Indispensable beginnings
The children's books editor of the New York Times for more than 20 years, Eden Lipson proved a popular figure among Egyptian children's writers and publishers. The two seminars she presided over in the course of her brief visit to Cairo last week -- at Al-Ahram's Regional Press Institute and the Mubarak Public Library -- turned out to be busy, exciting events; and, speaking of the realities of writing and publishing for children in the United States, Lipson made them worth everyone's while.
"Many American newspapers have eliminated critique of children's books," she put forth on one occasion. "I think this is particularly unfortunate, because more and more books are being published, and more and more parents are concerned with and want information and critical judgment about children's books... It seems we have some common grounds here concerning the print media's lack of interest in allocating space to children's book reviews." At the New York Times Book Review, at least, there is a "direct relationship between advertising and the size of an issue, which ranges from 22 to 76 pages. The book shelf section," Lipson went on, "consists of seven to nine non-critical book reviews, which I write. The children's book review comes out once a month, along with other critical material in two pages. And since 1947, there has been a separate seasonal edition of the children's book review, which appears in the fall at the beginning of the children's book week, and another in the spring. Since the fall of 1952, we've also run a competition to choose the year's best 10 illustrated books..."
Editors give children's books less space, she explained, "because they bring in less money. Coverage," on the other hand, "ranges from books for toddlers to books for young adults. It is my policy to emphasise books for smaller children who are completely dependent on the adults who read the reviews and decide to buy the books. It is fair to say that teachers, publishers and librarians read our book reviews, but the audience I am concerned about are the parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, people who are on familiar terms with the real life of the children the books target...
"Librarians have played a key role in the history of children's books in the United States. They help us as they also provide critical book reviews for parents. But there is a creeping commercialism and increasingly the librarians' prizes for best books carry a certain amount of commercial clout. Unfortunately they call the ceremony of such competitions the 'Academy Awards of Children Books'. We receive around 4,000 books a year, and we only review 250 of them. Beyond that, I think, for the general audience, there is very little that is new or interesting. The existence of a backlist is more of a problem for children than it is for adults. Charlotte's Web, the great novel by E B White, for example, published in 1952, talks about the early years of the United Nations and the Cold War, topics that are completely forgotten, but it sells around 450,000 copies a year. On the other hand, new writers are not a lot in number. Real talent is rare; and these days young writers tend to write more for television and theatre."
Asked, on another occasion, whether American children's books reflect political themes, Lipson replied in the affirmative: " Uncle Tom's Cabin, one of the most successful political books written for kids, is still in print. There are a lot of novels for children that deal with political issues, war experiences, the world wars and the Civil War, the American Revolution, and slavery -- many of them are among the favourites. We also have Johnny Tremens' novel, written during the Second World War, about the American Revolution; that tackles family, crafts and adventure themes as well. It's 70 years old now, but it is read by children studying the American Revolution."
Yet buying books for children remains "a relatively modern phenomenon": "Four parallel factors led to the development of the habit: the growth of children's book publishers, the rise of a child-centred middle class, the rise of paperback books and the baby boom that followed the Second World War. In the 1960s and even in the1970s, nearly 90 per cent of all children's books were sold to schools and libraries. Those books that were sold to the public were sold principally in department stores, not in bookshops. Economic and demographic forces have dramatically changed that. There was what is called the echo of the baby boom. The first baby boomers wanted to give those popular books to their own children, and the publishers, business people who could see the commercial potential of the older storybooks, quickly caught on..."
But moving ahead in history, has the 9/ 11-instigated hatred of Arabs spread to child literature? "Let me go further back," Lipson said with a smile. "It was during the First World War that we did see a lot of anti-German sentiment reflected in children's books that I myself read in the 1950s. I remember this with shame. There are some remarkable anti-Japanese children's books that were also published in the 1950s. On the whole, though, children's books have been a beacon of tolerance in the US. There can be the occasional title about something that reflected badly on a certain group, but there is also fiction and non-fiction about Vietnam, about the experience of the Vietnamese children and the war as experienced at home, and about the children of those who served in the war. I believe it's too early to talk about books reflecting 9/11. However, the first memorable transcendent cultural commentary has come, interestingly enough, in the form of a picture book, The Man Who Walked between the Towers by Mordchai Christine, which is about an aerialist who in 1979 used to cross from one tower to the other on ropes. The story ends very simply: it says the towers are now no longer there. This book has been immensely popular, but my own feeling is that it's more for adults, who really had the worst experiences of that horrible moment."
What about anti-Muslim or anti-Arab sentiment in children's books? "I am not seeing it. Then again, I'm not seeing much about the Arab experience in the aftermath of the attacks on the United States, which I find frustrating. I teach at a school where we have a significant Yemeni population, and I wish we had more books talking to those children or about their feelings. There are hardly any books that talk about the Other, and especially the Arab, in the States. In fact I'm deeply concerned about the future of books and the power and authority of books compared to other media. I'm seriously worried about the future of reading as an accepted, honoured mass activity," she went on. "In fact, I am very grateful to Harry Potter, if not for any other reason, then for making it popular to read and talk about children's books. I think these days it's very difficult for children to resist entertainment. We experience this as a threat to our newspaper. People are not reading the newspaper as regularly as they once did."
Concerning the absence of Arabic literature on American shelves -- Lipson was brought back to the topic she had drifted away from -- she felt that "part of the responsibility is yours": "There are many windows, and many ways of looking. What I feel is that American publishers are extremely interested in books from this part of the world, and in hearing new voices and new stories. I'm sure that the market is open for foreign writers. It is not intentional ignorance: if you look at the numbers of books coming out of other American communities, such as the Korean American community, which though statistically smaller than its Arab counterpart has produced National Book Award and Pulitzer Award winning authors, you'll see what I mean."
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