A Publisher Goes to Nursery School

When a promising young manuscript comes in, we take it to school
with us for children's editorial criticism. Children, especially younger
children, think differently than grown-ups. Three-year-olds, for in-
stance, think it's uproariously funny to call an elephant a mouse or a
frog a chicken. That's their idea of the biggest joke in the world, per-
haps because they have just learned for sure that an elephant is always
an elephant. It's surprisingly difficult for grown-ups to keep seeing
things freshly as children do.

This is partly because the child's world changes but the adult's remem-
brance of his own childhood stays static. Margaret Wise Brown, our
experienced editor, found, when she tried out the manuscript of THE
NOISY BOOK on a group, that children no longer recognized what she
thought of as an automobile horn, and she had to delete "honk honk"
in favor of the 1939 model. Perhaps this changing world accounts for
the cold shoulder which greets many of our childhood favorites when
we read them to the child of today.

Miss Mary Gould Davis of the New York Public Library was trying out Gertrude Stein's new children's book, *THE WORLD IS ROUND*, in manuscript on a group of Irish and Italian children. She had not had a chance to look it over ahead of time and was having some trouble with the punctuation, which was not as she had learned it in school. A nine-year-old girl sitting next to Miss Davis kept pounding her on the knee when she faltered in her reading. Finally the little girl couldn't stand it any longer. "Give it to me," she said. "I can read it better than that." And to Miss Davis' astonishment she took it and read along without a hitch. Later we tried *THE WORLD IS ROUND* on grown-ups too, for Miss Stein wanted to punctuate it so it could be read easily.

We rather wish we had gone in for grown-up try outs on our children's books last year. *THE LITTLE FIREMAN*, printed in seven colors, was so full of color that to our dismay some grown-ups didn't think children would like it! We knew this wasn't so because the teacher in charge of four-year-olds at the Bank Street Nursery School had sent back the tattered sheets of their try out copy in a box with enclosed card saying, "This was our favorite book."

There are many adults who, through observation and continual association with children, are qualified to suggest, help, or criticize in the making of a children's book. However, there is almost always something that will unexpectedly catch the child's favor, or some unforeseen reaction that is as valuable as the most assured and qualified advice. So, when a promising young manuscript comes in, we take it to school with us for editorial criticism.

WILLIAM R. SCOTT, publisher
JOHN G. MCCULLOUGH, editor
MARGARET WISE BROWN, children's editor