January 25, 1987
By Helen M. Fagg
Vigo County Historical Society
Good books - Children’s world of dreams contained on printed pages
In days gone by, before children became addicted to radio and television. long before these instruments of entertainment were even thought of, a good book was the favorite way of escaping the demands put on children by the adult world.
Who has not taken a well-worn, favorite book and a juicy apply and curled up in a secret nook for an afternoon?
Today, reading still is a popular pastime for many. A few hours spent observing the traffic at the library attests to this. But for children of the years before 1920, reading was about the only escape route to the imaginary world.
Adult books usually describe the world as it is, but children’s books attempt to present a world as they would like it to be. The most popular books are filled with heroes of outstanding courage, daring giants of great strength, animals which possess human characteristics and an ugly witch or stepmother thrown in for good measure.
The many folk tales told around cottage fires and in the great halls of palaces provided the basis for the printed children’s books that followed. These folk tales sometimes were in the form of poetry with much repetition and rhyme; they were often sung. The stories varied some from generation to generation and from country to country, but the general themes and characters were basically the same.
Fantasy, more than any other type of story, has done the most to give genuine distinction to children’s books through the years. Ogres, fairies, elves and other supernatural characters performing all kinds of tricks beyond the capabilities of mere man could make even the most unimaginative child sail off to another dimension.
Until about 1860 much of the children’s fiction was written as an adjunct to moral education. The author wished to be entertaining enough to attract the child reader in order that he might be instructed in morality.
The hard covers usually were very colorful and gold embossed, but after a few pages the stories tapered off into moralizing and dullness. Goody-Two-Shoes is a fine example of a book that was supposed to provide the child with models of virtuous living. Even these stories were read and enjoyed, though maybe out of sympathy for the main character.
Early in this century publishers experimented with “Shape Books.” Kittens, dogs, dolls, trains and people provided the shape for the book and for the words between the covers. Activity books of many types came into popularity. These included painting and coloring books and other books where certain pages were removed and the pictures pasted on remaining pages. Paper doll books and books with stand-up pages also were produced in large numbers. For the avid reader there were sets of adventure books that took the same characters through several volumes. Yet each gook was complete in itself. “The Five Little Peppers,” “The Bobbsey Twins,” “The Hardy Boys” and “Elsie Dinsmore” are only a few which were read and re-read.
The books known as annuals were designed to entertain the reader for a whole year with appropriate stories, poems and illustrations.
The three books picture are representative of the kinds of books in the collection in the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley.
The gathering of early children’s books is one of the most elusive pursuits in the field of collection for the best loved and most precious are the rarest, having been bound to perish early under the hard use of countless readings by their not-too-careful owners. We conclude that the books found in the museum may not have been the most popular, but they have survived to “tell the story.”
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.