I loved Richard Scarry as a child—still do!—and I'm convinced his books really helped build up my vocabulary as I learned English in first grade.
A detail I only mentally noted as an adult: the butchers in his books are always pigs themselves. A pig selling ham, sausages and, presumably, cuts of pork is a bit morbid (and also hilarious in a black humor sort of way), but it fits in with the world so much that I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
I still remember one of the books I had as a child—can't recall the title exactly—that had a bunch of urban scenes with various objects labeled. What really stood out were the little details and funny little stories going on. The stories and the humor got me to pay attention and actually care about the objects (and their labels!) far more than any generic vocabulary book for kids.
What I love about Richard Scarry is that he is never patronizing or condescending. Too many authors of children's books either try to write down to kids, try to write what they think kids ought to read, or both. But kids aren't idiots and they can tell! Well, I can't speak for everyone, but at least as a kid myself I found a lot of children's works either patronizing or unpleasant—works that were trying too hard to be childlike or, especially, works that were transparent morality plays.
Scarry's work is nothing like this at all. It's oriented for and accessible to kids, but it manages to be simple and silly in a genuine way. The art and stories are actually cute and funny rather than caricatures of what an adult thinks a child would find cute and funny. You can tell Scarry was making something he would enjoy himself. That's why I loved his books when I was five and why I still love his books now.
It's hard to find other children's books like that. I collect illustrated books and the majority I see in stores are awful. The most successful exception I've seen are books by Joe Klassen (of I Want My Hat fame) along with his common collaborator Mac Barnett. Their books are legitimately funny and visually attractive to adults, they're willing to write stories that aren't entirely saccharine, and children absolutely love them. I've seen that first-hand.
> A detail I only mentally noted as an adult: the butchers in his books are always pigs themselves. A pig selling ham, sausages and, presumably, cuts of pork is a bit morbid (and also hilarious in a black humor sort of way), but it fits in with the world so much that I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
My wife was quite sad when I suggested to her that "this little piggie went to market" was in fact the farmer taking the pig to the market to be butchered, and that "this little piggie went wee wee wee all the way home" was probably a piglet taken from its family to replace the "now big enough to sell" pig....
Some don’t, some do. A colleagues daughter who is 4 had the realization that chicken is… chickens, which are cute and funny and nice to pet. She won’t eat chicken now.
The colleague keeps chickens for eggs so she’s exposed to them on a daily basis, so maybe that’s where the difference lies. A pig isn’t a common animal kept in a household or even most backyard farms so a child might not have much exposure to them.
My 3yo realized that sausages were pigs. He asked does that mean pigs eat sausages made of humans? Can WE eat sausages made of humans if we run out of sausages made of pigs?
My colleague was transported to mental health institution with an escort of police straight from the office. And was kept there for 2 weeks. People are treated like trash by other people. I don’t want to think about industrial animal farming. It’s probably the worst of the worst.
> I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
I think that the best children's books always have something in them that will be appreciated later. They can be read and re-read as one grows older. Probably the greatest prose exponent was Lewis Carroll.
> The most successful exception I've seen are books by Joe Klassen (of I Want My Hat fame)...
If you haven't read it The Dark[1] (his collaboration with Lemony Snicket) is also great; my kids absolutely love the voices I do for the animals in I Want My Hat Back and for the titular Dark.
I read it as a child in our daily newspaper. My children now read it in the books we have. I don't know who the target audience was for newspaper comic pages, but I don't think it was restricted to adults.
I can still recall my impressions from reading these books at five years old, and the difference between them and the world I eventually entered does make me sad.
I’ve been struck by how the world is depicted to my children in so many children’s books. “As you grow, you’ll be able to slot into a happy productive life, no matter what kind of work you like.”
No joke: every time I read my daughter a Richard Scarry book, I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
Think about what it would be like to grow up or to raise children in a world where the ramp to adulthood was incredibly wide and smooth and it was near-impossible to fall off a cliff into poverty, loneliness, or a life of work you hate.
Busytown isn’t a real place, but it was obviously designed to give children some sense of what the world is like or supposed to be like.
I don't disagree that young people (at least in the US) are told a lie like "Do what you love and the money will follow." I fell for that and tried to become research scientist, getting a far as receiving a PhD only to find that the funnel from there to a tenured research job was _extremely_ narrow. That's a giant waste of many motivated people's time. And it does need to be fixed.
But is the source of all this Richard Scarry books? I really doubt it. It's okay to give a rosy view of the world to children. Childhood is the longest and best vacation you'll ever take. But there does need to be an incrementally higher dose of "real talk" as children grow into young adults.
Maybe I should have been more clear: I see this as a problem with the real world, not with children’s books. The books are good. What’s busted is that so many adults don’t see such a world as worth building and working towards.
Adults correctly see there's nothing they can individually do that would have detectable effect toward such a goal. So, the cost/benefit ratio is a loser.
But you see, the marginal benefit of individual action is always low, even if there are others that are collectively acting. It pays to defect and let those other people do the job.
That's easily resolved by being a kind of person who experiences empathy involuntarily, and finds it hard to ignore injustice let alone participate in it. This makes defection more expensive than cooperation.
No, that doesn't easily resolve it. Resolving it would require everyone else (or, at least, a large fraction of them) to be like that. This is basically solving social problems by imagining humanity is other than it is.
The only way to solve collective action problems in the real world is via coercion. That is, government.
Yes, but I'm not sure that the job is to 'change the world' - I don't want to fend off those who think they know what I need. I think it's more about changing oneself to align with what one finds here, whilst trying to remain true to oneself.
Do you think the animals in Busytown are all working their dream jobs and following their passions? Of course not -- as someone else pointed out, the butchers are all pigs!
But they mostly seem to have found something that they like well enough and contributes to society. And perhaps that's an important lesson to take away. Part of living a happy, fulfilling life is finding joy in what's attainable.
> But they mostly seem to have found something that they like well enough and contributes to society. And perhaps that's an important lesson to take away. Part of living a happy, fulfilling life is finding the joy within what is attainable.
I fully agree about all of this. The sad fact is that, in my country, a person with this humble and contented perspective is rolling the dice when it comes to housing, health, and autonomy, and many of them lead unnecessarily stressful and lives with no time/energy for community or creative development. That’s the part I would like to see fixed.
Almost every children's book that depicts a serious issue, such as racism, tells a complete story where the problem is solved and is no longer a problem. I believe this is a big part of why so many people think that racism (again, for example) isn't a problem anymore.
Because, they learned, from a very young age, and for many years, that such problems were solved.
There is a very strong and understandable impulse for children's books to be comforting, and to shy away from un-answered questions. This, as you point out, leads to a warped view of reality that parents then should correct.
I think it's less children's books and more decades of propaganda from right wing sources decrying things like affirmative action, DEI etc. If some are to be believed, white men are the most discriminated group in the US.
I have sort of the opposite feeling reading some children's books to my son, especially ones that I can remember from my own childhood. It's great for me to remember to look at the world in a more childlike way. Even though I have more responsibilities as an adult, like bills to pay, I also have the freedom to be silly, enjoy time with my family, do something creative, etc. Any given day I can decide I want to try something new in the kitchen, make a big mess concocting some crazy recipie, maybe decide it didn't work out and go grab a pizza for dinner instead. Or I can write some stories or poetry, or take a sketchbook to the lake, snap some photos at the train station, or whatever catches my fancy on that day. I think we sometimes forget we have certain freedoms as we settle in to typical patterns and go a little on autopilot, but all it takes is a gentle nudge to rediscover that type of fun.
I switched careers later in life after finding that it was difficult to make money in my initially chosen field, but I don't feel "fucked for life" by it. I actually feel a lot better about doing things I like outside of work. It's much more rewarding to be creative if I'm not trying to maximize profits or otherwise commodify what I'm doing. Sure I wish I didn't have to work and could do whatever I wanted all the time, but I work generally acceptable hours at a stomach-able enough job and have time outside work for family and fun and I've made my peace with that.
All of this very much describes my situation in life too. I would just like for that same level of autonomy and freedom to be the default reality for my kids, and people in general, no matter what work they choose to do, even “uninteresting” work, so that they have this kind of ample leisure and autonomy to pursue their interests outside of their jobs. In my country that is very much not the case, not sure about where you live.
- born 1919
- upper middle class life in boston
- started illustrating 1949
- started writing original works 1955
- moved to switzerland 1972
- died 1994
He wasnt alone in his world view at the time. Think about how much the world has changed since.
> No joke: every time I read my daughter a Richard Scarry book, I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
Fight for housing reform.
Fight for every YIMBY proposal that comes up.
Demand drastic zoning reforms.
80% of the problem of affordability in the western world is housing. In the US at least, there is plenty of space left in most major cities (outside of NYC) to dramatically expand and make housing affordable again.
The unaffordability of the modern world is a self caused problem.
People want their house to rise 5% in value every year but are pissed off when restaurant prices go up 10% a year and daycares cost 30k a year.
You know what, how about my house stays flat in value for a decade while wages catch up with housing costs, and in return I get to save 15k a year on daycare and eating out costs 5k a year less and property crime goes back down to reasonable levels?
I'm not sure you are not doing your daughter a lot of good with such a pessimistic outlook on life. You might consider doing some soul searching and try to work out what really matters in life (hint: it isn't money) and then figure out how to adapt. At least externally, if that's what it takes. When my kids were young, my wife and I made a pointed effort to teach our kids to see the wonder in everyday things and situations. Even if they didn't seem all that special to us. That's what most of us have to do.
That aside, Busytown is set in a small town. The culture of towns vary of course, but _generally_, small town life is vastly different from urban or suburban life. There is far less social isolation. (Most) people help each other out without needing to be asked. You may disagree with your neighbor's political opinions but can still have a beer with them in the backyard. And so on.
I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
You have a hand in shaping the world she will grow up in. If this is important to you, keep it in mind at least next Tuesday.
I mean, the books definitely show lots of "real" jobs, and ones people wouldn't necessarily be naturally passionate about.
What's missing is all the bullshit jobs and awful management. But, even if you wanted to, you probably couldn't really convey that in a children's book... Hell, even most adult books fail to capture just how bullshit the bullshit is!
We aren't talking about children here exactly, but I think adults tended to do a disservice to teenagers as I was growing up by not citing the mean employment statistics of certain jobs, especially ones related to the arts. We can thank the generation who survived the great depression and the boomers for this eternal optimism. "Oh well, by the time things really go south I'll be long gone anyway, sorry!"
When I was a teenager, my parents weren't particular involved in my educational choices nor my career plans. I was mostly left to my own devices. Despite this, I was very much aware of the tradeoffs in the educational path I was choosing.
Perhaps it's because I didn't grow up wealthy, but the financial facet of both my education and eventual career was front and center for myself and my friends.
It would have been nice for the adults in my life to have told me these things, but a competent 16-19 year old is also plenty able to ascertain these things themselves.
I absolutely adore Richard Scarry books. I discovered Richard Scarry a couple of months ago when I was looking for books to read for my 3 year old. Now, not a moment goes by in the evenings when we are reading the adventures of Lowly and his seek and find books. It’s a ritual every night. Richard Scarry and the Grumpy Monkey series are a godsend.
I very HIGHLY recommend the Busytown Eye Found It board game. Kids of all ages have a blast with it, and it's even moderately challenging for adults. We played ours so much we basically wore it out.
If you can find the old editions from before they were bowdlerized... they are often much better. Not everything that was pulled was actually offensive.
I'm in my late 40s. I still treasure the high-school graduation gift my parents got me: Richard Scarry autographed one of my well-abused childhood books. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.
Mundane childhood incident that somehow became a core memory: Trying to tell my 2nd grade teacher I wanted to bring a Richard Scarry book to show and tell and she was convinced I was talking about "witches scary" and therefore it would be great for Halloween. I then became incredibly frustrated while trying to enunciate "Richard" in a way that she would understand.
I never experienced Richard Scarry as a child myself. I discovered it for my own children in a pile of books left on someone's stoop to give away. I was immediately blown away by the whimsy and astonishing care put into every detail. My kids obsessively hunted for the "goldbug" on each page of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (although they never developed a taste for finding Waldo).
I was obsessed with Richard Scarry’s intricate drawings as a very small child (which led into devouring all the cutaway books of all sorts of machines as a slightly older child), but I didn’t pick up on the goldbug thing until someone pointed it out a few weeks ago.
I “read” cars and trucks and things that go for my 2 year old every night. He recently found out that goldbug is on every page and now he won’t let me turn the page until we find him. It’s genuinely a lovely book. We got ours from buy nothing, it’s very old and taped up and it has a bunch of writing in it by a kid named Max.
When your son's interest in finding goldbug inevitably flags, what worked for my kiddo was theatrically sighing, "I wish goldbug was on this page. Oh well..." and then acting like I was going to turn the page before I could be corrected. Then you can escalate to "accidentally" covering goldbug up with your thumb and pretending not to know he's under there. It's basically DLC for your board book!
I got the Swedish translation as a kid more than 40 years ago and also spent plenty of time trying to find the goldbug. Still have the book and my kids loved it as well.
Richard Scarry’s books were such a cozy universe growing up, I'd still like to live in "What people do all day." I wonder what that book would look like if he made it today.
I left the Old Country for my adopted country in part because it reminded me of "What do people do all day" – although I was not conscious of the resemblance until my father, having seen the not-a-pig dude from the city coming around with a little vehicle specially outfitted to water various geraniums, pointed it out.
Also something about the characters gives me the cold, dead feel AI generated art (even though they do not appear to be AI generated). Can't put my finger on exactly what it is, though.
The posts are from 2015-2020 so these are definitely human-made. Here's some things that are probably giving you that feeling:
* every pose is pretty static, nobody's actively doing anything, they're just sitting or standing in the middle of their workplace - Scarry's folks are always running around doing something.
* lots and lots of wide eyes with the pupil not touching any part of the edge, which makes them look like a dead doll - I'm looking through some Scarry drawings and he almost never does this, and when he does it's with a much smaller, simpler eye that doesn't require any rendering.
* in general these drawings are much more detailed than Scarry's work, there's a lot of nervous repeated mark-making going on, and that would prove to be a hallmark of AI imagesludge a few years later.
* "cold and dead" might be something being deliberately aimed for here, "look at all these people who are dead inside" is a definite vibe I could see going for with a project like this - Scarry wants you to like everyone he draws and I do not think this artist wants you to like any of these people.
* Scarry's animal people all basically look like cute babies due to his choices of detail and stylization. These all look more like taxidermied animals in a clever pose, due to radically different choices in those domains. One of these things is cute and appealing on an instinctual level. One of these things is kind of creepy.
I was most familiar with the DOS games as a child. They even had Red Book soundtracks of the townsfolk singing about various professions. Building the house was my favorite activity back then.
I read his books every day when really young. He created such a great world to imagine. The note about him moving to Switzerland makes sense - his world did feel really European now that I think about it.
My kids, now grown, did not get to experience his books - are his books sold widely anymore?
His books are still kicking around, although not as big as they used to be. My toddler has a few.
They're still lovely books, but I think they're less popular mostly because they're a bit dated now; lots of obsolete jobs and few female animals doing any of the cool jobs.
I have a 5yo daughter, and I appreciate that *What Do People Do All Day?* have female characters in homemaker roles, which is still common in most of the world. Many of her other books have female protagonists doing everything else.
Part of an education should be learning how other people live, whether it's in the past or in another part of the world. And of course, there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker today.
> I have a 5yo daughter, and I appreciate that What Do People Do All Day? have female characters in homemaker roles, which is still common in most of the world. Many of her other books have female protagonists doing everything else.
Is that a new copy or an old one?
The newer editions of Best Word Book Ever were updated to be less stereotypical (I think there's a gallery somewhere that shows the changes). Unfortunately the updated art is noticeably inferior (even to my untrained eye), and in some places kinda dumb (on one page I think they decided they needed more girls, so they phoned it in and slapped a big "LISA" on the shirt of some androgynous animal). Also they dropped A LOT of content, so the newer editions are something like half as long.
Richard Scarry's books are problematic because of the reasons you stated, and I think there were issues with ethnic and gender stereotypes as well (similar to issues with Dr. Seuss). He updated some of them in the 90s to reflect changing mores, but I don't know if those efforts reached all of them.
Yes, you can buy them. When I was a child, my friend owned the "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" book and I spent hours browsing the book by myself when visiting him. When I had children, it was one of the first books that I bought, and they loved it, too, although not quite as much as me. It is a great present for young children if you don't want to bring a Nintendo gift card.
I loved Richard Scarry when I was little, although I think it instilled in me a belief that the world was in a constant state of chaos. (maybe that’s accurate.)
My toddler is now obsessed with them and demands “CARS AND TRUCKS”, “SITE” or “HOUSE” every night at bedtime.
'Chaos' is a great observation. I only had a couple of Scarry books as a child but there was something dynamic about them compared to most children's books and I think it was the frenetic and chaotic nature of them. There was always a pickle barrel spilling over, or oranges rolling across a road.
I didn't even know what a pickle barrel was, but it obviously made a mess when someone crashed into it.
Mr Frumble the apple man has dumped his load of apples on the road by mistake. Lowly thought he had the only apple (n.b. Lowly worm is driving his apple shaped car) on the road, but my isn’t he mistaken!
The overwhelming & pervasive chaos in all the illustrations kinda bugs me. I wonder if it puts the wrong ideas in a kid's head. Or else I'm just lamous.
Cars and Trucks and Things That Go is a child favorite and What Do People Do All Day has great depictions of saw mills, flour mills, power plants, and more, but I like Richard Scarry’s I Am a Bunny the most: The pages are filled edge-to-edge with his vibrant illustrations (no whitespace as in his other books) and the story by Ole Risom describes the timeless passing of the seasons.
Looked at Richard Scarry's books on google images in hopes to find a book I read as a kid but don't remember its name or much of it. Richard's art is similarly colorful but Writing it here in hopes someone else may know?
There were some blobby looking ice-cream/sundae in it. And a picture story where someone made very tall icecream. So tall that a helicopter was putting scoops on top (or may be it was placing the cherry on top, but i remember that helicopter touching that icecream). It was a colorful cartoony style art in the book.
Having strong imagination as a kid, the pictures in this book always felt real (hard to explain). Then I remember looking at this book many years later as a grown up and not feeling them as real. It's been many many years since then and I want to have a glimpse again.
I initially thought my 1.5 year old didn’t quite have the attention span for Cars and Trucks and Things that Go yet, but recently, after learning the word bus, he picked it up and dutifully started going through each page and finding all of the buses.
I remember the books as a staple of pediatricians' waiting rooms, and we had some at home, too. Scarry also published a book on how to draw things--cars, I recall, I suppose people and animals.
> There were, of course, obstacles. One of the less appealing features of Golden’s business practice was that, with rare exceptions, they offered no royalties. This arrangement nagged at Scarry, especially after his and Patricia’s son Huck was born in 1953, so in 1955 he finally asked the imposing white-haired and lavender-blue-eyed Lucille Ogle for a revised contract that included royalties—and an advance. She readily agreed. Surprised, Scarry asked why she hadn’t offered such a deal earlier. “Because you never asked,” she replied.
It's interesting to see relatively new works that have been beloved by generations of my immediate family.
Richard Scary's illustrstions were absolute favorites for myself, my siblings and all of our offspring when we were looking at books before we learned to read, and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster later became our favorite book as young readers.
I still remember looking at these with my mother when I was small. We loved to hunt for Gold Bug. She told me later in life that her favorite was, "Lowly worm washes his face and foot." (He always wore a sock and shoe on the end of his tail.)
Bought some of these when my kids were between 3-5 yo. Several years ago they re-published a series of them, including the cars and trucks, what do people do all day, the funny stories, and a few others (I think 6 books in total). I got the entire series at B&N, they were easily the favorite books of my youngest who was about 4 or 5 at the time. I had no idea they were so old!
For something that's more of a substantial story than things like Cars & Trucks or Busy Busy Town, let me put in a word for Peasant Pig and the Terrible Dragon. My kids had it pretty much memorized long before they could read it for themselves.
Richard Scarry was a resident of my former hometown of Ridgefield, CT, as was fellow author-illustrator Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). My school's librarian recommended his books with particular pride.
Come to think of it, a lot of children's authors seem to have lived in that area, western CT or eastern upstate NY. Some, including Judy Hawes and Jean Van Leeuwen, came to visit my school to talk about their books, reading in general, etc.
In college I referred to the textbooks used by Management Information Systems majors as "Richard Scarry books" because they were full of colorful, busy illustrations and light on technical detail.
For a very long time - maybe years - every night I would ask my little boy what he wanted me to read him at bedtime.
ALWAYS he would say "Robber Book!" which was a Richard Scarry book that had a couple of robbers/burglars in it. In hindsight it was the cars he liked the most - cars are a major feature of Richard Scarry books and my little boy was car crazy from the moment he was born it seems.
I loved Richard Scarry as a child—still do!—and I'm convinced his books really helped build up my vocabulary as I learned English in first grade.
A detail I only mentally noted as an adult: the butchers in his books are always pigs themselves. A pig selling ham, sausages and, presumably, cuts of pork is a bit morbid (and also hilarious in a black humor sort of way), but it fits in with the world so much that I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
I still remember one of the books I had as a child—can't recall the title exactly—that had a bunch of urban scenes with various objects labeled. What really stood out were the little details and funny little stories going on. The stories and the humor got me to pay attention and actually care about the objects (and their labels!) far more than any generic vocabulary book for kids.
What I love about Richard Scarry is that he is never patronizing or condescending. Too many authors of children's books either try to write down to kids, try to write what they think kids ought to read, or both. But kids aren't idiots and they can tell! Well, I can't speak for everyone, but at least as a kid myself I found a lot of children's works either patronizing or unpleasant—works that were trying too hard to be childlike or, especially, works that were transparent morality plays.
Scarry's work is nothing like this at all. It's oriented for and accessible to kids, but it manages to be simple and silly in a genuine way. The art and stories are actually cute and funny rather than caricatures of what an adult thinks a child would find cute and funny. You can tell Scarry was making something he would enjoy himself. That's why I loved his books when I was five and why I still love his books now.
It's hard to find other children's books like that. I collect illustrated books and the majority I see in stores are awful. The most successful exception I've seen are books by Joe Klassen (of I Want My Hat fame) along with his common collaborator Mac Barnett. Their books are legitimately funny and visually attractive to adults, they're willing to write stories that aren't entirely saccharine, and children absolutely love them. I've seen that first-hand.
> A detail I only mentally noted as an adult: the butchers in his books are always pigs themselves. A pig selling ham, sausages and, presumably, cuts of pork is a bit morbid (and also hilarious in a black humor sort of way), but it fits in with the world so much that I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
Also: every scarecrow has a crow sitting on it.
I hadn't noticed that. It's an absolutely hilarious little touch.
My wife was quite sad when I suggested to her that "this little piggie went to market" was in fact the farmer taking the pig to the market to be butchered, and that "this little piggie went wee wee wee all the way home" was probably a piglet taken from its family to replace the "now big enough to sell" pig....
My 3 year old recently picked up a sausage and asked "did this used to be a pig?"
"Yes, that used to be a pig."
"OK!" and popped it into his mouth.
Kids really don't care.
Some don’t, some do. A colleagues daughter who is 4 had the realization that chicken is… chickens, which are cute and funny and nice to pet. She won’t eat chicken now.
The colleague keeps chickens for eggs so she’s exposed to them on a daily basis, so maybe that’s where the difference lies. A pig isn’t a common animal kept in a household or even most backyard farms so a child might not have much exposure to them.
Just a thought, dunno.
My 3yo realized that sausages were pigs. He asked does that mean pigs eat sausages made of humans? Can WE eat sausages made of humans if we run out of sausages made of pigs?
If you wish to enjoy sausage, it's probably best not to enquire into how swine are raised and kept in our time.
My colleague was transported to mental health institution with an escort of police straight from the office. And was kept there for 2 weeks. People are treated like trash by other people. I don’t want to think about industrial animal farming. It’s probably the worst of the worst.
I think she'd always imagined a pig with a hat and overalls walking down the street to buy the sunday newspaper...
Support your local farmer.
> I didn't even think twice about it as a kid. It just slid past me.
I think that the best children's books always have something in them that will be appreciated later. They can be read and re-read as one grows older. Probably the greatest prose exponent was Lewis Carroll.
Like the giving tree. That one hits deep
I think also they put something in for the parents so reading the same book over and over and over to your kids isn't as boring.
See https://kieranhealy.org/files/misc/levimartin.pdf
"What do animals do all day?": The division of labor, class bodies, and totemic thinking in the popular imagination (2000)
> Keywords: Animals; Totemism; Class body; Busytown; Symbolic domination; Division of labor
(36pp, not entirely serious, about which animals do what in Busytown; contrasted with Babar, etc.)
> The most successful exception I've seen are books by Joe Klassen (of I Want My Hat fame)...
If you haven't read it The Dark[1] (his collaboration with Lemony Snicket) is also great; my kids absolutely love the voices I do for the animals in I Want My Hat Back and for the titular Dark.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Bccb-Ribbon-Picture-Awards/dp/03...
The Pooh books are like that. There's a bit of wry adult humor sprinkled in with it, too.
Other cartoons "for kids" with an adult track in them:
SpongeBob (the first couple seasons)
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Calvin and Hobbes
I don’t think that was ever aimed at children
I read it as a child in our daily newspaper. My children now read it in the books we have. I don't know who the target audience was for newspaper comic pages, but I don't think it was restricted to adults.
> I still remember one of the books I had as a child—can't recall the title exactly—that had a bunch of urban scenes with various objects labeled.
I have this in my son's room. It's called "Busy Busy Town".
I can still recall my impressions from reading these books at five years old, and the difference between them and the world I eventually entered does make me sad.
I’ve been struck by how the world is depicted to my children in so many children’s books. “As you grow, you’ll be able to slot into a happy productive life, no matter what kind of work you like.”
No joke: every time I read my daughter a Richard Scarry book, I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
Think about what it would be like to grow up or to raise children in a world where the ramp to adulthood was incredibly wide and smooth and it was near-impossible to fall off a cliff into poverty, loneliness, or a life of work you hate.
Busytown isn’t a real place, but it was obviously designed to give children some sense of what the world is like or supposed to be like.
This is an overly dour take on children's books.
I don't disagree that young people (at least in the US) are told a lie like "Do what you love and the money will follow." I fell for that and tried to become research scientist, getting a far as receiving a PhD only to find that the funnel from there to a tenured research job was _extremely_ narrow. That's a giant waste of many motivated people's time. And it does need to be fixed.
But is the source of all this Richard Scarry books? I really doubt it. It's okay to give a rosy view of the world to children. Childhood is the longest and best vacation you'll ever take. But there does need to be an incrementally higher dose of "real talk" as children grow into young adults.
Maybe I should have been more clear: I see this as a problem with the real world, not with children’s books. The books are good. What’s busted is that so many adults don’t see such a world as worth building and working towards.
Adults correctly see there's nothing they can individually do that would have detectable effect toward such a goal. So, the cost/benefit ratio is a loser.
I used to think this way too. My outlook on life transformed when I found out about this amazing concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action
But you see, the marginal benefit of individual action is always low, even if there are others that are collectively acting. It pays to defect and let those other people do the job.
That's easily resolved by being a kind of person who experiences empathy involuntarily, and finds it hard to ignore injustice let alone participate in it. This makes defection more expensive than cooperation.
No, that doesn't easily resolve it. Resolving it would require everyone else (or, at least, a large fraction of them) to be like that. This is basically solving social problems by imagining humanity is other than it is.
The only way to solve collective action problems in the real world is via coercion. That is, government.
The story is right, but reality is wrong?
Perhaps you have an issue with interpretation here. The pleasant story was the illusion here.
PS - I too loved the Richard Scarry books as a child and bought them for my children - and I'm not even from the US.
All I’m saying is that we ought to make a conscious effort to build the world that is more aligned with the world we’d like to explain to our kids.
I think stories that describe better possibilities than what we have are useful cognitive and social tools.
Yes, but I'm not sure that the job is to 'change the world' - I don't want to fend off those who think they know what I need. I think it's more about changing oneself to align with what one finds here, whilst trying to remain true to oneself.
Do you think the animals in Busytown are all working their dream jobs and following their passions? Of course not -- as someone else pointed out, the butchers are all pigs!
But they mostly seem to have found something that they like well enough and contributes to society. And perhaps that's an important lesson to take away. Part of living a happy, fulfilling life is finding joy in what's attainable.
> But they mostly seem to have found something that they like well enough and contributes to society. And perhaps that's an important lesson to take away. Part of living a happy, fulfilling life is finding the joy within what is attainable.
I fully agree about all of this. The sad fact is that, in my country, a person with this humble and contented perspective is rolling the dice when it comes to housing, health, and autonomy, and many of them lead unnecessarily stressful and lives with no time/energy for community or creative development. That’s the part I would like to see fixed.
> they mostly seem to have found something that they like well enough and contributes to society.
Exactly! It shows people being valuable to each other in small ways, having purpose, and being involved in each other's lives.
And it emphasizes the joy and texture of everyday life. The little things.
Similar thoughts:
Almost every children's book that depicts a serious issue, such as racism, tells a complete story where the problem is solved and is no longer a problem. I believe this is a big part of why so many people think that racism (again, for example) isn't a problem anymore.
Because, they learned, from a very young age, and for many years, that such problems were solved.
There is a very strong and understandable impulse for children's books to be comforting, and to shy away from un-answered questions. This, as you point out, leads to a warped view of reality that parents then should correct.
This kinda happened with adults after they watched the West Wing. It's not just media aimed at children. Lots of prime time TV is like this.
I think it's less children's books and more decades of propaganda from right wing sources decrying things like affirmative action, DEI etc. If some are to be believed, white men are the most discriminated group in the US.
I have sort of the opposite feeling reading some children's books to my son, especially ones that I can remember from my own childhood. It's great for me to remember to look at the world in a more childlike way. Even though I have more responsibilities as an adult, like bills to pay, I also have the freedom to be silly, enjoy time with my family, do something creative, etc. Any given day I can decide I want to try something new in the kitchen, make a big mess concocting some crazy recipie, maybe decide it didn't work out and go grab a pizza for dinner instead. Or I can write some stories or poetry, or take a sketchbook to the lake, snap some photos at the train station, or whatever catches my fancy on that day. I think we sometimes forget we have certain freedoms as we settle in to typical patterns and go a little on autopilot, but all it takes is a gentle nudge to rediscover that type of fun.
I switched careers later in life after finding that it was difficult to make money in my initially chosen field, but I don't feel "fucked for life" by it. I actually feel a lot better about doing things I like outside of work. It's much more rewarding to be creative if I'm not trying to maximize profits or otherwise commodify what I'm doing. Sure I wish I didn't have to work and could do whatever I wanted all the time, but I work generally acceptable hours at a stomach-able enough job and have time outside work for family and fun and I've made my peace with that.
All of this very much describes my situation in life too. I would just like for that same level of autonomy and freedom to be the default reality for my kids, and people in general, no matter what work they choose to do, even “uninteresting” work, so that they have this kind of ample leisure and autonomy to pursue their interests outside of their jobs. In my country that is very much not the case, not sure about where you live.
> No joke: every time I read my daughter a Richard Scarry book, I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
Fight for housing reform.
Fight for every YIMBY proposal that comes up.
Demand drastic zoning reforms.
80% of the problem of affordability in the western world is housing. In the US at least, there is plenty of space left in most major cities (outside of NYC) to dramatically expand and make housing affordable again.
The unaffordability of the modern world is a self caused problem.
People want their house to rise 5% in value every year but are pissed off when restaurant prices go up 10% a year and daycares cost 30k a year.
You know what, how about my house stays flat in value for a decade while wages catch up with housing costs, and in return I get to save 15k a year on daycare and eating out costs 5k a year less and property crime goes back down to reasonable levels?
Vote for change.
I'm not sure you are not doing your daughter a lot of good with such a pessimistic outlook on life. You might consider doing some soul searching and try to work out what really matters in life (hint: it isn't money) and then figure out how to adapt. At least externally, if that's what it takes. When my kids were young, my wife and I made a pointed effort to teach our kids to see the wonder in everyday things and situations. Even if they didn't seem all that special to us. That's what most of us have to do.
That aside, Busytown is set in a small town. The culture of towns vary of course, but _generally_, small town life is vastly different from urban or suburban life. There is far less social isolation. (Most) people help each other out without needing to be asked. You may disagree with your neighbor's political opinions but can still have a beer with them in the backyard. And so on.
I wonder when and how it will have to be broken to her that unless her interests happen to include something that pays a living wage, she’s actually fucked for life.
You have a hand in shaping the world she will grow up in. If this is important to you, keep it in mind at least next Tuesday.
I mean, the books definitely show lots of "real" jobs, and ones people wouldn't necessarily be naturally passionate about.
What's missing is all the bullshit jobs and awful management. But, even if you wanted to, you probably couldn't really convey that in a children's book... Hell, even most adult books fail to capture just how bullshit the bullshit is!
We aren't talking about children here exactly, but I think adults tended to do a disservice to teenagers as I was growing up by not citing the mean employment statistics of certain jobs, especially ones related to the arts. We can thank the generation who survived the great depression and the boomers for this eternal optimism. "Oh well, by the time things really go south I'll be long gone anyway, sorry!"
When I was a teenager, my parents weren't particular involved in my educational choices nor my career plans. I was mostly left to my own devices. Despite this, I was very much aware of the tradeoffs in the educational path I was choosing.
Perhaps it's because I didn't grow up wealthy, but the financial facet of both my education and eventual career was front and center for myself and my friends.
It would have been nice for the adults in my life to have told me these things, but a competent 16-19 year old is also plenty able to ascertain these things themselves.
I too was disappointed that in the real world it is pretty hard to find a pickle car to drive.
Not to mention how often they get flattened by a steam roller!
I absolutely adore Richard Scarry books. I discovered Richard Scarry a couple of months ago when I was looking for books to read for my 3 year old. Now, not a moment goes by in the evenings when we are reading the adventures of Lowly and his seek and find books. It’s a ritual every night. Richard Scarry and the Grumpy Monkey series are a godsend.
I very HIGHLY recommend the Busytown Eye Found It board game. Kids of all ages have a blast with it, and it's even moderately challenging for adults. We played ours so much we basically wore it out.
If you can find the old editions from before they were bowdlerized... they are often much better. Not everything that was pulled was actually offensive.
I'm in my late 40s. I still treasure the high-school graduation gift my parents got me: Richard Scarry autographed one of my well-abused childhood books. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go.
Mundane childhood incident that somehow became a core memory: Trying to tell my 2nd grade teacher I wanted to bring a Richard Scarry book to show and tell and she was convinced I was talking about "witches scary" and therefore it would be great for Halloween. I then became incredibly frustrated while trying to enunciate "Richard" in a way that she would understand.
I never experienced Richard Scarry as a child myself. I discovered it for my own children in a pile of books left on someone's stoop to give away. I was immediately blown away by the whimsy and astonishing care put into every detail. My kids obsessively hunted for the "goldbug" on each page of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (although they never developed a taste for finding Waldo).
I was obsessed with Richard Scarry’s intricate drawings as a very small child (which led into devouring all the cutaway books of all sorts of machines as a slightly older child), but I didn’t pick up on the goldbug thing until someone pointed it out a few weeks ago.
I “read” cars and trucks and things that go for my 2 year old every night. He recently found out that goldbug is on every page and now he won’t let me turn the page until we find him. It’s genuinely a lovely book. We got ours from buy nothing, it’s very old and taped up and it has a bunch of writing in it by a kid named Max.
When your son's interest in finding goldbug inevitably flags, what worked for my kiddo was theatrically sighing, "I wish goldbug was on this page. Oh well..." and then acting like I was going to turn the page before I could be corrected. Then you can escalate to "accidentally" covering goldbug up with your thumb and pretending not to know he's under there. It's basically DLC for your board book!
Same. I think I've read C&T&TtG 200 times to my son.
Making it to the beach scene always feels like an accomplishment :D
I got the Swedish translation as a kid more than 40 years ago and also spent plenty of time trying to find the goldbug. Still have the book and my kids loved it as well.
Richard Scarry’s books were such a cozy universe growing up, I'd still like to live in "What people do all day." I wonder what that book would look like if he made it today.
You can (and it would't look that different).
I left the Old Country for my adopted country in part because it reminded me of "What do people do all day" – although I was not conscious of the resemblance until my father, having seen the not-a-pig dude from the city coming around with a little vehicle specially outfitted to water various geraniums, pointed it out.
You might enjoy Business Town: https://welcometobusinesstown.tumblr.com
Seems like a totally different thing, very political and adult oriented.
Also something about the characters gives me the cold, dead feel AI generated art (even though they do not appear to be AI generated). Can't put my finger on exactly what it is, though.
The posts are from 2015-2020 so these are definitely human-made. Here's some things that are probably giving you that feeling:
* every pose is pretty static, nobody's actively doing anything, they're just sitting or standing in the middle of their workplace - Scarry's folks are always running around doing something.
* lots and lots of wide eyes with the pupil not touching any part of the edge, which makes them look like a dead doll - I'm looking through some Scarry drawings and he almost never does this, and when he does it's with a much smaller, simpler eye that doesn't require any rendering.
* in general these drawings are much more detailed than Scarry's work, there's a lot of nervous repeated mark-making going on, and that would prove to be a hallmark of AI imagesludge a few years later.
* "cold and dead" might be something being deliberately aimed for here, "look at all these people who are dead inside" is a definite vibe I could see going for with a project like this - Scarry wants you to like everyone he draws and I do not think this artist wants you to like any of these people.
* Scarry's animal people all basically look like cute babies due to his choices of detail and stylization. These all look more like taxidermied animals in a clever pose, due to radically different choices in those domains. One of these things is cute and appealing on an instinctual level. One of these things is kind of creepy.
I hate this. It seems like it was made by a Brooklyn hipster in a black and red plaid shirt with thick black framed glasses.
I was most familiar with the DOS games as a child. They even had Red Book soundtracks of the townsfolk singing about various professions. Building the house was my favorite activity back then.
https://archive.org/details/BusytownDOS
https://archive.org/details/busytown_dos
There was a sound clip in one of these that became a long lasting meme in my family, invoked for years and years whenever someone got hurt.
"PUT A BANDAGE ON IT"
I have fond memories of the Sega Pico Busytown game, played that plenty as a little kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm55P3ziI84
I had no idea that there were Busytown games! Very cool, thank you for linking.
If you've never seen the animated TV series based on the books, you're totally missing out. It's incredible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m76NQMJGtc&list=PL66vbXJhfF...
I read his books every day when really young. He created such a great world to imagine. The note about him moving to Switzerland makes sense - his world did feel really European now that I think about it.
My kids, now grown, did not get to experience his books - are his books sold widely anymore?
His books are still kicking around, although not as big as they used to be. My toddler has a few.
They're still lovely books, but I think they're less popular mostly because they're a bit dated now; lots of obsolete jobs and few female animals doing any of the cool jobs.
I have a 5yo daughter, and I appreciate that *What Do People Do All Day?* have female characters in homemaker roles, which is still common in most of the world. Many of her other books have female protagonists doing everything else.
Part of an education should be learning how other people live, whether it's in the past or in another part of the world. And of course, there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker today.
> I have a 5yo daughter, and I appreciate that What Do People Do All Day? have female characters in homemaker roles, which is still common in most of the world. Many of her other books have female protagonists doing everything else.
Is that a new copy or an old one?
The newer editions of Best Word Book Ever were updated to be less stereotypical (I think there's a gallery somewhere that shows the changes). Unfortunately the updated art is noticeably inferior (even to my untrained eye), and in some places kinda dumb (on one page I think they decided they needed more girls, so they phoned it in and slapped a big "LISA" on the shirt of some androgynous animal). Also they dropped A LOT of content, so the newer editions are something like half as long.
If it's updated, then I couldn't tell. Everything seemed like 50s/60s in it to me.
Richard Scarry's books are problematic because of the reasons you stated, and I think there were issues with ethnic and gender stereotypes as well (similar to issues with Dr. Seuss). He updated some of them in the 90s to reflect changing mores, but I don't know if those efforts reached all of them.
I have an infant and we have a number of his books. Some bought new.
Yes, you can buy them. When I was a child, my friend owned the "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" book and I spent hours browsing the book by myself when visiting him. When I had children, it was one of the first books that I bought, and they loved it, too, although not quite as much as me. It is a great present for young children if you don't want to bring a Nintendo gift card.
I loved Richard Scarry when I was little, although I think it instilled in me a belief that the world was in a constant state of chaos. (maybe that’s accurate.)
My toddler is now obsessed with them and demands “CARS AND TRUCKS”, “SITE” or “HOUSE” every night at bedtime.
'Chaos' is a great observation. I only had a couple of Scarry books as a child but there was something dynamic about them compared to most children's books and I think it was the frenetic and chaotic nature of them. There was always a pickle barrel spilling over, or oranges rolling across a road.
I didn't even know what a pickle barrel was, but it obviously made a mess when someone crashed into it.
Mr Frumble the apple man has dumped his load of apples on the road by mistake. Lowly thought he had the only apple (n.b. Lowly worm is driving his apple shaped car) on the road, but my isn’t he mistaken!
The overwhelming & pervasive chaos in all the illustrations kinda bugs me. I wonder if it puts the wrong ideas in a kid's head. Or else I'm just lamous.
Cars and Trucks and Things That Go is a child favorite and What Do People Do All Day has great depictions of saw mills, flour mills, power plants, and more, but I like Richard Scarry’s I Am a Bunny the most: The pages are filled edge-to-edge with his vibrant illustrations (no whitespace as in his other books) and the story by Ole Risom describes the timeless passing of the seasons.
Seconded. I recently read I Am a Bunny to my toddler. I was totally blown away by the artwork. Every night I found myself hoping that she request it.
Oh hey, this is written by Chris Ware. It makes sense that he would be a huge fan of Scarry.
Looked at Richard Scarry's books on google images in hopes to find a book I read as a kid but don't remember its name or much of it. Richard's art is similarly colorful but Writing it here in hopes someone else may know?
There were some blobby looking ice-cream/sundae in it. And a picture story where someone made very tall icecream. So tall that a helicopter was putting scoops on top (or may be it was placing the cherry on top, but i remember that helicopter touching that icecream). It was a colorful cartoony style art in the book.
Having strong imagination as a kid, the pictures in this book always felt real (hard to explain). Then I remember looking at this book many years later as a grown up and not feeling them as real. It's been many many years since then and I want to have a glimpse again.
Looked through all my kids Richard Scarry books and couldn't find that. But might be in Helicopters and Other Fun Things. Internet Archive has it but no logins to borrow books: https://archive.org/details/helicoptersother00newy/mode/thum...
Man I loved Richard Scary growing up.
I initially thought my 1.5 year old didn’t quite have the attention span for Cars and Trucks and Things that Go yet, but recently, after learning the word bus, he picked it up and dutifully started going through each page and finding all of the buses.
I remember the books as a staple of pediatricians' waiting rooms, and we had some at home, too. Scarry also published a book on how to draw things--cars, I recall, I suppose people and animals.
that and the toy with wires and blocks you could move around.
> There were, of course, obstacles. One of the less appealing features of Golden’s business practice was that, with rare exceptions, they offered no royalties. This arrangement nagged at Scarry, especially after his and Patricia’s son Huck was born in 1953, so in 1955 he finally asked the imposing white-haired and lavender-blue-eyed Lucille Ogle for a revised contract that included royalties—and an advance. She readily agreed. Surprised, Scarry asked why she hadn’t offered such a deal earlier. “Because you never asked,” she replied.
Most likely know this, but in many books there is a gold bug to be found on each image set.
It's interesting to see relatively new works that have been beloved by generations of my immediate family.
Richard Scary's illustrstions were absolute favorites for myself, my siblings and all of our offspring when we were looking at books before we learned to read, and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster later became our favorite book as young readers.
I still remember looking at these with my mother when I was small. We loved to hunt for Gold Bug. She told me later in life that her favorite was, "Lowly worm washes his face and foot." (He always wore a sock and shoe on the end of his tail.)
Bought some of these when my kids were between 3-5 yo. Several years ago they re-published a series of them, including the cars and trucks, what do people do all day, the funny stories, and a few others (I think 6 books in total). I got the entire series at B&N, they were easily the favorite books of my youngest who was about 4 or 5 at the time. I had no idea they were so old!
For something that's more of a substantial story than things like Cars & Trucks or Busy Busy Town, let me put in a word for Peasant Pig and the Terrible Dragon. My kids had it pretty much memorized long before they could read it for themselves.
While I never read any of his books, I must have driven my parents mad with how much I watched The Busy World of Richard Scarry on VHS.
A prior Richard Scarry item on HN, in Aug'23 -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37044673 (47 comments)
Richard Scarry was a resident of my former hometown of Ridgefield, CT, as was fellow author-illustrator Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). My school's librarian recommended his books with particular pride.
Come to think of it, a lot of children's authors seem to have lived in that area, western CT or eastern upstate NY. Some, including Judy Hawes and Jean Van Leeuwen, came to visit my school to talk about their books, reading in general, etc.
In college I referred to the textbooks used by Management Information Systems majors as "Richard Scarry books" because they were full of colorful, busy illustrations and light on technical detail.
For a very long time - maybe years - every night I would ask my little boy what he wanted me to read him at bedtime.
ALWAYS he would say "Robber Book!" which was a Richard Scarry book that had a couple of robbers/burglars in it. In hindsight it was the cars he liked the most - cars are a major feature of Richard Scarry books and my little boy was car crazy from the moment he was born it seems.
My (nearly) 2 year old reads Cars and Trucks etc. for ages on end like it's a sacred text.