Category archive: books

January 24, 2016

The Brownstone, OG City Living Kids Book By Paula Scher

Add me to the list of people who didn't know designer Paula Scher wrote a kids book in 1973, which was illustrated by Village Voice cartoonist Stan Mack. The Brownstone's a fable of OG city living, where the landlord...
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November 22, 2015

Goodnight Stein

I've forgotten than I knew about Margaret Wise Brown's admiration of Gertrude Stein, and that Brown helped bring Stein and famed chillustrator Clement Hurd together to make The World Is Round. [I just made up that word: chillustrator. Actually, it...
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October 21, 2015

Overthinking Sandra Boynton

Ian Bogost goes deep for The New Yorker on, of all board book authors, Sandra Boynton:Take "The Going to Bed Book": what appears to be an innocuous precursor to the activity that its reading facilitates turns out, on closer inspection,...
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October 14, 2015

'People Can Just Pick You Up And Move You And Put You Down'

Amanda Fortini's interview with the writer Mary Karr at The Paris Review includes this visceral description of childhood:INTERVIEWER In the first section of The Liars' Club, you inhabit the mind of a seven-year-old to an uncanny degree. How were you...
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July 17, 2015

Color It Out!

I am deeply unsettled by the coloring books for grownups trend. Honestly, if you have that much time, you should be editing Wikipedia articles, or working on your Pinterest board or something. Unless you're talking about something actually unsettling,...
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The Sonar System, By Ras Mykha

With all the hype about Pluto, now's the time to get your kid psyched for the next cosmic destination, The Sonar System. The Sonar System is a group of planets orbiting around a giant speaker, where everyone's really into...
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July 10, 2015

Atticus, Life, Complicated

Whoops.We remember Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's 1960 classic, "To Kill a Mockingbird," as that novel's moral conscience: kind, wise, honorable, an avatar of integrity who used his gifts as a lawyer to defend a black man falsely accused of...
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July 7, 2015

The Swedish Man Project

I know, "The Disease of Manhood" sounds like about half the thinkpieces on The Good Men Project, but Dan Duray's review of the Swedish director Ruben Ostlund's film Force Majeure and My Struggle is a solidly interesting discussion of contemporary...
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June 28, 2015

Children Standing Around Playgrounds Photobook

I'd seen the link to this before, but hadn't clicked through until dt reader Erik sent it along tonight. Photographer James Mollison has traveled the world to show what playgrounds look like, or more precisely, to show what masses...
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June 16, 2015

Hate-Buy The Poky Little Puppy Today!

I've had Gabe Roth's Slate smackdown of perennial crap kids books like The Poky Little Puppy in my tabs for a couple of weeks now, and it is brutally on point. It is also apparently instrumental in boosting the...
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June 11, 2015

Pourquoi Pas? Make A Barbapapa House

Barbapapa, the iconic and friendly French Jabba The Hutt, lives with all his ancillary characters in some kind of Pierre Cardin-lookin' bubblehouse. Which you can buy, but why would you, when you can make your own Barbapapa house out...
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June 2, 2015

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Unaccountable Surveillance Society Do You See?

I'm still fighting off the chills from reading a review of Bill Martin & Eric Carle's childhood classic, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, which was posted only yesterday, while the world was distracted by Caitlin Jenner.If...
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May 5, 2015

Because I Could Not Search Blogs For Death

Writer Gabriel Roth was reading Alfie books to his 3yo daughter when he got sandbagged by Death, which made a surprise appearance in the story:Children have to find out about death at some point. It's a cognitive milestone, like...
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May 2, 2015

The Price Of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance

Here is a mom who's trying to run away from brands, but I think she's really trying to run away from herself:I couldn't resist buying her a cheap nylon set of Wonder Woman PJs, cape and all. Then I bought...
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April 28, 2015

Saul Bellow, Dad

This seems like an important life skill, in its own way:When [Saul] Bellow's son Greg was 2, Mr. Leader writes, "Bellow taught him to point first to his ass, then to his elbow, declaring him 'Smarter than most Harvard graduates.'"As...
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April 18, 2015

Worst Haircut Meets Worst Bedtime Story Idea

I hadn't heard Jeff Cohen's 2012 radio interview with his daughters about the disastrous haircut the 5yo performed on the 3yo's head, but it's fantastic. I might even listen to it again right now. [3min later] YEP, still great! And...
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March 18, 2015

Did Andy Warhol Sign You Or Your Baby?

Andy Warhol was definitely in the famous for being famous phase of his career when he published his memoir, Popism: The Warhol Sixties in 1980. Popism was based on audio tapes Warhol recorded during the 60s and co-written with...
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February 1, 2015

Measles Killing Roald Dahl's Daughter Was Just Part Of It

The pram before the storm: Roald Dahl & Patricia Neal family in 1961, with Theo, Tessa & Olivia. image via telegraph All this time I thought Roald Dahl was just a horrible narcissistic monster who treated his family badly...
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January 29, 2015

MODERNCHILD Closing Sale This Week

I am very bummed at the news that the online shop Modernchild is closing. Tien was a pioneer and a great supporter of modern and independent kids design, and she has a terrific eye. It was an honor to have...
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January 9, 2015

DT Friday Freakout: Measles Is Coming For Your Unvaccinated Children Edition

Here at Daddy Types we don't like to play by publicists' and TV news' rules, stringing you along with one anxiety-inducing science, news, health, and parenting story after another, details tonight at 11, learn how after the break! Parenting's stressful...
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December 25, 2014

Alexander Calder Christmas Trees

In 1942 Alexander Calder was asked by a nurse friend to make some things to cheer up wounded soldiers convalescing in a Staten Island military hospital. One of those things: this awesome Christmas tree, cut from a tin can....
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December 23, 2014

Hermann Hesse At Nursery School

Visitor is struck by the 7yo footnote, but it's the one above that gets me: "'Hermann is going to nursery school, his violent temperament causes us much distress.' The child was three years old." on hermann hesse at seven:...
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I'm Thinking Of Making The Senate CIA Torture Report Into A Boardbook

Gotta tell you, the CIA onesie, coupled with multiple stories like this about Melville House making a trade version make me want to adapt the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture as a boardbook. Maybe over the Christmas break. Maybe...
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October 29, 2014

Goodnight Rolling Stone

In the great green room, there was a telephone and a Rolling Stone snorting out of a spoon As befits any Goodnight Moon parody about Keith Moon, this one turns NSFBedtime. And some of the rhymes do make one...
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October 24, 2014

A Is For Activist, The Boardbook Of The 99%, Now Available In Spanish

A is for Activist is the alphabet boardbook "for the unflinching progressive with a child/children in your life." And by now, I assume he or she already has it. So now we'd like to open it up to the...
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October 21, 2014

The Least Surprised I've Ever Been: Marcel The Shell Has New Video, Book

A new Marcel the Shell video has appeared, just in time to promote the release of Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp's new Marcel book, The Most Surprised I've Ever Been. This kind of marketing synergy works, though it would...
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August 31, 2014

The Very Hung Caterpillar

Thanks to the badly placed sticker, I'll never be able to look at this book in the same way ever again. pic.twitter.com/Adv5dAeVvV— Mike Clarke (@Mr_Mike_Clarke) August 31, 2014 There's also a pop-up book. [amazon via dt reader brandon]...
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July 22, 2014

Goodnight Thinkpieces Everywhere

Aimee Bender in the NYTimes:Most picture books would close with that old lady -- that's the balanced choice. But we see the stars and feel the air -- we've been sure we're staying in but now we're floating out. Why?...
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July 6, 2014

Hello Kitty Waging Global War On Mr. Jihad

There's a new Mr Men in town, and Hello Kitty is not smiling. The Daily Mail reports [sic, obv] that Mr Men & Little Miss owner Sanrio is bent out of shape about Mr Jihad. [Wait, who owner what?...
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June 14, 2014

NY Review Of Books Children's Collection Summer Sale

The New York Review of Books publishing imprint has been steadily bringing lost classics back into print, including dozens of books for kids of all ages. Now they're having a summer sale, and all children's book titles are 30%...
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June 6, 2014

DT Friday Freakout

News piles up during the week, news from the worlds of parenting, science, health, politics, education, &c., that's designed to get your attention by freaking you out. Here at Daddy Types, we like to help parents sail through the week...
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June 3, 2014

The Death Of Print, Or Buy All 177 Mr. Men And Little Miss Books Today!

Now that the only books he reads anymore are kids' books, he Guardian's Charlie Brooker has an awesomely cranky paean to Roger Hargreave's capitalistic masterpiece, the Mister Men & Little Miss series, which he [Englishly] grew up on, and...
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May 21, 2014

Hatsuyama Shigeru And Kodomo No Kuni

Hatsuyama Shigeru was an illustrator for the Japanese kid's magazine Kodomo no Kuni [Children's Land] in the 1920s and 30s, the Taisho-Showa era transition when modernist ideas and design were flourishing. These two images are from 50 Watts' amazing...
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May 15, 2014

Philosophers' Kids Always Have The Nicest Inscribed Copies of Capitalist Critique

The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze published one of his most important books, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, written with the psychoanalyst Felix Guattari, in 1972. It includes a critique of Freud's Oedipus Complex and its related structures of psychoanalysis as...
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May 9, 2014

Goodnight Nanny-Cam Amuses Some

Every generation of parents gets the Goodnight Moon parody they deserve. The beleaguered progressives of the iPhone era got Goodnight Bush. The HOPE & CHANGE generation having kids in the post-Lehman/TARP/subprime recession got, what else, Goodnight iPad. And now...
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May 7, 2014

A Golden Treasury Of Punk Is Dad

It felt weird to not hear very much from the Milano Salone design fair this year. I may need to adjust my media diet. But while digging around for pictures, I stumbled across a horrifying window display from Diesel...
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May 2, 2014

Here Is A Baby Climbing Out Of A Clock

Finally finished A McCrossen's Marking Modern Times. It's good but unexpected images like this make it a must read pic.twitter.com/cqkSkUiTrp— Atrophic Parenchyma (@AtrophicP) May 3, 2014 Rather than use the snapshot of the page mentioned above, here's the original image,...
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April 18, 2014

Coming Out As Pregnant

The NY Times has a brief excerpt of nice butch lesbian A.K. Summers' graphic memoir of coming out as pregnant. I hope it includes some thoughtful and entertaining lessons about how having a kid changes how we see ourselves...
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April 15, 2014

J.G. Ballard For Kids Happened, And Should Happen Again

Techno-dystopian bears aren't just for Kubrick anymore. As this cartoon from Tom Gauld's 2013 book, You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack shows. I would totally kickstart a collection of J.G. Ballard-inspired Adventures of Ballard The Bear, though. I...
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April 3, 2014

The Story Of Colors By Subcomandante Marcos

In a 1994 memo to the Mexican people, Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos told the story of the Mayan gods bringing colors to the grey world, colors which are contained in the tail feathers of the macaw. Until Ted...
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March 28, 2014

We Go To The Gallery Is Awesome, Facing Insane Copyright-Fueled Doom

Here's another Kickstarter I'm slow to write about, and this one is facing dire consequences. Artists Ezra and Miriam Elia's critique of the contemporary art world is called, We Go To The Gallery. It's a parody of the Ladybird...
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March 27, 2014

Q Is For Queens On Kickstarter

I'm slow sometimes, and maybe If I'd written about it last week, there would have been more suspense involved in Amol Sarva's Kickstarter project to create Q is for Queens, an illustrated alphabetic roadtrip through New York's third borough....
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March 26, 2014

The Velveteen Rabbit Never Forgets. Never.

I've never liked The Velveteen Rabbit. It feels like it's been coasting into new bookcases based on pure saccharine grandparental nostalgia for decades. But now I'm terrified of it. Mallory Ortberg has ripped the happy facade off another vintage...
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March 17, 2014

It Gets Whiter: Kids Books After The Snowy Day

Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day was one of my favorite books growing up. It wasn't until I was a parent myself that I realized how extraordinary it was, and that before Keats' success, there had been almost no...
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March 16, 2014

It Only Feels Like Forever: On The Passage Of Time In Goodnight Moon

If Burrito Justice had stopped at documenting the clock in Clement Hurd's illustrations for Goodnight Moon, and created this animated gif, and determined that bedtime took a freaking hour and ten minutes [!], it would have been enough. But...
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March 9, 2014

Maurice Sendak's Rosebud: Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Ladder

In 2008, Maurice Sendak told the NY Times about how the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and the sensational trial that followed, freaked his 4-year-old self right out, and generated an anxious fascination with the incident for the rest of his...
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March 5, 2014

Math Is Hard, Let's Go Shopping For Math Books

"5-Year-Olds Can Learn Calculus," says a math education researcher with a book out about teaching calculus to 5-year-olds. I'm all for it, and I'm quite ready to believe that the traditional way the math education system is set up,...
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February 19, 2014

McSweeney's McMullens Kids Books Look Gifty, Promising

McSweeney's has created a children's book imprint called McMullens. Except for an egregious non-adherence to standard usage rules for apostrophes, McSweeney's McMullens books look well-done, thoughtful, and like they would make great gifts. McSweeney's certainly thinks so, because they...
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February 18, 2014

Malebøker Is Norwegian For Coloring Books

Norske Malebøker is a gorgeous-looking anthology of vintage Norwegian picture, activity, and coloring book illustrations, assembled by Einar Økland from his own collection. 50 Watts has a typically amazing selection of images in a rich and beautiful variety of...
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February 12, 2014

The Runaway Bunny: No Escape

Mallory Ortberg's insidious rewrite of The Runaway Bunny is so terrifyingly awesome, it might finally break that damn book's treacly stranglehold on our culture. Deep down, I know Margaret Wise Brown would approve. You KNOW Clement Hurd does:"If you...
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