NFP's Full Review: Richard Scarry and Huck Scarry - Richard Scarry's ...
Scarry’s Airport: An Activity Book Even More Than a Picture Book
One of my favorite old snapshots of my (now 25-year-old) twin sons as toddlers so many, many years ago on a planet far, far away is of the two of them in tee shirts and underpants on the floor at home, each looking at the camera in full-fledged “scream-and-cry” victim mode complete with tears flowing, their respective arms and hands wrapped around a Richard Scarry book, pulling against each other, fighting to the death to make it their own.
Hey, if my babies are going to fight, let it be over a book rather than the TV remote or a video game console, right?
Most parents have a general familiarity with Scarry’s children’s books whether they know it or not. They’ve seen them lying around pediatricians’ or dentist’s office waiting rooms, or in nursery school libraries. Scarry’s scores of books are ubiquitous to the point of being part of the wallpaper of growing up. Like Dr. Seuss or Where’s Waldo, a Scarry book or six is one of parenting’s essentials.
As with most popular children’s picture books, Scarry’s secret sauce is the magical combination of unforgettable pictures and settings that stir children’s imaginations because they relate to the activity they see around them every day.
As a frequent business and pleasure flier, one of my favorites is Richard Scarry’s A Day at the Airport. Another indelible image of my boys as toddlers is the image of the two of them sitting on the carpet in the American Airlines terminal at JFK, Scarry’s airport book open on the floor between them, taking turns jumping up from the book to peer out the window at the beehive of activity below, comparing the pictures to what they were seeing outside in the “real” world on the tarmac and beyond into the skies.
And you know what? The comparison is valid. OK, so the planes and trucks and ramps and baggage carousels and control towers and equipment pictured in the book have operators who look like animals. They’re nice, fuzzy animal characters, but boy, are they BUSY. In fact, BUSY is what you can say about virtually any Scarry book. Lots of BUSY things going on.
Which is what makes them so perfect for kids…hours of looking and hunting and imagining both inside and outside the multicolored pages…and comparing what’s in there to the real world they see around them. OK, so there’s a bratwurst balloon in an airport hangar. What the heck, right? Come to think of it, some jets DO look like bratwursts.
My main recollection is that in many ways it makes all that BUSY-ness in Scarry’s books appears to be SAFE. As my kids grew up in the hyper-busy New York City area, this was a good thing.
Note this, though: this is not a “going to sleep” book, nor are most of Scarry’s. They are activity books ideally suited – to my mind – to the part of the day when little toddler-age kids need to have their daily stimulation channeled.
And you know what? As I write this review, I miss those books now. They made ME feel safe.
Sigh.
(This review is part of Cindy’s (hadassahchana) and Stef’s (dramasteff) “Fight Illiteracy” write-off. Please visit Cindy’s review at http://www.epinions.com/content_5086945412 for instructions on how to participate in their drive to help reduce illiteracy in the state of Mississippi.)
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