DRAGON: Ellen Duthie

Showing posts with label Ellen Duthie. Show all posts

Monday, April 11, 2022

Maurice Sendak / Many Happy Returns, Where the Wild Things Are!

Many Happy Returns, Where the Wild Things Are!

Ellen Duthie

Wednesday 27 November 2013

This month it is 50 years since Maurice Sendak gave children of then, now and tomorrow Where the Wild Things Are: a paper mirror for children to walk through in wonder and see portrayed their inner conflict between frustration, anger and incomprehension, on the one hand, and the need to accommodate a formally illogical but emotionally necessary mutual forgiveness, on the other.

The Art of Maurice Sendak

Where the Wild Horses Are: "Hide your Eyes"

Ellen Duthie
Tuesday 2 July 2013

The Art of Maurice Sendak, by Selma G Lanes (Abradale Press/Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1980) is great to look at and even better to read. Thoroughly entertaining and full of knowledge, detail and analysis, it is more than highly recommendable.

Illustration by Maurice Sendak

Outside Over There: "But never watched"

Outside Over There by Maurice Sendak
The Bodley Head, 1981
Our edition: Red Fox (Random House), 2002

Ellen Duthie

Thursday 14 June 2012

Since my wide-eyed, somewhat uncertain reaction to Outside Over There the first time I read it, ten months have gone by and it has become one of our unquestionable favourites. This I owe mainly to Sendak, who is a master of books that grow with each reading, but also to a great extent to my son, who made me see clearer than ever before, that adult fears about what might make children afraid are usually based on... adult fears.

Ellen Duthie / Sendak's Windows

Maurice Sendak

Sendak's Windows

Ellen Duthie / Las ventanas de Sendak

Ellen Duthie

Monday 3 November 2014

Last month the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators in Spain (SCBWI) had invited me to give an informal talk on Sendak.

Over twenty-five people came along to what had initially meant to be a 'bring along a few books and talk about them' kind of affair, so I had to prepare more of a presentation, the notes of which I share below for anyone interested. These are notes for my own personal use, with only some references included (I'll be completing those over the next few days).

The Amazing Bone by William Steig / Review

The Amazing Bone: Scrabboonit!

The Amazing Bone
William Steig
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976

Helen Duthie
22 September 2013

The text

A book that gets away with featuring a small bone (look inside the piggy's handbag on the cover) as not just a character but a hero deserves attention just for the gall of it. But then we are talking of the same author with a story where the main character turns into a rock (yes, a rock) and remains a rock for a large part of the story (Sylvester and the Magic Pebble), the same author who wrote a story about a rabbit who can turn into a rusty nail at will, and includes the angst-ridden question 'Do nails die?' (Solomon the Rusty Nail), the guy who wrote a story about a man becoming a dog and not being able to communicate to his wife who he really was (Caleb and Kate), the very same man who introduced young readers to the art of abbreviation well before mobile phone texting was invented (CDB!) and the same dude who manages to conjure up a nightmare scene in which the nightmarishness of it all is the sickly niceness of some disgustingly loving children (Shrek!).

Solomon The Rusty Nail: Do nails die?

Voice: Helen Duthie

Saturday 26 April 2016

Solomon, The Rusty Nail.

William Steig.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985.

Today is World Book Day and we're celebrating by sharing one of our favourite read-alouds ever.

Solomon, The Rusty Nail is the story of a rabbit who has the intriguingly useless power of turning into a rusty nail and back into a rabbit at will. What starts off as a seemingly fun and fairly innocuous party trick, turns out to be life-saving first and existentially anguishing later, before a happy ending the reader is kept from expecting until the last moment.

You can read more about what we like about William Steig in our review of another all-time favourite, The Amazing Bone where I also mention Solomon, and other Steig stories about transformation and angst in inanimate objects.