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/Mike-Mulligan.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 10/6/1999 Mike Mulligan Transcript I am standing at a part of the Big Dig near the Haymarket in Downtown Boston where they’re rebuilding a major link in the interstate highway system underground, something that might even be beyond the power of those champion diggers, […]
Here’s Rita Smith, the curator of the Baldwin Collection of Children’s Literature, with a Lost and Found Essay about conundrums.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Child-Health-Day.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 10/4/1999 Child Health Day Transcript Today is Child Health Day — a good time to take a look at a few of the books that are being published for children about their biological states of being. Perhaps I should warn you that what’s meant […]
That’s E.B. White reading the startling opening sentences from his 1952 classic, Charlotte’s Web. This is one of the most remarkable beginnings in all of children’s literature, and it reminds us that this book is about some pretty harsh realities.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Little-Women.mp3 Author Shelley Fraser Mickle Air Date 9/30/1999 Little Women Transcript John Cech: It’s the anniversary of the publication of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which first appeared in 1868. Here today is Shelley Fraser Mickle with her personal reflections on this classic. Shelley: When I was growing up in […]
One of the fascinating opportunities of working with a historical children’s literature collection is reading the inscriptions that people wrote in the books. Rita Smith, curator of the Baldwin Library, is here to discuss some of the inscriptions she has discovered in the collection.
https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Books-That-Last.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 9/22/1999 Books That Last Transcript This is John Cech for Recess!, and we’re speaking today with Mrs. Delphine Jackson of Gainesville, Florida. She’s the director of the Willie Jackson Youth Foundation and a bookstore for children called The African Violet. I wonder if you could tell about some of the books […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/H-A-Rey.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 9/16/1999 H. A. Rey Transcript Hans Augusto Rey, better known as H.A., and his wife and collaborator Margret, escaped from Paris in 1939 just before the Nazis captured the city. They left Paris on bicycles, with only their overcoats and some ideas for children’s […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/McClosky.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 9/15/1999 Robert McCloskey Transcript In Boston they take their ducklings very seriously. In Boston Common, there’s a larger than life-sized statue of the famous mother duck and her children from Robert McCloskey’s 1942 Caldecott award-winning picture book, Make Way for Ducklings. Every spring, parents […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Dahl.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 9/13/1999 Roald Dahl Transcript It’s always struck me as one of the supremely correct accidents in the history of children’s books when the half-starving Charlie Bucket finds the last of Willy Wonka’s Golden Tickets in his second Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight chocolate bar, just when […]