Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children's Literature, and: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960. Vol. 22 of Dictionary of Literary Biography (review)

Pipers at the Gates of Dawn is an attractively packaged trade book with a clever title and an engaging subject. It is a collection of essays by Jonathan Cott based on interviews with eight prominent figures in the world of children's books: Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Astrid Lindgren, Chinua Achebe, P. L. Travers, and the Opies. On the face of it, this would seem a most appealing project, yet Cott has managed to produce a disappointing book.

Cott's subjects are unusually candid, generous, and patient with him. What charm the book has comes from the spontaneous performance of each of these talented people as it shines through Cott's cluttered and digressive accounts of his meetings with them. Maurice Sendak gives Cott his usual polished interview, though what he says will hardly come as any surprise to readers of the Quarterly. Astrid Lingren allows Cott to use some fresh material from a previously untranslated memoir. P. L. Travers dispenses maternal reassurance and spiritual counsel to an interviewer who seems to need both rather sorely, and the suave Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) proves modest and erudite as well as witty. He even manages to cap one of Cott's frequent quotations by tossing off the lines in German.

The incessant flow of quotations is, in fact, a symptom of what is wrong with this book. Cott's approach varies slightly from piece to piece. He is business-like with Astrid Lingren, respectful with Chinua Achebe, out of his depth with P. L. Travers. But always he seems much less concerned with his subjects than with their impact on him. And though he claims to believe that their books can be an important source of wisdom for adults as well as children, Cott seems unwilling or unable to let these authors speak for themselves. He insists on dominating each interview by asking loaded questions, and by shamelessly interrupting the answers to read quotations into the record. Something is very much amiss when a simple piece on William Steig turns into a disquisition on Wilhelm Reich, and when an interview with Dr. Seuss must be freighted with citations of John Docke, William James, Sir Walter Scott, Einstein, Lenin, Goethe, Wordsworth, and Tolstoy.

Another symptom of the obsessive self-concern which throws this book off center emerges in the author's editing of the rambling conversations he transcribes into each piece. No trivial or casual compliment to himself seems to go unmentioned. His subjects regularly murmur things like "How marvelous!" "How very perceptive of you!" or "You're really teaching me my book." A little discreet cutting might have made a much more readable book.

A good idea, a great title, and a stunning jacket are not enough to make a satisfying book. Serious students of children's literature will regret not only the opportunity lost in Pipers at the Gates of Dawn to explore the real wisdom of children's literature, but the fact that this attractively produced and well-promoted book from a major publisher can only serve to reinforce the popular belief that children's literature is the peculiar enthusiasm of adults who seem determined never to grow up.

There is little that is disappointing about American Writers for Children, 1900-1960, edited by John Cech for Gale's Dictionary of Literary Biography, except that at 412 pages it is perhaps too short perfectly to fulfill its editor's ambition to present "a representative and, in a sense, comprehensive view of the range of writers and writer-artists who played vital roles in creating 'Childhood's Golden Era.'" It is always possible (and tempting) to argue with editorial choices about the particular authors who might belong in such a collection, but it is...