Holy Moley.
The woman who runs the whimsical world from her 100-acre Connecticut farm, Sandra Boynton, has just one assistant, that's it. She has sold a half billion copies of over 4,000 greeting cards. If they were stacked on top of each other, all the copies in print of all 850,000 Boynton boardbooks would form a giant pyramid reaching to the moon. [Since most of them have been gnawed to shreds, though, the pyramid won't stay up. Also, I may have the number of titles wrong.] But just one book, her Barnyard Dance!, has sold 2.3 million copies since 1993. She hangs out with Meryl Streep, and she found it easy to get anyone she wants to record on her new music CD's because, "many managers of the big musical acts were men in their 30s who had young children who loved her books."
OOOH, NO! You're not gonna pin this one on us, New York TImes! Do you see any male fingerprints on all those snuggly wittle greeting cards? I didn't think so.
The Power of Whimsy [nyt]
Most of the ones I've seen are pretty meh, but I gotta admit..."The Going To Bed Book" is in pretty regular rotation at our place and I don't mind a bit.
Don't blame me! I'm almost done with my 30s.
My son found the spine of Moo, Baa, La-la-la particularly tasty, and is currently enjoying his second serving of that book.
Whaaaat? Not even a Valentines's Day or a Get Well card ? Think hard now.
Boynton isn't bad. In fact, often very good.
Cynthia Rylant is also obscenely prolific, but more varied and interesting. A vastly better choice once a dad's kid hits three...
Sandra Boynton's books are mostly horrible. They are mindless and all have the same formula, relying on dumb rhetorical trick, and then predictably twisting it near the end for the finish.
Give me a real classic like Big Red Barn anytime.
if we were rating my daughter's book likes and dislikes by the amount they have been chewed, the going to bed book is a close second only to goodnight gorilla. i think most of her fiber intake these first two years has been from cardboard. big red barn? still in librarian-approved pristine condition.
I really wouldn't boast about your daughter's poor literary taste...
But if she likes GoodNight Gorilla, there's hope for her.