After wishing yesterday that I could write a decent nursery rhyme, full of sound and fury signifying something, I find out that good old G.K. Chesterton did. He wrote parodies of nursery rhymes. Oh, well, I already knew that I wasn’t in the same class with Chesterton. And Eldest Daughter tells me that she’s going to write a paper for her Great Texts class in which Augustine “psychoanalyzes” a modern-day seeker after self-esteem. Apparently, according to same daughter, Petrarch managed to call Augustine back from the dead and have him spout Petrarch’s ideas about death–which seem rather morbid to me when I hear them from Eldest Daughter third hand–or is it fourth hand? Anyway, the question is: why can’t I be creative like Petrarch and G.K. Chesterton and P. G. Wodehouse and Eldest Daughter? Is it because I go by Sherry instead of S.D.?

This illustration is from English illustrator Randolph Caldecott for whom the Caldecott Medal for Illustrators is named. His birthday is today. The Caldecott Society in England has this information about the nursery rhyme on its website:

When Randolph Caldecott produced this book, the Nursery Rhyme on which it was based seemed to be just a children’s song. But, only 60 years previously, when the rhyme about “four and twenty black birds” first appeared, it was full of political significance, based on the “Cato Street Conspiracy” (1820) in which 24 men (one of whom was black) plotted to murder the entire Cabinet at dinner one night. When they were discovered, many of them began to tell about the others in the hope of saving their own lives – hence “the birds began to sing”.
I wish I could make up a seemingly innocent poem full of political significance.

Children’s author and illustrator, sometimes known simply as Anno, was born on March 20, 1926 in Japan. He was a teacher of mathematics for many years before he began writing children’s books. This webpage has a list of his books and some suggested activities to go with them. I have a couple of Anno’s books, and I think I’ll get a couple more at the library tomorrow to read with the five year old and the seven year old.

Hey, this is cool–free paper cutouts You print them out, cut, fold and glue and voila–your own paper Volkswagon or White House or Sydney Opera House or DeLorean.

This English poet lived from 1844-1881. I think Eldest Daughter sang these lyrics in choir:

We are the music-makers,
We are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
We are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever it seems.

Today is also the birthday of children’s author and illustrator Marguerite DeAngeli. In addition to writing The Door in the the Wall, she also illustrated a book of Old Testament stories and a book of favorite hymns. Both of these books are out of print, but it surely would be fun to see them.

Wanda Gag, children’s author and illustrator, was born on this day in 1893 in Minnesota. She was the eldest of seven children born to parents of Bohemian descent (where exactly is Bohemia?). My favorite book of hers is called Gone is Gone: The Story of a Man Who Wanted to Do Housework, but she is most famous for the book Millions of Cats. I like the comedy of the Scandinavian man trying to do the housework and getting it all wrong.

Today is Kenneth Grahame’s birthday (1859-1903) . I tend to have the following attitude about Tolkien and C.S. Lewis; however, here’s what a fellow author thought of Grahame’s book:

“One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can’t criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don’t be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy: I don’t know, But it is you who are on trial.”
A. A. Milne

I think of Wind in the Willows and I picture several scenes: Mole and Rat boating down the river, Toad in his motor-car, Mole spring cleaning, the carolers coming to sing to Mole on Christmas Eve, Toad in jail, Toad dressed up as a washer-woman, poor Mole missing andd searching for his own home. If the book is judging me as to whether I have the good taste to appreciate its stories and characters, I think I pass the test.