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Kate Douglas Wiggin

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Kate-Douglas-Wiggin.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 9/27/2001 Kate Douglas Wiggin Transcript Toward the end of her life, Kate Douglas Wiggin was named by the San Francisco Examiner as one of the six most distinguished women in the world. She had distinguished herself in two ways: first as a woman who […]

Beatrix Potter

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Beatrix-Potter-1.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 7/26/2001 Beatrix Potter Transcript There are some writers of children’s books whom you could classify as “one hit wonders” – authors whose current reputation as a children’s writer rests on one book. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, for example, for The Story of a Bad Boy, […]

Lucretia Hale Peterkin Papers

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Lucretia-Hale.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 7/9/2001 Lucretia Hale Peterkin Papers Transcript Lucretia Hale’s claim to fame in the world of children’s literature is her stories of the Peterkin family, originally told to entertain a sick child. Later they were repeated to other children and were greeted with laughter and […]

Charles Kingsley

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Charles-Kingsley-and-his-Water-Babies.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 6/21/2001 Charles Kingsley Transcript Charles Kingsley’s reputation in the world of children’s literature rests almost solely on his novel Water Babies, which, along with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, is generally regarded as heralding the Golden Age of children’s literature. The Water Babies is […]

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author Rita Smith Air Date 6/13/2001 Harriet Beecher Stowe Transcript Harriet Beecher Stowe did write books and stories specifically for children but they have sunk into obscurity, when compared to her masterpiece, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in book form in 1852. Adaptations for children of Uncle Tom’s Cabin began to appear almost immediately. A note […]

Rachel Carson

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Remembering-Rachel-Carson.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 5/28/2001 Rachel Carson Transcript It is always interesting to discover what childhood activities influenced adult lives. Rachel Carson, born May 27, 1907, grew up to be a concerned natural scientist and a persuasive writer who changed forever the way Americans thought about their environment. […]

National Etiquette Week

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Manners-Books.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 5/14/2001 National Etiquette Week Transcript How to Be a Lady was written in 1854 and is broader than just an etiquette book since it includes advice on a wide variety of topics. It was written by Harvey Newcomb, who intended it for girls between […]

First Edition Alice

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/First-Edition-Alice.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 4/17/2001 A Tenniel Illustration First Edition Alice Transcript “Curiouser and curiouser!” This is the comment of Alice in Wonderland after she eats the cake and feels herself beginning to “open out like the largest telescope that ever was.” Curious would also be a good […]

Be Kind to Animals Month

Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Be-Kind-to-Animals-.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 4/4/2001 Be Kind to Animals Month Transcript The virtue of kindness was an important one at the turn of the 19th century and the subject of kindness to animals occurred frequently in children’s books. “It is almost inconceivable,” one critic notes, “that so many […]