Children’s Boook author to read: Tomi Ungerer
From the NYT article Ed sent me:
“I’ve written some 150 books, for adults and children, both fiction and nonfiction. I do engineering, I design monuments, I design buildings. In Germany
I designed a kindergarten in the shape of a cat. The children enter the mouth and go downstairs inside the tail. I’m a bit of bee, but basically I am an
author.”
In my children’s books, you’ll always find an element of fear. I think children are thrilled with fear, and they have to be taught how to get over it. Why am I the pedagogues’ nightmare? They think I traumatize children. They think children should be loved and protected. But if you do only that, they’re not ready for life.
I’m in love with language. Between the ages of 3 and 7, children can learn three languages a year. If you’re not teaching them another language, you can always develop their vocabulary. Make them ask, “What does that mean?” That was what was so wonderful about Ursula Nordstrom [Mr. Ungerer’s celebrated editor at Harper & Row]: she let me use the words I wanted to use. I always go back to Edward Lear and Hilaire Belloc and Lewis Carroll. Nonsense words. Everybody should learn “Jabberwocky.”
Friend of Jules Feiffer.
