Does anyone out there on the internets have any information about an old book called Kintu: A Congo Adventure by old-timey children's author Elizabeth Enright? Unlike her other books, this one seems to have vanished down the memory hole which, when combined with the title, makes one suspect it's incredibly racist or something. But is that true? Conventional research methods -- Google, Wikipedia, using Google to find Wikipedia pages -- don't reveal much.
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Random Old Children's Book Bleg
29 Nov 2007 08:48 am
Comments (27)
"Conventional research methods"
Um, where I come from that means getting off your butt and going to the library.
Yeah the library would work as well. I show copies at the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress and the Washington Research Library Consortium.
Donnell Library at 20 E. 57th Street has two copies in the children's stacks just waiting for your visit.
How can Matt visit Donnell library when he's busy eating bagels in the land-next-to-the-land-of-chocolate?
I had this book Matt -- but my daughter's room is a rat hole, so I cannot guarantee its still there.
Kintu is unlike any of Enright's other books -- a very early effort and she personally illustrated it. The art is very deco influenced and kitschy -- it has the look and attitude of the era and may have some associations that seem offensive this day and age. I recall when I finally got my hands on it, I thumbed through it and decided not to read it to my young daughter. We went through a stage after reading Gone Away Lake when she wanted every book this author wrote.
Do take note readers: don't let descriptions of Kintu frighten you from this wonderful author's other books. Much of classic children's literature written in the last couple hundred years has offensive passages. For instance, one book of the Chronicles of Narnia could certainly be understood as being racist. A couple of weeks ago I was reading Anne of Green Gables out loud and stumbled into some blatantly anti-semitic passages. I'm jewish, so I skipped over these parts when I caught them. The rest of the book was worthwhile -- so needless to say we did not BURN it.
Matt -- have you tried searching for Kintu on ABE, ALIBRIS or ebay? I'll send it to you if I can find it.
I'm sure old people will hate hearing this, but your average Library will pale in comparison to the internet in terms of a research tool. Sure, everything you learn may not be completely accurate, but that was always true with the dead trees, too. You just weren't confronted with 13 other books saying that book 1 is wrong the same way you are with google or wikipedia.
Is this bleg in any way related to that post about Gucci baby carriers last week?
Soullite,
Not when the research in question is best done by looking at the primary material, in this case a copy of Kintu, which is apparently not online but found in numerous librarys.
Not when the research in question is best done by looking at the primary material, in this case a copy of Kintu, which is apparently not online but found in numerous librarys [sic].
Primary material is so pre-internet, dude. Opinion is the new content.
You are in DC right? If so the Library of Congress does have this in the collection:
Kintu, written and illustrated by Elizabeth Enright. New York, Farrar and Rinehart, inc., 1935.
LC Call Number: PZ9.E57 Ki
(PZ material has to be special ordered - it is off site).
I just found it on Amazon. I've never heard of it, but I remember liking "The Four-Story Mistake" by the same author when I was a kid.
And if you wish to look it up without walking, try (http://worldcat.org) --- I believe it is part of the latest iteration of OCLC --- which shows several copies you can get on interlibrary loan (if you have a local library of course).
"Conventional research methods, indeed" mutters my librarian - wife.
Bookfinder.com shows several copies for sale from $13 to $253....
haven't read this one, but enright is the best.
thimble summer is pure gold for elementary age kids, and the melendy series (saturdays, four story mistake, then there were five, and spiderweb for two) are awesome reading for any age.
the two gone aways are good, too, but the melendy series is her best.
As a middle school librarian, it is interesting to find books with the "casual" racism from earlier time periods. Books like Doctor Doolittle and Little Black Sambo were a part of our childhood. As a matter of fact Lester Julius and Jerry Pinkney have updated the later book in Sam and the Tigers to very good reviews.
Bookfinder.com shows several copies for sale from $13 to $253....
The $253 copy is a first edition, in dust jacket, signed by the author, and the price includes shipping. You can't afford not to buy it.
oy.
"I'm sure old people will hate hearing this, but your average Library will pale in comparison to the internet in terms of a research tool."
I'm only a couple of years older than Matt, so I'm not old. I am a librarian, though, and it pains me to see this web vs. library thing on my favorite blog, as if librarians are not allowed to use the web.
I too start almost all of my research with google, etc. But, i'm way better at using google than matt yglesias is, just as he's way better than I am at writing blog posts about all things political, etc. Plus, and more importantly, I know about lots of other resources on the public web, as well as websites that my library pays to access, in addition to print sources. (for example Worldcat.org, which lists the holdings of libraries, everywhere).
"Use your library" doesn't have to mean "go to the library and look through books." It should mean, "take advantage of the fact that there are places where people do research all day every day, and they're very good at it."
When you're interested in the illustratoins in a fairly obscure children's book first published in 1935, Google and Wikipedia are a pretty pathetic attempt at "research methods." There may come a time when everything is on the internet, but it's not here yet, and it's a little silly to think it is. It took a couple of us about 5 minutes to find three libraries where Matt could find an answer to his question. Hope he's off to one of them.
Ah.... Elizabeth Enright was a favorite author in my childhood. Enjoyed Gone Away Lake, The Saturdays, et al., and especially Tatsinda, a lovely fantasy with gorgeous watercolor and pen & ink illustrations by Irene Haas, who also illustrated Zeee by Enright.
Seconding what Laurie Allen said, I would point out that David in NY, who advised "getting off your butt and going to the library," presumably learned about the copies at Donnell Library by remaining on his butt at his computer, rather than getting off it and going there.
I have this book! It isn't racist at all, unless you count caricatures of jigaboos as racism.
David in NY "learned about the copies at Donnell Library by remaining on his butt at his computer, rather than getting off it and going there"
Of course. And I am grateful for all the stuff the internets do. But I can't read the damn book on it, at least not yet. Still gotta get off my butt and go to the stacks for that. It's true of a lot of stuff I want to know, even now. But I'm not the one who wants to read the book -- Matt is. So it's off to the lib, if he wants the answer to his question.
the melendy series is her best
Just stellar. I reread the series just recently (for my own pleasure, at the age of 65!) and enjoyed it as much as I had the first time.
Jonathan, Soullite: Matt's question was about the book's content, now whether it exists. He knows it exists. The internet revealed nothing about its content (except through helpful readers), the library has an actual copy.
I like the internet, I find that librarians are often unnecessarily hostile to it, but there's plenty of content that you can't find "sitting on your butt", at least for the time being.
Go to Alibris.com, an online seller of rare/used/out-of-print books:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?title=Kintu+A+Congo+Adventure
Comments closed December 13, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators
p143
says it has caricatured illustrations of African children that some may find offensive
Posted by J | November 29, 2007 9:17 AM