Someone once said that a good writer, whether for children or adults, has one story, which s/he keeps telling in various disguised ways; the fantastic writer has two stories; and the genius has three. Shakespeare, for example, could write tragedies, comedies, and histories with equal brilliance. In the world of children’s books, you can count the geniuses on one hand. In the pieces in this section, we write about them all – the good writers, the terrific writers, and, yes, those geniuses.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Remembering-Harriet-Lothrop.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 6/21/2005 Harriett Lothrop Transcript Harriet Lothrop, who wrote under the pen name of Margaret Sidney, left young readers a multi-faceted literary legacy. One day on a trip into the country, when she was a little girl in the 1840’s, she saw a little brown […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Animals-of-the-Bible-The-First-Caldecott.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 6/16/2005 Animals of the Bible Transcript In 1938 Animals of the Bible became the first book to be awarded the Caldecott Medal given annually since then to the most distinguished picture book published in the United States. For this book, the recipient of the award, artist […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/The-Dime-Novel-Pulp-Fiction.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 6/9/2005 The Dime Novel Transcript Although there had been cheap, sensational paper-bound literature for more than 30 years, the true dime novel began to appear regularly in 1860, when Irwin Beadle & Co., a New York publisher, inaugurated a series called “Beadle’s Dime Novels.” […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Busy-Busy-Richard-Scarry.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 6/8/2005 Busy, Busy Richard Scarry Transcript One of the most prolific of all creators of children’s books isn’t, as one might guess, J.K. Rowling or Dr. Seuss — but the late American writer/illustrator Richard Scarry. He has published over 300 books, many of which […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Ice-Cream-at-the-Fair-in-St-Louis-1904.mp3 Author Ramona Caponegro Air Date 6/7/2005 Ice Cream at the Fair Transcript Throughout 2004, the city of St. Louis celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. This historic event was marked by art and history exhibits, musical concerts, and a replica of the fair’s giant […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Family-Stories-from-the-Past.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 5/24/2005 Family Stories Transcript In Good Wives: A Story for Girls, Louisa May Alcott has Jo March declare “I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world,” and stories such as Good Wives and Little Women, in which the action and interactions center […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Pick-and-Shovel-Poet.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 5/16/2005 Biographers Day Transcript It’s Biographers Day today, in honor of the first meeting in London, in 1763, of James Boswell and that formidable man of letters, Samuel Johnson, who would soon become the subject of Boswell’s celebrated biography. We usually think of biographies […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/On-the-Childrens-Book-Scene-with-Susab-Raab.mp3 Author John Cech and Susan Raab Air Date 5/11/2005 On the Children’s Book Scene with Susan Raab Transcript We are speaking today with Susan Raab who reports regularly for Recess on the current children’s book scene. She’s also written An Author’s Guide to Children’s Book Promotion, to help people […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Harry-Potter-Becomes-a-Conference.mp3 Author Catherine Tosenberger Air Date 5/10/2005 The Witching Hour Symposium Transcript If you’re a Harry Potter fan who is totally (and I mean totally!) immersed in everything about the popular series, you may want to mark your calendar for October 6th through 10th of 2005. That’s when “The Witching […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Eleanor-Estes-and-the-Moffats.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 5/9/2005 Eleanor Estes Transcript Eleanor Estes, born May 9, 1906, wrote books for children for over 45 years, up to her death in 1988, but it is her early books, particularly those about the Moffat family, published in the early 1940’s, that remain her […]