By YVONNE FRENCH
What could a group of 50 children's authors, publishers, printers, librarians and catalogers enjoy more than being read to?
And why, when this happened Nov. 18 at the Library during a lecture marking the 75th anniversary of Children's Book Week, were many of them brought to tears -- from the elderly couple in the front row to a father of three in the back who claimed to like children's literature more than the kids do?
Perhaps because the speaker, children's book publisher Linda Zuckerman, first engaged the audience by telling of her early days in a publishing house, then, with the lights dimmed and the slide projector humming, told heartwarming and poignant tales from three picture books she helped create.
Ms. Zuckerman, who now has her own imprint, Browndeer Press, with Harcourt Brace Children's Book Division, was invited to speak by Sybille A. Jagusch, chief of the Children's Literature Center in the Library. The center was founded in 1963 and is an advocate for the study and use of children's books.
Ms. Zuckerman described the manuscript-strewn publishing offices where she got her start as quiet, calm, unhurried.
"Deadlines were workable. That's a far cry from editorial boards, estimates and applications in triplicate that are a large part of the industry today," she said, noting the faster, computer-driven pace and the dominance of bookstore marketing has tied the publishing industry relentlessly to the bottom line, often to the detriment of quality books.
However, she said that she would not trade the complacency of the 1960s and 1970s for the hectic pace of today because now "there is an opportunity to reach more children with better books."
The audience thus engaged, Ms. Zuckerman told her stories about Japanese, Mongolian and Midwestern boys.
The story of the Japanese boy, One-Inch Fellow, is about a boy who is only an inch tall.
"His elderly parents gave him a rice bowl for a boat, a chopstick for an oar and a sewing needle for a weapon, and the little boy sailed down the river" to Kyoto, where he was hired as a servant to a princess, whom he later saves from demons. In return, the princess grants him one wish.
"We turn the page. One-Inch Fellow, now a tall man, married the princess and lived happily ever after."
The moral of the story, she said, is that respect does not depend on something as superficial as physical size.
The next story Ms. Zuckerman told was Farewell to the Farivox by Harry Hartwick, illustrated by Ib Ohlsson. It is about a 10-year-old boy named Tom who lived in Iowa in the early 1900s. One day Tom stops at the smithy.
"There was a crate on [a] wagon and there was something alive and moving in it. Tom went over and saw an animal. ... Between the slats two yellow eyes stared out at him with a soft, burning light ...
"Tom learned the animal was called a Farivox -- from the Latin fari for speak, vox for voice." The owner said he would sell him for $10, mentioning in an offhand way that the Farivox could talk. Tom ran home to get his money. "Hurry," said the Fairvox.
Tom got his coins and ran as back to the blacksmith shop, but the Farivox was gone.
Said Ms. Zuckerman: "To have come so close to having your heart's desire, and then lose it, has to be the stuff of tragedy for a child -- indeed, for anyone. Yet with the knowledge that something is irretrievably lost, comes the certainty that it existed. "The story says, 'The world is full of possibilities. Trust your intuition. Stick to what you know to be true. Believe in yourself.'"
Ms. Zuckerman then described a third book, Suho and the White Horse, retold by Yuzo Otsuka and illustrated by Suekichi Akaba.
Suho, a Mongolian shepherd boy who loves to sing, rescues a newborn foal that later defends the sheepfold against a wolf. Soon, a governor declares a horse race, and Suho rides the white horse to win. The governor, seeing Suho is just a poor shepherd boy, denies him the prize of the hand of his daughter in marriage. He also demands custody of the white horse. Suho says no, and the guards throw him out and corral the horse. Later, the white horse runs away, only to be shot by the guards' arrows. Suho is so sad he can think of nothing else, and one night, the horse appears to him in a dream.
"Suho, you must not mourn for me so," the white horse says. "Take my bones, hide and sinews and use them to make an instrument to play upon. If you do this, then I will be able to stay by your side forever, and will always bring you peace and delight."
Suho does so, ornamenting the instrument with a carved horse's head, thus launching a Mongolian tradition.
"Suho and the White Horse tells us that there is cruelty and pain in the world [but] in the end it affirms that it is possible to make something positive and long lasting out of sadness and loss. It says, 'Turn grief into music,'" Ms. Zuckerman explained.
Ms. Zuckerman said she admires the books not because they are about sharing toys, coping with a bully at school or being afraid of the dark, but because they let adults speak to children on a universal human level.
"My friends, I would like to leave you with the wisdom I have found in these three remarkable children's books: The world is full of possibilities. Things irretrievably lost may not be lost. Believe in yourself. Trust your intuition. Stick to what you know to be true. True stature comes from within. Turn grief into music. And whatever you do, Hurry."