LW first met MWB in the basement of [publisher
William R.] Scott’s house, which served as the publishing company’s office. The
room was full of beautiful early American Windsor chairs. LW’s agent had put him in
touch with Scott about possibly illustrating [Gertrude Stein’s children’s book] The
World Is Round. MWB and he talked for hours. He was given a copy of Stein’s
manuscript to read. LW told MWB about the books he read as a child—a collection of
Mother Goose rhymes, for instance, which was poorly illustrated. He spoke about the
sentimental “strawberries and cream” school of children’s illustration,
which they agreed had no backbone. During one of their first conversations he also spoke
about Julian Huxley’s writings on animal language and animal perception. This
conversation became the inspiration for The Noisy Book.
Bank Street children had class between nine and twelve. LW
remembers going with MWB to the nursery school to work on The Noisy Book. They
did this a few times, to test the book and see if it got the children's approval. LW says
the children were atypical
-- hyper-intelligent and sophisticated -- so that perhaps their reactions were not really
a fair measure of children's responses to the book.
There were about 20 children in the group, all sitting in low
chairs and MWB would read, also sitting in a low chair as was LW, who would hold up each
picture as it came up in relation to the story. |
