Some sassy librarian goss

Spilling the tea from children's book history (with a side of Mrs. Doubtfire and other feelings)

Oh hello!

She said in a Mrs. Doubtfire voice.

Speaking of Mrs. Doubtfire, one of my top priority goals once we move in to our new home is to recreate this moment:

It feels like the right way to break in a house. Plaid shirts, sideways baseball caps, and all.

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This week, we’re sitting AT THE KID TABLE with a sassy go-getter from children’s book history. As I learned more about her, I stumbled upon some HOT TEA of the librarian variety. Want me to spill it? Good. Because chances are that I will no matter what your answer is since I’m super clumsy.

Couldn’t miss this chance to keep the Mrs. Doubtfire thing going. Classic.

The context

I stumbled upon an article called “The History of Children’s Books” written by C.M. Hewins for the January 1888 issue of the Atlantic. The author gave a somewhat dense overview of children’s books BUT WITH FLAIR.

The article made me wonder…who was this C.M. Hewins character from the 1800s who appreciated satire and fairy tales and shared bold, unflinching opinions of prominent figures?

BAD(BUM) librarian Caroline Maria Hewins, that’s who.

Just how BAD(BUM) is this librarian?

Though this lil’ lady went to the Normal School of Boston (hilarious name — it’s french inspired and all about establishing a “norm” for teacher curriculum), she was far from your average Joanne. (Actually it’s pretty cool she went to college and was trained to be a teacher/librarian.)

She transformed the Young Men’s Institute Library, a 600 member subscription-only private library into a public library with a thriving children’s section that included nature outings and storytimes.

She collaborated with parents and schools to offer better access to the library, including a weekly tea time that became the Parent-Teacher Association (yes, the PT freaking A!)

She oversaw the entire Hartford Public Library system at a time when most library leaders across the country were men. She was also the first female keynote speaker for the American Library Association (ALA).

She created the first dedicated children’s library, hired the first children’s only librarian, and personally collected over 4,000 kids books.

She was “a center from which radiated an immeasurable influence, especially in the great revolution in the library world which, instead of banning the children, made them the first thought of the librarian who could look at the future as well as the present.” -The Library Journal

Onto the sassy librarian goss

To revolutionize an entire library system, you probably need some sass, and oh boy, did Caroline have sass. She did not shy away from critiquing prominent male figures of her time. Here are a few favorite examples.

Some sass for an author

In her Atlantic article, she talked about a major shift in children’s literature due to the taste of American author Samuel Griswold Goodrich. This is what she had to say about him:

In his mind, if a thing was true, it was right ; if false, it was wrong. He speaks with scorn, in his autobiography, of attempts to revive the old fairy-tales, and treats Halliwell’s edition of the nursery rhymes of England as if it were beneath notice. His mind was essentially prosaic, but he did a great work in simplifying history, geography, and books of travel for children.

A prosaic mind? Ooh la la! But she generously gave him a compliment in the end.

Some sass for a famous psychologist

In addition to the Atlantic article and a memoir, Caroline wrote the first children’s bibliography, a collection of the best children’s books called Books for Boys and Girls. In the introduction, she says:

"Bookishness is probably a bad sign in a girl; it suggests artificiality, pedantry, the lugging in of dead knowledge," says one author, but it is on account of the non-bookish tendency of today that the amount of general, literary, and biblical information which the high school or even college graduate of the twentieth century possesses is often alarmingly small. No college English, no finishing-school course in art or literature, will ever give men or women what they might have had if books had been as much their friends in childhood as the children next door.

After I read this, I had to know who “says one author” was referring to so after some sleuthing, I found out…drum roll please…Caroline was DIRECTLY QUOTING Stanley Hall, otherwise known as the founder of child psychology (he influenced Darwin, Freud, and others).

YOU GO GIRL!

Caroline’s parting advice

The thing I admire most about Caroline is her deep respect of children. She believed that every home should have access to the following books “on low open shelves where children can reach them and learn to treat them well”:

• A good collection of poetry

• A collection of prints from great artists

• An edition of Shakespeare in good type and full of pictures

• A collection of historical pictures

• A collection of fairy-tales, folklore, or myths

• A book full of absurd fun “which give children a standard for judging humor, and cultivate a sense of nonsense that will help them over hard places in later life.”

• Out-of-door books

And if we want our kids to develop a love of reading, here is what Caroline has to say about that:

“In buying books for children, there are many things to be taken into consideration — a child's own likings most of all.”

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Joanna Rowland invented a new type of pickle in her basement last week.

Marietta Apollonio almost didn’t get her driver’s license because she had a laughing attack during her driver’s test.

Angela Pham Krans got her birthday wish once (but she couldn’t tell me what it was or that would ruin the magic).

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I hope you enjoyed learning about Caroline as much as I did.

On a personal note…lately I’m feeling pretty heavy about all that’s going on in the world. And I think that feeling is very important. To listen to. To sit with. But in this age of information (more like MIS-INFORMATION, ammiright), knowing what to actually DO about that feeling is confusing sometimes.

I appreciated this post by

Adam Grant

(highly recommend following him) which helped me understand my own feelings better.

In times like these, it can be tempting to look away because it is all so overwhelming. But I’ve found that if I take the time to sit with and understand my feelings, it frees up space for me to actually engage (offer help, take action, forgive someone, reach out, etc.). Just trying to take it one step at a time and do what I can.

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Thanks for sitting with me AT THE KID TABLE this week. As always, I’ll save you a seat next to me.

Your looking-for-a-sassy-librarian-outfit-to-channel-Caroline friend,

Rachel