#164: Oh the Places You'll...I mean, the Children's Literature You'll Read
Children's Literature in Cartoons͏ ͏ ͏
Before I became a teacher, I was a fifth-grade teacher, which meant for years I was steeped in children's literature. This was only natural since, as a student of mine once told me, I have the "brain of a child."
This week I've asked my fellow Toonstackers to share cartoons that reference children's literature, which is only natural since, as cartoonists, we have the brains of a child.
<3 Navied
Ah, mushrooms. They can do so much for us. Let's definitely burden that magic with high expectations that they can fix all that has gone wrong with us and/or the world.
While I did, in grad school, read the wrong translation of Swann's Way (That's book one of Proust's melancholy jaunt through memory, in case you have no idea what's happening in this cartoon like 75% of people who encounter it --and the other 25% of people insist that Madeleines are not cookies), I've still never read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. But I've read the treatise, and Mouse sounds really problematic. This is why mouse children need to be raised with discipline and frugality. You can't just be given cookies. You can't just eat a cookie because you're feeling a little sluggish today and need some self care. Cookies are made with brow sweat and blood. But I legitimately don't know how the book ends, so perhaps Mouse learns a hard lesson about the value of discipline or about the tragic inevitability of memory, which sweeps him like a ghost into a past life he can taste but can't embrace.
Pirates were always my favourite childrens book characters when I was growing up. They were grown men acting like goofballs and misbehaving, disrupting economic order and generally breaking all the rules. These days we just call them Tech CEOs, but those don't make very good children's book characters.
These were probably too dark for the New Yorker but they made me laugh. I especially like the Mrs Dumpty cartoon. It’s a banal drawing of hens but the punchline makes one circle back and think about eggs, Humpty Dumpty’s childhood, and the sorrow the chicken felt. It is dark. I felt guilty for drawing it.
And Mary eating lamb is even darker.
I’ve submitted about 4,000 cartoons to the New Yorker. I’ve neglected my kids to make a deadline more than once. This cartoon came out of pure unadulterated guilt.
This cartoon did sell, and it ran in the August issue, 2013. I see it pop up every now and again. Who would have thought it would be an evergreen. Fact checking is more important than ever.
NEWS!
Check out Shannon's Substack , his Etsy, and his book, My Too Much Coffee Man book with a discount in August if you use the code BIRTHDAY.
Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday! And sign up for her Intermediate Comics Class this fall here!
Jason Chatfield has two newsletters: New York Cartoons (cartoons about life in New York) and Process Junkie (lessons in the creative process)! AND, if you can believe it, he has a book coming out in Fall 2025 called "You're Not A Real New Yorker Until...".Get a discount on your pre-order here.
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Check out Navied’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.
where did you get the picture of my sister falling asleep?