Wild Things!

by Betsy Bird

  But now that you’ve got Madeline out, open it up and we’ll show you an intriguing mystery within its pages.

  Who doesn’t remember the opening lines of this classic story:

  In an old house in Paris

  that was covered with vines

  lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.

  Yes, these two lines of girls are one of the most indelible images in children’s books.

  These dozen girls live happily together until Madeline, the smallest and most daring of the group, suffers a health crisis that awakens their guardian, Miss Clavel.

  In the middle of the night

  Miss Clavel turned on her light

  and said, “Something is not right!”

  Readers will remember Madeline’s trip to the hospital via ambulance and the happy morning when the eleven other girls, bearing a single flower each (Clavel carries the vase), visit Madeline at the hospital and see “the toys and the candy and the dollhouse from Papa” that the little patient received — as well as her scar from appendix surgery.

  At the end of the visit, the girls bid farewell to Madeline at the hospital door. Then the eleven go home and have dinner, brush their teeth, and get into bed. In their tidy little dorm room, we can see Madeline’s empty bed at the bottom left.

  Ah, but as Miss Clavel might say, “Something is not right!”

  Let’s go back and look at the picture of the eleven girls sitting at the dinner table again. Why don’t you count along with us: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. . . twelve!

  There are twelve girls sitting around the table, though with Madeline in the hospital, there should be only eleven!

  Who is the impostor?

  Or maybe a better question would be, how did this extra-guest-at-the-dinner-table slip past both Ludwig Bemelmans and his editors?

  From Madeline: an impostor in their midst

  Image Credit 3

  Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.

  — Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

  In 2008, Maurice Sendak, the great-granddaddy of the modern picture book, was having a banner year. His Where the Wild Things Are had been turned into a hit film by the esteemed Michel Gondry. He had also started the Maurice Sendak Foundation. In the midst of all this publicity, the New York Times spoke with the great man, noting that Maurice Sendak had been interviewed hundreds of times over the course of his lifetime. So they had to ask: Was there anything he hadn’t been asked about before? Sendak thought about it, then replied, “Well, that I’m gay.”

  It would not be an exaggeration to say that many of the greatest names working in the field of children’s literature are GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender). The list of names reads like a Who’s Who of top children’s literature icons: Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown, Arnold Lobel, Louise Fitzhugh, James Marshall, Trina Schart Hyman, Tomie dePaola, James Howe, and on and on it goes. It is impossible to discuss the history of stories behind children’s literature without acknowledging the great contributions made by these authors, illustrators, and editors (to say nothing of librarians and agents). It should come as no surprise that the greatest stories written for children are those produced by people who have felt outside of the mainstream in some manner. Unique perspectives yield unique books. It is difficult to be gay and not see the world in a way that is slightly different from that of your straight peers.

  To a great extent, few works have been written celebrating these greats. Literary scholar Philip Nel, professor of English and director of the program in children’s literature at Kansas State University, sheds some light on the unexpected consequences of ignoring a creator’s sexuality. “I think it telling that many people don’t know that some of the most highly regarded authors for children. . . are gay. Given the prejudice against homosexuals, I one hundred percent understand why an author would not wish to make her or his sexuality public. That said, omitting their sexuality also has the (unintended) effect of ‘straightening’ the history of children’s literature. Just as it’s important for young (and older) readers to recognize the contributions of people of color, of either sex, and of many nationalities (to name but three categories), so it’s important to recognize the contributions of non-heterosexual writers.”

  While one can find information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender authors and illustrators of children’s books, it is still understandable why some people continue to prefer to keep their private lives private. At the same time, we acknowledge that when discussing anyone’s sexuality, there are always areas of gray. Many of the authors and illustrators we now acknowledge to be gay were married at some time to members of the opposite sex.

  Here, then, is an ode, a tribute, and a tip of the hat to the brave men and women who have consistently contributed to the field but have historically (and even today) sometimes been made to feel that they could not be honest about who they were in their personal lives.

  THE HISTORY

  While you may find compendiums about children’s literature written by people of African American, Asian American, or Jewish American backgrounds, compendiums of the great gay and lesbian authors of children’s literature of the past are impossible to come by. You will periodically find questions about the sexual lives of some of the great children’s writers and illustrators of the past (Hans Christian Andersen, for example). Generally speaking, this all boils down to rumor-mongering and speculation. As such, one of the first of the few children’s authors we can definitely ascertain was gay was Oscar Wilde.

  Because of his other literary achievements, people sometimes forget that Wilde wrote stories for children as well. While visiting the University of Cambridge, Wilde was asked to tell the students a story. What he came up with was a kind of prototype for “The Happy Prince,” that strange little tale of a swallow and the miserable statue he aids. It went over so well with his audience that when he was done he hurried back to his room to write it down. In May 1888, Wilde produced The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and it met with rave reviews. The Athenaeum magazine, for example, went so far as to compare him to Hans Christian Andersen, and another said that one of its stories, “The Selfish Giant,” was “perfect in its kind.”

  Wilde was married by this point with two sons of his own yet also spent time with a variety of male lovers. Over the years, many have attempted to draw details of Wilde’s personal life out of his fairy stories. The movie Wilde (1997) parallels the tragedies in Wilde’s own life with lines from his story “The Selfish Giant.” Others have equated the love between the swallow and a reed in “The Happy Prince” to the marriage of Oscar and his wife, Constance. After all, in the story, the swallow is at first in love with the reed but determines that among her flaws is the fact that she has no conversation. He then falls in love with the statue of the prince instead.

  On the other side of the pond, in America, silence about the personal lives of authors reigned supreme. Of course, there were very few children’s books being published in America during the time of Oscar Wilde at all. Then, as the decades continued, the publishing market in America grew and flourished. Indeed, by the time the twentieth century rolled around, children’s books were rapidly becoming an industry of their own.

  Heaven help you if were gay, though. Homosexuality wasn’t removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973.

  With all that in mind, little wonder that authors, editors, illustrators, and publishers working in the field of children’s literature would be reluctant to let their sexualities be known.

  “THERE ARE NO SURVIVORS”

  We switch gears now and turn our attention to a woman who was indisputably one of the most influential editors in the history of children’s literature, a veritable giant in the field. Ursula Nordstrom worked as the director of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973. Children’s liter
ary scholar Leonard Marcus says that, within her capacity as editor, she was “the single most creative force for innovation in children’s book publishing in the United States during the twentieth century.” Far from indulging in hyperbole, Marcus is right on the money. Thanks to Nordstrom, the world grew acquainted with the children’s books of Shel Silverstein, Tomi Ungerer, Laura Ingalls Wilder, E. B. White, and many more.

  Interestingly enough, Nordstrom also attracted a great deal of gay and lesbian authors to her fold. The names begin to pile up after a while. There was, most famously, Maurice Sendak and also Louise Fitzhugh and even Arnold Lobel. Many years later, in the 1980s, the author George Shannon published a teen novel by the name Unlived Affections with Charlotte Zolotow, Ursula Nordstrom’s successor. When asked, he said that he went to Harper as a publisher in large part because in the past they had been so supportive of their gay authors.

  For many, it was understood that Ms. Nordstrom was herself in a long-term relationship with fellow Harper employee Mary Griffith. Nordstrom was understandably quiet about her personal life, though she did speak of Ms. Griffith from time to time. For example, in an interview with The Lion and the Unicorn published in spring 1979, Ms. Nordstrom mentions that the month of September always stirs up depressing memories for her of boarding school. “Earlier this month, in September, I was in the deepest depression imaginable and I had no reason to be. I like the place I live, I’m very fond of the friend I live with, and working this way is very pleasant.” After her death in 1988, her obituary reads, “With her at the time of death was her longtime companion, Mary Griffith,” and then, “There are no survivors.”

  MARGARET WISE BROWN

  Nordstrom was known for her friendships with a great many authors. Perhaps one of her greatest friends and creations was Margaret Wise Brown. Born in 1910, Brown is best known to the general public today for books like The Runaway Bunny and her posthumous bestseller Goodnight Moon. For many years she worked as a teacher and with the Bank Street Experimental School before finally joining up with Harper & Brothers in 1937. She was smart and feisty and got along swimmingly with Nordstrom. She got on significantly less well with New York Public Library’s head children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore. Rumor has it that when Brown was snubbed from a significant NYPL event, she and Nordstrom had a delightful tea party on the steps of the building, forcing all the guests to walk around them to get inside.

  In her personal life, Brown had relationships with both men and women. According to biographer Marcus, the most significant woman in her life was Michael Strange, also known as Blanche Oelrichs. What started out as friendship turned into something deeper, and Margaret eventually gave up her Greenwich Village apartment to live in a railroad flat across the hall from Michael at 186 East End Avenue.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the healthiest relationship. Brown wasn’t at all certain of where they stood at times, writing touching letters that said such things as, “There was a time I felt well loved by you and it was the warmest happiest time in my life. And I remember it. And that is all I can honestly say. . . . I can rest in my love for you sometime. And I do. It is the center I come back to and revolve about. But loving the unknown becomes lonely sometimes. . . . It is very simple. I do not know that you love me any more.” Many witnessed the fights between the two of them, and there were even times when Strange would take Caldecott-winning illustrator Leonard Weisgard aside and ask, “Why don’t you marry Margaret and take her off my hands?” When Michael died of leukemia in 1950, she was still with Margaret. However, when she died, none of the articles about her mentioned their relationship. Says professor KT Horning, “The Lesbian Herstory Archives in NYC specifically collects women’s obits that use the code words ‘no known survivors,’ especially after the mention of a friend’s name.” Michael Strange is probably in those files somewhere.

  LOUISE FITZHUGH

  She was best known in the New York lesbian community as “Willie.” She had a tendency to buy men’s clothes that were tailored to fit. She had a large inheritance, she chose to write for children, and she was responsible for one of the greatest children’s books in American literary history.

  Like her most famous creation, Harriet the Spy, Fitzhugh had an unhappy childhood. She was a child of the South. Her father became a U.S. district attorney, but before that married a tap dancer whom his parents considered “socially below him.” Louise attended the Hutchinson School for young ladies (known then as Miss Hutchinson’s) and was even part of the court during the annual Cotton Carnival in Memphis. Then she ran off and married a fellow by the name of Ed Thompson, possibly to avoid being a debutante and perhaps because there was a scandal about Louise and another female student. After that she ran away to New York, where she mostly lived on the $500-a-month trust fund established for her by her grandmother.

  Starting in 1961, Fitzhugh started publishing books for children. The first contained her illustrations for Sandra Scoppettone’s amusing Suzuki Beane, a brilliant send-up of Eloise wherein the titular character was the daughter of beatniks in the Village. Scoppettone and Fitzhugh shared a brief affair and a lifelong friendship, causing some to speculate as to whether or not Suzuki Beane is the first author-illustrator collaboration of a lesbian couple. After the book’s publication, Fitzhugh met with — you guessed it — editor Ursula Nordstrom. Nordstrom saw something in Fitzhugh’s writing that was unique and convinced the author to send her the pages that would eventually become Harriet the Spy.

  Years later, in a Horn Book magazine article “Spies and Purple Socks and Such,” KT Horning reminisces about her own experiences reading Harriet. Calling Harriet the “quintessential baby butch,” Horning has her reasons:

  The thing that shocked me the most about Harriet was her cross-dressing. It’s an aspect of the novel that girls today would miss entirely (thank goodness!), but in 1965 Harriet’s spy clothes struck me as revolutionary. Back then, girls in blue jeans and hooded sweatshirts were uncommon, though not unheard of. But Harriet’s high-top sneakers were solely boys’ wear. I know for sure, because I used to beg my otherwise indulgent, liberal parents for them, and they refused, although they bought them regularly for my brothers.

  This should be unsurprising to anyone aware that Fitzhugh herself dressed in what many at the time dubbed masculine attire — “essentially, trousers, vests, and boots,” according to biographer Virginia L. Wolf. Horning goes on to point out that in Harriet, Sport and Janie upset traditional gender expectations as well, with Janie hoping to be a scientist and Sport acting as the caretaker for his father. In this light, the discovery of Harriet’s fateful notebook has all the elements of a coming-out story. “Her parents’ response to it all is to take her to a psychiatrist for analysis. Sound familiar?” Horning remarks. “Most importantly, the sage Ole Golly resolves matters with a piece of advice that takes on special meaning for queer kids: ‘Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.’”

  Horning ends, “All those years ago, whether consciously or unconsciously, Louise Fitzhugh provided us with the tools for survival.”

  For her own part, Fitzhugh was open about the fact that she was a lesbian. Unfortunately, her life was cut very short. She became a heavy drinker, much like her father before her, and had high blood pressure. Add in the usual stresses and perhaps a reaction to a negative review of her book Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change in Publishers Weekly, and the result was that after getting a headache and coughing up blood, Fitzhugh slipped into a coma and died of a brain aneurysm on November 19, 1974.

  Pushcart Debate: What Harriet Meant to Us

  BETSY: That was a book that I can actually remember reading and discussing with my friends. It inspired us to keep notebooks of our own, which was probably not the point of the book, but there you go. Some of that memory, however, got wiped out after seeing the Rosie O’Donnell movie version.

  JULIE: I also remember reading Harriet for the first time and, as a child, being struck by the boo
k’s honesty with regard to how children in late elementary grades sometimes treat each other. And I always liked reading books with characters a bit out of step with their peers.

  PETER: M. E. Kerr was my favorite writer when I was growing up and — this is still unbelievable to me — we later became friends. M. E. Kerr was known as “Marijane the Spy” as a child and was close friends with Louise Fitzhugh. A few years back, I received a birthday present from Marijane. Inside was her own copy of Harriet the Spy, inscribed by Louise Fitzhugh at the time the book was published. Tucked inside was the program for Ms. Fitzhugh’s memorial service in 1974. I was blown away! That signed copy of Harriet the Spy, once owned by Marijane the Spy, is one of my most treasured books.

  MEANWHILE, OVERSEAS . . .

  America was by no means the sole country keeping homosexuals on edge. We turn our attention next to Finland. Until 1971, Finland declared homosexuality to be illegal. Until 1981 it was a classified mental illness as well. As it happened, this affected Finland’s greatest children’s author-illustrator, a woman by the name of Tove Jansson.

  Born in Helsinki in 1914, Jansson was the daughter of a sculptor and a graphic artist who was herself the daughter of a Swedish priest to the king of Sweden. She grew up in a raucously rich and loving family, part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and studied art at the Konstfack Art Academy, the Helsinki Art Society’s drawing school, and finally at the École d’Adrien Holy and the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1940 she drew a little signature figure in the progressive Garm magazine that would become her most famous creation: a Moomintroll. Children’s books about the Moomintrolls followed in 1945, and in the early 1950s, she turned the creatures into a regular comic strip for the Associated Press in England. Today, Jansson’s work has been translated into thirty-four languages around the world.