Buzz
There are times when reliving childhood feels irresistible. These celebrated authors discreetly explored the world of children’s storytelling. (For more insights into other writers’ creations, check out the blog We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie.)
1. James Joyce
James Joyce, known for crafting some of the most groundbreaking—and complex—works of the 20th century, also found time to write charming tales about cats.
In 1936, Joyce sent two stories to his grandson, Stephen. These tales were eventually published as children’s books: The Cat and the Devil and The Cats of Copenhagen. The Cat and the Devil, inspired by a fable, became Joyce’s first picture book posthumously in the 1960s. The story revolves around a mayor who enlists the devil to construct a bridge. The devil agrees but demands ownership of the first soul to cross it. Upon completion, the mayor cleverly throws a cat across, outsmarting the devil and leaving him with a feline companion.
Joyce’s second tale, The Cats of Copenhagen, was released in 2012.
2. E.E. Cummings
E.E. Cummings, known for his 12 volumes of poetry, novels, plays, and essays, also crafted four stories for his daughter Nancy. These were compiled in a 1965 collection titled Fairy Tales. The stories include The Old Man Who Said "Why," The Elephant and the Butterfly, and The House that Ate Mosquito Pie. The most whimsical of these is The Little Girl named I, a creative exploration of nouns. At the end, the girl named “I” encounters another girl named “you.”
3. Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair, often described as “a man with every gift except humor and silence,” dedicated his career to critiquing societal and political issues. Yet, he also embraced moments of levity. In 1936, the famed muckraker published The Gnomobile: A Gnice Gnew Gnarrative with Gnonsense, but Gnothing Gnaughty.
The story follows a young girl named Elizabeth who stumbles upon the last two gnomes, Bobo and Glogo, residing in the Redwood Forest. These gnomes are wary of humans due to their destructive habits, like cutting down trees. After earning their trust, Elizabeth takes her gnome companions on a cross-country journey to find others of their kind. Sinclair subtly weaves in critiques of industrialization and environmental harm. In 1967, Walt Disney adapted Sinclair’s whimsical tale into a film.
4. Ernest Hemingway
In 1951, Holiday Magazine featured Ernest Hemingway’s sole children’s stories: The Good Lion and The Faithful Bull. Hemingway is believed to have written these fables for Adriana Ivancich, his Venetian muse, and her young nephew.
The Good Lion tells the tale of a winged lion with a penchant for pasta. When he travels to Africa, he faces ridicule from other lions for his uniqueness. Despite the taunts, the lion remains kind-hearted and refuses to retaliate. In true Hemingway fashion, he eventually soars away from his tormentors.
"'Adios,' he said, for he spoke beautiful Spanish, being a lion of culture."
The Faithful Bull is a playful twist on Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand, which follows a bull who prefers flowers over fighting. Hemingway begins with a bold statement:
“Once there was a bull, and his name wasn’t Ferdinand. He had no interest in flowers. Instead, he thrived on combat, challenging bulls of all ages and earning the title of champion.”
The bull is eventually moved to a pasture for breeding, where he becomes enamored with a stunning cow. Despite his newfound love, his passion for bullfighting draws him back to the ring, where he meets his fate at the hands of a matador.
5. Aldous Huxley
A dozen years after completing Brave New World, Aldous Huxley crafted a story for his niece titled The Crows of Pearblossom. Four years after Huxley’s passing, Random House released the tale as an illustrated book. The narrative centers on Mr. and Mrs. Crow and their troublesome neighbor, Mr. Snake, who repeatedly steals and devours their eggs. Determined to outsmart him, the Crows replace their eggs with fake ones. When Mr. Snake consumes them, he suffers severe stomach pain and ultimately perishes.
6. John Updike
John Updike, renowned for his numerous novels and two Pulitzer Prizes, also authored five children’s books: A Helpful Alphabet of Friendly Objects, Bottom’s Dream, The Magic Flute, The Ring, and A Child’s Calendar.
In A Helpful Alphabet, Updike composed a poem for each letter of the alphabet, focusing on everyday objects. His son captured these objects in photographs. Here’s the entry for the letter K:
“A knot is what happens to string, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Untying one is a challenge for both adults and children. It requires patience, focus, and a bit of luck. And why is it spelled with a K? That’s another mystery altogether.”
Three of Updike’s additional children’s books—Bottom’s Dream, The Magic Flute, and The Ring—are imaginative retellings inspired by the music of Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Wagner. His fifth work, A Child’s Calendar, features 12 poems, each dedicated to a different month of the year.
7. Salman Rushdie
Two years after the release of The Satanic Verses, Rushdie published Haroun and the Sea of Stories. This enchanting tale centers on Rashid, a storyteller who has lost his creative spark. His son, Haroun, embarks on a journey with his father to reignite his imagination. The story underscores a powerful message: Stories are fundamental to shaping who we are.
In 2010, Rushdie authored a young adult novel titled Luka and the Fire of Life.
8. Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco, celebrated for his novel Foucault’s Pendulum, also authored three children’s books: The Three Astronauts, The Bomb and the General, and The Gnomes of Gnu.
Each of these books carries a subtle political message. The Three Astronauts promotes tolerance and multiculturalism, featuring an American, Russian, and Chinese astronaut who land on a distant planet and realize their similarities. The Bomb and the General advocates for peace, focusing on sentient atoms trapped in an atomic bomb. These atoms escape at night, rendering the bomb useless and leading humanity to abandon war. The Gnomes of Gnu is an environmental allegory where a space explorer, fleeing Earth’s climate crisis, encounters gnomes on the planet Gnu who reject human civilization due to its destructive nature.
9. T.S. Eliot
Similar to Joyce, T.S. Eliot had a fondness for cat stories. In the 1930s, he wrote several tales about cats for his godchildren under the pen name Old Possum. These stories were later compiled into Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in 1939. Here’s a glimpse:
“I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots; Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger strips and Leopard spots All day she sits upon the stair on the steps or on the mat She sits and sits and sits and sits—and that’s what makes A Gumbie Cat!”
Andrew Lloyd Webber considered Practical Cats a “beloved childhood favorite,” and it served as the inspiration for his iconic musical, CATS.
10. Gertrude Stein
In 1938, Young Scott Books approached several renowned authors to write children’s books. While some declined, Gertrude Stein eagerly accepted, as she already had a partially completed manuscript. This draft evolved into The World is Round, a philosophical tale about a young girl’s quest to understand the world. Here’s a glimpse:
“Once upon a time, the world was round, and you could travel around it endlessly. Everywhere was a place filled with men, women, children, dogs, cows, wild pigs, little rabbits, cats, lizards, and other creatures. That’s how it was. And everyone—dogs, cats, sheep, rabbits, lizards, and children—wanted to share their stories and tell others about themselves.”
Stein incorporated her famous phrase, “A rose is a rose is a rose,” which she often used in her writings, into The World is Round. The protagonist, a girl named Rose, carves the words “Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose” around a tree until it forms a complete circle.
11. James Baldwin
“He aimed to avoid fantasy, focusing instead on the realities of black childhood,” James Baldwin’s niece, Aisha Karefa-Smart, explained to The New York Times about his children’s book, Little Man Little Man. The story follows TJ, a 4-year-old boy inspired by Baldwin’s nephew, who plays ball in the streets, witnesses older boys using drugs, and has nightmares about police violence. Here’s a passage:
“A few times, a car nearly hit him. But that’s nothing. One day, he’ll be a bigger star than Hank Aaron. As soon as he grows a little older, he’ll be jumping over rooftops.”
As reported by the Times, when the book first debuted in 1976, “critics were baffled by its experimental, ambiguous style, which blurred the lines between children’s and adult literature. It received mixed reviews and soon went out of print.” Duke University Press reissued the book in 2018.
12. Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy had a deep affection for children. In 1859, the nobleman established a school for peasant children on his estate. He also authored educational books for his pupils. Tolstoy shared stories of his own childhood, adapted Aesop’s Fables and Hindu tales, and created whimsical fairy tales such as Ivan the Fool and The Peasant and the Cucumbers. After writing, he read these stories to his harshest critics—the children at his schools—and revised them based on their feedback until they were satisfied. These tales were later published in two primers, the ABC Book and the New ABC Book, which became essential texts in Russian schools.
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