A review by vossnraven
Wild Things!: Acts of Mischief in Children's Literature by Betsy Bird, Peter Sieruta, Julie Danielson
5.0
I avoid writing reviews for most books I read for various reasons. But I had to give at least a little something about this book.
More often than not, when picking up books about the history of literature, or about publishing, I close them before the first half. There's no reason, after all, for non-fiction to be eye-bleedingly dull, and I won't compromise that unless I simply can't find an interesting book on a given subject.
As soon as I opened Wild Things, I knew I wasn't getting that. I knew I'd love it, and I'd read it cover to endnotes (There are a lot of endnotes, because the book cites a number of different sources.). And I proved myself right, on that front.
Honestly, it never occurred to me to think of many of these books as being 'subversive' in any way. I was raised on Where the Wild Things Are. I loved the Tomie dePaola books. I knew Shel Silverstein wasn't exactly the most loved children's writer in the world, but subversive? Never crossed my mind.
Oh, how wrong I was. The very fact that Sendak and dePaola wrote children's books as gay men was (and still is) amazing. And that's just one of a very few amazing things uncovered in this book. I won't list anything else, so as to save it for you to discover on your own. But I will say this: if you have any interest in children's and young adult literature, read this book. Right now.
More often than not, when picking up books about the history of literature, or about publishing, I close them before the first half. There's no reason, after all, for non-fiction to be eye-bleedingly dull, and I won't compromise that unless I simply can't find an interesting book on a given subject.
As soon as I opened Wild Things, I knew I wasn't getting that. I knew I'd love it, and I'd read it cover to endnotes (There are a lot of endnotes, because the book cites a number of different sources.). And I proved myself right, on that front.
Honestly, it never occurred to me to think of many of these books as being 'subversive' in any way. I was raised on Where the Wild Things Are. I loved the Tomie dePaola books. I knew Shel Silverstein wasn't exactly the most loved children's writer in the world, but subversive? Never crossed my mind.
Oh, how wrong I was. The very fact that Sendak and dePaola wrote children's books as gay men was (and still is) amazing. And that's just one of a very few amazing things uncovered in this book. I won't list anything else, so as to save it for you to discover on your own. But I will say this: if you have any interest in children's and young adult literature, read this book. Right now.