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This month's focus: A Note From the Chair World Wide Humanities? The Creative Writing Program Film Studies at UF Juvenile Violence Dean's Musings Around the College Grants CLASnotes |
Time for "Recess!"
The interdisciplinary Center, directed by children's book author and UF professor of English John Cech, will premier its first new project on August 31: a pilot radio series called "Recess!" to be aired daily on Classic 89 WUFT and offered free of charge to all National Public Radio (NPR) affiliates across the country. Created for adults, the three-minute show will to explore the rich mosaic of children's literature and media, past and present. "Along with a great deal of helpful information, the program will be full of surprises," Cech promises. "We'll offer regular reviews of the latest children's books and recordings, as well as previews of current movies at the multiplexes and the best of the new cartoons and TV shows. We'll also feature interviews with leading creators of works for children and with those making news or interesting contributions to the dynamic mix of elements that form children's culture."
And, of course, the Baldwin Library will play an integral part in Center programs. Baldwin Curator Rita Smith (the Center's Assistant Director) will record segments for "Recess!" sharing information about the collection's history and content, as well as reading her own essays on, among other subjects, the lively inscriptions and turn-of-the-century baseball cards she has found amongst the collection's eclectic pages. Other "Recess!" segments will feature regular interviews with national public figures in which they discuss the children's books that influenced their lives. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Department of English and the College of Journalism and Communications have jointly funded the four-month pilot of "Recess!" and they're optimistic that, like NPR regulars "StarDate" and "The Writers Almanac," "Recess!" will get picked up by a significant number of stations during the sixteen-week promotional period (which ends December 31, 1999). If successful, "Recess!" may also attract vital support for future Center for the Study of Children's Literature and Media efforts. "We hope the first radio segments will be a magnet for funding support from those sources interested in bringing literature and the arts into the lives of families," Cech explains.
"The message to kids is essentially the same every century," laughs Smith. "Don't eat too fast, sit quietly at the table, that kind of thing. But the books of manners that are published today are much more visually appealing and amusing than those from previous centuries." "Using a variety of compelling illustrations from the Baldwin," says Cech, "and interspersing these with readings and commentaries from experts, we hope to create an exciting, informative production that appeals to a wide audience. Now, if we could persuade Judith Martin [Miss Manners] to host the program, that would be the icing on the cake," he adds. The Center is also in the early planning stages of another documentary that would commemorate the 100th birthday of L. Frank Baum's classic The Wizard of Oz, originally published in 1900. 
In the coming years, the Center also hopes to work with local museums, libraries and school systems to organize programs in art and literature and to sponsor lecture series and conferences on topics of children's culture. "Eventually, we'd like to host an international conference on the role of the children's book in the 21st Century," says Cech. "As our world becomes increasingly wired, what's going to happen to the traditional form of the book? How will it be transformed for our grandchildren? And how will these changes alter the whole experience of reading, thinking and imagining?" Rather than champion the book above all else, however, Cech remains cautiously optimistic about the potential of the media. "Whether we like it or not, the media have taken on the role of story-teller and culture-giver for many kids today, a fact of our present reality that asks us to examine what these new narrative modes are offering children. I see us [at the Center] providing critiques of the media, of course, that's essential and vital. But I also hope that we may be able to suggest positive ways that these media may serve the imaginative lives of children." Cech would like to invite such significant trend-setters as the Disney and Nickelodeon studios to participate in the discussion. "We have to find ways to open dialogues among the many groups that are involved in educating children," he says. "Although the tendency of the academic community is to dismiss the producers of commercial works, I think we should look carefully at what these companies are generating for young people, hear their ideas and let them hear ours. Who knows where such a conversation might lead?" "Recess!" will begin on August 31 and is scheduled to air on Classic 89, weekdays at 1:15 PM. Find out more about "Recess!" and other Center for the Study of Children's Literature and Media initiatives at the Center's upcoming Web site www.recess.ufl.edu (under construction).
Center for the Study of Children's Literature and Media
Cech joined the UF faculty in 1976. He has published three critical works, including the award-winning Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak (1995), as well as five children's books and one novel. |
Pull one string and you might hear the gentle bleating of a lamb. Pull another and you could be serenaded by a cow. The newest interactive toy from Fisher Price? Hardly. Over 100 years old, this surprisingly well-preserved Victorian talking book is part of the University of Florida's extensive Baldwin Collection of Historical Children's Literature, which contains over 90,000 volumes including a 17th century edition of Aesop's Fables, pop-up books from the 18th and 19th centuries, the first American edition of Alice in Wonderland, and complete runs of 20th century adventure series like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. The Baldwin's impressive holdings have inspired a series of new initiatives, designed by the Center for the Study of Children's Literature and Media to bring the breadth of UF's children's studies expertise and resources into the national spotlight.
The Center will emphasize children's participation, with kids acting as "Recess!" consultants, offering their thoughts on the latest media, books or toys. "We'll be in the field whenever possible," notes Cech, "at the library one day or in a classroom or at a playground another, talking with kids about subjects close to them."
The Center has no shortage of innovative ideas on the drawing board. Once "Recess!" gets off the ground, they hope to produce a video documentary on the history of children's manners books, drawing on the Baldwin's array of material on the subject, which ranges from facsimiles of medieval courtesy books, to neatly bound moral treatises from the 17th and 18th centuries, to early 20th century offerings, in which lessons in conduct were mixed with humor, as in the rhyming, cartoon-illustrated The Goops and How to be Them (inset, right).
Children's books represent our first encounters with literature, in which we hear words used beautifully and tune ourselves to the rhythms of our language. One can't overstate the value of children's literature. Millions of people who will never read Tolstoy or Shakespeare will read Charlotte's Web--and never forget the experience.