Where the Wild Things Came From
Slate has a neat little slideshow up on the history of children’s book illustration in America. Written by Emily Bazelon and Erica S. Perl, it particularly speaks to the genesis of naughty children as main characters. The picture I nabbed here is of the “Goops”, drawn by Gelett Burgess sometime around 1900, who were supposed to show kids how NOT to behave. Hmmmm.
Unfortunately, you’ll have sit through an advertisement before you can look at the pictures (or, alternatively, you have to sit through an ad SO you can look at the pictures). Also, the site designer used the ultra-annoying white-text-on-black-page, which is not only hard to read, but makes an afterimage of bars on your retina so that you can barely see the images. My solution for that: select the text, so it is highlighted. If you’re on a Mac, you can change the colour of the highlight in System Preferences.
