A Christmas Cornucopia Part I: R. O. Blechman and Victorian Voices

As we close out our holiday week, I thought I would add some holiday cheer with smaller stories before posting a special Christmas message.  (Be sure to read it on the 25^th!)  And so, with no further ado:

Vintage Holiday Greetings From R. O. Blechman

Jade Sphinx readers of a certain age surely remember a period before cable television when national networks created simple, heart-felt holiday messages at this time of year.  Though such a gesture would be unthinkable in these rather hard and uncharitable times, these spots brought home simple messages of charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence. 

The CBS network excelled at these messages, and the most famous were created in 1966 by celebrated cartoonist and animator R. O. Blechman (born 1930).  Blechman is perhaps best remembered for his amusing, simply-drawn cartoons for The New Yorker, but is also a champion author of children’s books, including The Juggler of Our Lady (1953).

Robert Oscar Blechman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the High School of Music and Art.  He worked for animation studio Terrytoons (home of Mighty Mouse), winning a BAFTA for his animated version of The Juggler of Our Lady, narrated by Boris Karloff (1887-1969).

In 1977, Blechman produced a holiday special animating his drawings, along with segments by Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) and Seymour Chwast (born 1931), and it was narrated by Colleen Dewhurst (1924-1991). 

These moving stories are simply too good to be missed, and here are links.

Simple Gifts can be seen here (the first of seven parts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2tbVaDqHXA.

One of his CBS holiday greetings can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFixiBGmskI

Your Correspondent’s favorite holiday message can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUWMjUjit_U

That last piece has haunted me for years, so thank heavens for Youtube!

Victorian Voices at Christmas and All The Year Round

For many (myself included), Christmas means A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  But for writer, archivist and cat-lover Moira Allen, the Victorian world is an endless feast of articles, stories and dispatches, all lovingly culled from the hundreds of periodicals printed during the era. 

Allen has created an indispensable resource for neo-Victorians, an entire Website devoted to reproductions of Victorian-era magazine articles.  Each and every month the indefatigable Allen sends out a collection, and the December number is filled with treats.  You can find the current issue (and hundreds of archived pieces) here: http://www.victorianvoices.net/index.shtml.

Better, still, Allen also has a deluxe paperback collection called A Victorian Christmas Treasury, also available on her site.  We got this book last year and have been paging through it this season with great satisfaction.

Serious historians, lovers of the Victorian ethos, designers, Christmas buffs – there is something here for everyone who is keenly aware of the past.  Be sure to check out Moira Allen’s site, and be remember to say that The Jade Sphinx sent you!

More Christmas dispatches tomorrow!

Down the Rabbit Hole: Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature, by Selma G. Lanes (1972)

Though perhaps little remembered today, Selma G. Lanes (1929-2009) was an influential editor and children’s book critic.  Born in Dorchester, MA, she attended Smith College after a stint at the Dorchester High School for Girls.  She would eventually land in the Columbia School of Journalism.

She became editor of Parents Magazine, and from there became managing editor of Western Publishing children’s book division.  During this time, she wrote dozens of reviews on children’s books for the New York Times daily and magazine section.  She was one of the first members of the literary establishment to recognize the genius of Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), and would eventually write a book about his art.

But Lane’s great claim to fame were her two books about children’s literature, Down the Rabbit Hole, published in 1972, and much-delayed and far superior sequel, Though the Looking Glass: Further Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature, published in 2004.

Down the Rabbit Hole is a remarkable achievement, both as literary criticism and as a historical document.  Being a journalist, Lane clearly recycles previous reviews and covered trends.  Happily, there is a minimum of recycled journalism in Rabbit Hole, and Lane includes original chapters that are as fresh and insightful as they were over 40 years ago.

Lane seemed to be among the first in the literary establishment to fully realize Sendak’s genius, and her chapter comparing him to English illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) – of all people – is something of a tour de force.  Better still is her dissection of the American fairy tale tradition, and just how unique and separate it is from its European counterpart.  She also sites L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) as one of the central figures of American letters, a position as unpopular in 1972 as it is today.

Lane also provides historical context with a lengthy chapter on St. Nicholas Magazine, the first important periodical directed at children.  She writes at length on why such a publication would be impossible in 1972 (as it would today!), and mourns, to a degree, the then-incipient fracturing of our society.

Happily, Lane also champions children’s serial fiction, finding much value in the various adventures of The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew.  She concludes that children do not see life as a story with beginning, middle or end, but, rather, as a series of adventures.  It’s only natural that their books reflect that view.  More important, the endings of individual titles in children’s series are often quite disappointing … better still is the promise at the end of further adventures to come.  (Children weaned on everything from Nancy Drew to Harry Potter become, I’m sure, besotted by the continuing adventures of everyone from James Bond to Sherlock Holmes.)

Her finest chapter, though, was on the explosion of books for African-American children.  While applauding these books – some of which by now are considered classics – she bemoans the loss of previous books about black children chucked overboard in the name of Political Correctness.  (PC seems to be a scourge of modern life – its baleful influence seemingly as potent then as now.)  Lane pleads for both historical context and intent when reading a work of the past, a simple catechism that seems inexplicable to most college students today.

Though Down the Rabbit Hole is sadly out-of-print, this title is easily gotten by Abebooks.com or ebay, and is well worth the investment.  Delightful reading for anyone seriously (or even somewhat) interested in the genre.

In the weeks to come, we will look at her follow-up book, Through the Looking Glass, written more than 30 years later.