Customer Reviews

Inside Picture Books

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

My reaction to this book is overwhelming! I am writing to recommend it to teachers, grandparents, and parents, as well as to children's librarians. As a teacher of elementary school children for over 25 years, I have used picture books in my classes with hundreds of children. "Inside Picture Books" gave me unique and powerful ways of understanding these classic works and the impact they have made and are continuing to make on their readers. I hope that this book will be seen and read by many other teachers. Spitz, an art historian, is especially fascinating on the impact of the pictures, the illustrations, in these books. She enabled me to grasp the subtle messages they convey. I love her wit and sense of humor and agree with Robert Coles's great Introduction where he says that these books are our first signs on life's journey.

Ms. Spitz began her book with some thoughtful and insightful observations about reading aloud to children and about recurring themes in children's literature. She should have stopped while she was ahead. Unfortunately, she digressed into psychological drivel about stories that are simply stories. Examples: in "Willy the Wimp" she describes Willy eating a phallic (her word) diet of bannanas-he's a chimpanzee! What should he have eaten? Ms. Spitz is also fascinated that Willy wears red jockey briefs in his genital area (her words). What's the point of that observation? And poor Madeline! Who knew how troubled she was? Ms. Spitz' pychological reading of the story is a help to no one except perhaps herself (is this an example of a solipsistic approach?)as once again she chose to describe poor Miss Clavel as assuming a phallic shape. Hmmmm. As a children's librarian who has read them all, I implore all of you to read to your child for the pure purpose of enjoyment. Don't dissect and analyze a book to its death. It's my opinion that Ms. Spitz is a "paradigm" of academia's pressure to publish.

Thinking that a book on children's books might be too cute, I found myself instead thrust into a dramatic world of violence, retribution, heroism, fear, sadness, humiliation, gender-roles and tenderness startingly revealed in Spitz's analysis. Combining commonsense, personal experiences, biblical reference and psychological sensibilities, Spitz taught me something about my own psychology. It is not only parents who will enjoy this must-read book.

Ellen Handler Spitz has a way of explaining the enchantment of children's favorite picture books that no one will want to miss. Grandparents, parents, and caregivers who buy this book will find themselves enriched and intrigued with every insight.

Ms. Spitz is not only an expert in art and literature; she also knows children. Absolutely everything she wrote rang true to my experience as a mother of two young boys. If you want to understand more fully how words and text make lasting impressions on children, you'll want to have a copy of Inside Picture Books. I've recommended this book to all of my friends, as well as to grandparent visitors to Grandloving.com, my monthly website for caring grandparents.

This book is a refreshing contrast to much advice about books for children. Spitz shares a lively, thorough, engaging, and provocative look at so many of everybody's favorites. Other reviewers accurately yet critically remark on the complex writing and challenging vocabulary required for a nuanced discussion. This is a serious topic that deserves a serious discussion. Ms. Spitzer not only delivers, she leaves her readers with the same sense of satisfaction a child feels having finished reading their first book.

In addition to parents and educators, the close reading offers insight valuable for writers. Spitz's pairing of psychological and educational issues together with aesthetic concerns of text and visual presentation make this one of the most informative and comprehensive discussions of what makes a book great.

This book is directed at mothers, fathers, grandparents, teachers, therapists, and scholars. It is obvious to the reader that Ellen Handler Spitz is a scholarly woman herself. The technical and foreign words she chooses to use are confusing and perhaps overwhelming to many readers. Spitz brings forth a wide variety of classic children's literature and then gives the reader her very own perception of these books. She also offers her thoughts on the way that children may interpret these stories as well.
Spitz dives right into analyzing everything about these books, from colors schemes used on the covers and in the illustrations, to the underlying meanings of and sexual overtones within certain aspects of the text itself. Her thoughts are far-fetched and hard to digest. For example, she describes Miss Clavel from the Madeline series as a phallic symbol. She goes onto describe how Maurice Sendak's "Mickey" character from In The Night Kitchen is obviously making vulgar gestures within the pictures of the story, and how that entire book revolves around a Holocaust theme. Her colorful descriptions became amusing after a while.
Spitz discusses books openly, bringing the reader all of the supposed vulgarities that are seen within their pages. Her perspective soon became one of perversion and disgust for me.
Ellen Handler Spitz does succeed in one thing though. This author inadvertantly forces the reader to go to the public library to read or re-read certain classic mentioned. I know I did, I just had to find out if these disgusting things were that obvious. They were not. Spitz makes it seem impossible for children to simply enjoy a story. I found it rather unsettling that she could read so far into the books that she could hardly find anything pleasant about them.
I would recommend this book to teachers, not for its content but merely for the "Picture Books Cited" listing in the back. That would be a great resource to have.

Stefanie Ulness

Inside Picture Books is a nonfiction book about an author's views and thoughts on different children's stories. Ellen Handler Spitz organizes her book into different sections based on the stories she introduces. She discussed books on bedtime, misbehaving characters, dealing with grief, and being accepted for who you are. Spitz starts out by simply analyzing the covers and pictures of the story but all too soon she begins to psychoanalyze the story lines. She continually looks way to deep into the books and makes very judgmental comments about the characters in them. I think by this over-analysis she loses the fun and simple meanings of many of the stories. Her thoughts on some of my favorite children's stories angered me and made me wish she would just enjoy a story instead of ripping it apart.
The word selection in this book is very complex and confusing. I found myself wondering why she would possibly use some of these words when much simpler ones could be substituted. I do realize the book was geared towards scholars but wasn't it also supposed to be for parents? I really don't think that most average parents have the meanings or definitions of these words just floating around in their minds. One positive that came from this book was that it introduced me to many children's stories that I hadn't heard of before. By briefly telling what each story was about (before she used her deep thinking skills) I was able to get a better idea of if the book was worth reading. Overall, I think Spitz ruins the fun of reading books by analyzing every detail of them. She should go back to reading children's stories for the pure pleasure that they provide!

Losing your imagination

Inside Picture Books is a descriptive non-fiction book that describes Ms. Spitz's opinion of children's books. This book thoroughly analyzes dozens of children's book, some more in depth than others. This book is intended for any adult that works with children. While Ms. Spitz, does use a high level of vocabulary, she is straightforward in her beliefs. She leaves very little room for questions on her feelings. I believe that Ms. Spitz over analyzes each of the books. She appears to have forgotten that for children, reading is purely for fun. I think the cover clearly depicts what the children's faces would look life if they understood the meaning of each book, as Ms. Spitz describes it. For example, while describing Love you Forever, Ms. Spitz states that the mother always thinks of her son as her infant, even while he is an adult. I believe that the book is just putting into very simple terms that no matter what you do, your mother will still love you. During the analysis of Willy the Wimp, Ms. Spitz clearly overanalyzes what is the tale of a chimpanzee becoming a stronger person. Ms. Spitz even takes it so far to see the name Willy as more than a name, but for a slang term. While reading Inside Picture Books, I discovered I had problems relating to the ideas given in it, because I had not read most of the books discussed. If you do decide to read the book, I recommend reading all the books mentioned before hand. Overall, I believe that this book would not be very useful to a teacher or to a parent, unless you want to loose your childhood imagination.

JG

Ellen Handler Spitz analyzes many children's stories in her non-fiction compilation entitled, Inside Picture Books. The author examines several of our childhood favorites focusing on the initial positive and negative effects these books have on the children and the long-term psychological effects they imprint in their minds. She focuses on many aspects of these books. She explains how the images within the books can often affect the interpretation of the reader. For example, Ellen Handler Spitz uses the story There's a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer to show how the endings of these tales can adversely affect children for years after reading them. This example is about a little boy who decides to confront his monster (fears). Upon this confrontation, the monster becomes scared and begins to cry. After an initial feeling of anger, the boy begins to feel empathy and befriends the creature. The book ends with the little boy and the monster falling asleep together in bed while another monster creeps into the bedroom. By ending the book in this manner, the child is left without closure. Ellen Handler Spitz often over analyzes these books resulting in the loss of their enchantment. She wrote this book for someone working with children, specifically educators. It is written in a very scholarly fashion and is often difficult to understand. I enjoyed her analysis of the picture books, but it would have been more useful had she written it using less jargon. Also, it would have been useful if she had included more illustrations when she talks about the scenes occurring in the text. I would recommend this book to a college level children's literature class that is looking to dive deeply into the psychological factors that children's books hold. As for anyone interested in reading about various picture books to just get the basic meanings of them, I would caution them to stay away from Ellen Handler Spitz. Kelly R.

This isn't a survey of classic picture books but an exploration of the impact of reading to children. Well-known picture books are included in the analysis, but the heart of the title lies in its discussions of how adults build connections to children and childhood through such books. An involving discussion.