I never really liked him as a kid: not enough story for my tastes. Also I was never into trucks, and his books always seemed very vehicle-heavy to me. Much preferred Harold and the Purple Crayon.
I think if you are looking for narrative or aesthetics or modern gender depictions in Scarry’s work you are not looking for the value he is capable of providing. The parts I (and my boys) like best are not narrative but descriptive, and not descriptive of emotional or relationship things but of much more “mechanical” subjects: basic tasks of running a household, train journeys, power generation, building a house, where timber comes from, where tap water comes from, what rooms there are in a castle, how a ship works, how a road is built, basic economics of a small town. These sorts of things. The pictures may not meet the ideals of someone who is into illustration, but kids sure as hell like poring over the details in them.
Yes, the zany little storylines keep things moving and kids do find them funny but I think they are weaker and if that was the core of his work I don’t think he’d be as well loved, because there are many others who do such things better.
I agree with Princhester. His books are intended as educational and informational, not insightful or metaphorical. Any stories are only there to entertain while he educates, nothing more.
I haven’t read any of the books that are primarily storyline, the ones I read as a kid had a “How Things Work” or “What Things Are” approach.
And one of the lessons that his books teach is that females are ditzy, but enjoy being traditional females. This wasn’t a lesson that I cared to have my daughter learn, especially at such a young age.
Now, there were many fine things in his books, and the books were fun in a lot of ways. But I felt that my daughter didn’t need to have the “girls have limited options” from yet another source. She already had her father’s stepfather to tell her that.
Again, I find it ironic that Lowly Worm was shown to be unrestricted in his activities, even though he was a worm, but females WERE restricted because they were female.
He did write a lot of them in the 50s-70s. That was how life was then, as I’m sure you recall just as clearly as I do.
Yes I understand what you are saying Lyn, but I’m not going to prevent my children from reading books describing things as they were fifty years ago.
I know when they were written. During that time, it was considered perfectly acceptable to depict non whites (and their analogs if animals are being anthromorphised) as being limited to certain roles, too. Scarry didn’t do this for non whites…but he did do it for women.
Note that I didn’t prevent my daughter from reading the books she was given. I just didn’t buy the books myself. I think that other than the gender roles issue, Scarry made some very good books that helped kids learn. I just didn’t want to participate in my daughter getting a lesson that wimmins are only good for housekeeping.
I agree that women were depicted in traditional roles, but I disagree that they were shown to be more ditzy than men. I’ve been reading “The Funniest Storybook Ever” to my kids, and it seems like the plots of half the stories revolve around someone being absent-minded, and more often than not, it’s the male characters. For instance, one story which I think is called “Ma Pig’s New Car” shows Pa pig repeatedly getting into the wrong vehicle and driving it away, and eventually driving off in and crashing a power shovel. Another one shows a man absent-mindedly walking in concrete and getting stuck. In fact, I don’t think there’s any examples in the whole book of a female character doing stuff like that. And, anyway, it’s just meant for humor, as children apparently find it funny to see adults doing silly or stupid things, regardless of gender.