only partly conceals a latent anti-intellectualism. Of Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon (1947), Spitz writes,

It lies there, spine-ripped, scotch-taped and smudged, pages coming unsewn, tenderly defying all those scholars who want to historicize everything. It says: But look at me! I was made fifty years ago, before the mothers and fathers of today's young children were born, yet I am loved more than ever. Despite the changes wrought by the past half-century—McCarthyism, Sputnik, the civil rights movement, Haight-Ashbury, Vietnam, the women's movement, Watergate, gay rights, the internet, cyberspace, and the advent of a new millennium—I am still taken to bed every night by thousands of children, to whom I belong and who still need me.

(37)

These sentiments are sweet, and the idea of her copy of Goodnight Moon delivering a monologue on its own historical transcendence is cute. But the jab at "those scholars who want...