New Release: Honey Bear, classic children’s book by Dixie Willson

Silver Birch Press, under the umbrella of its new children’s book imprint Silver Starlight Books, is pleased to announce the May 2014 release of Honey Bear by Dixie Willson with full-color illustrations by Maginel Wright Barney, a reissue of the 1923 classic. This is the book that made Tom Wolfe decide to become a writer! This is the book that Joan Didion read to her daughter Quintana Roo Dunne.

“My mother used to read it to me at bedtime long before I knew one letter of the alphabet from another . . . Honey Bear’s main attraction was Dixie Willson’s rollicking, rolling rhythm . . . the Willson beat made me think writing must be not only magical but fun . . . I resolved then and there, lying illiterate on a little pillow in a tiny bed, to be a writer. In homage to Dixie Willson, I’ve slipped a phrase or two from Honey Bear into every book I’ve written.” TOM WOLFE , author of The Right Stuff

Long out of print, used copies of the 1923 edition of the book are selling high prices on ebay and Amazon – some at over $100, even for a badly worn copy. For the first time in decades, Honey Bear by Dixie Willson is available at a reasonable price. If you want to help foster a love of language in the young children in your life, Honey Bear is the answer!

Dixie Willson (1890-1974) was a poet, screenwriter, and author children’s books, novels, and short stories. She liked to gain first-hand experience when researching her stories, and performed as an elephant rider in the Ringling Bros. Circus and a chorus girl in the Ziegfeld Folliies, attended TWA Stewardess School, and worked as a taste tester at Betty Crocker. A prolific author, she wrote over 300 magazine stories, books, and screenplays, four of which were made into films.

Maginel Wright Barney (1881–1966) was a children’s book illustrator and graphic artist, younger sister of Frank Lloyd Wright. She illustrated 63 children’s books, sometimes working alone and sometimes with other artists. Her first job as book illustrator was on The Twinkle Tales, a set of six booklets for young children published by Reilly & Britton in 1906, and written by L. Frank Baum under the pseudonym Laura Bancroft. The books were successful, selling 40,000 copies the first year. Wright Barney also illustrated Baum’s Policeman Bluejay (1907), Johanna Spyri‘s Heidi (1921), and Mary Mapes Dodge‘s Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates (1918).

Depending on where you like to shop, Honey Bear by Dixie Willson is available at Amazon.com or etsy.com.

Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe love Honey Bear by Dixie Willson

In this charming photo from 1969, novelist/screenwriter/essayist/writing icon Joan Didion reads HONEY BEAR by Dixie Willson to three-year-old daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. Since Didion is a writer par excellence, we are assuming that she picked only the best books to read to her daughter — and it follows that Honey Bear is a classic.

Wow! Yes! None other than Tom Wolfe — author of one of my favorite novels THE BONFIRES OF THE VANITIES and many other fiction and nonfiction works — claims that Honey Bear by Dixie Willson was the piece of literature that inspired him to become a writer (no kidding!). Because Wolfe’s take on Willson’s book is so fascinating and informative, I’m including an excerpt from his musings below.

From “The Books that Made the Writers” (YALE ALUMNI MAGAZINE) by Tom Wolfe:

“…I was… galvanized…by a writer who never rated so much as a footnote to American literary history: Dixie Willson wrote…a book called Honey Bear in 1923. My mother used to read it to me at bedtime long before I knew one letter of the alphabet from another…Honey Bear is a narrative poem about a baby kidnapped from a bassinet by a black bear. Maginel Wright Barney drew and painted in the japanais Vienna Secession style. To me, her pictures were pure magic. But Honey Bear’s main attraction was Dixie Willson’s rollicking and rolling rhythm: anapestic quadrameter with spondees at regular intervals…The Willson beat made me think writing must be not only magical but fun…I resolved then and there, lying illiterate on a little pillow in a tiny bed, to be a writer. In homage to Dixie Willson, I’ve slipped a phrase or two from Honey Bear into every book I’ve written…”

To demonstrate why Tom Wolfe fell in love with Honey Bear, here’s a excerpt:

Once upon a summer in the hills by the river
Was a deep green forest where the wild things grew.
There were caves as dark as midnight—there were tangled trees and thickets
And a thousand little places where the sky looked through.

Read more of of “The Books that Made the Writers” at YALE ALUMNI REVIEW.

Photo: Joan Didion Reads Honey Bear by Dixie Willson to daughter Quintana Roo Dunne, Los Angeles Times, 1969, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: Honey Bear by Dixie Willson is currently out of print, but copies are usually available on ebay (starting at around  $100)…

Read your children fairy tales, quote by Albert Einstein

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ALBERT EINSTEIN

Photo: Model Twiggy reads to daughter Carly (born 1978).

Read Your Children Fairy Tales, Quote by Albert Einstein

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Photo: Model Twiggy reads to daughter Carly (born 1978).

Mia Farrow Reads to Her First Four Children

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables 

Photo: Mia Farrow reads to twins Matthew and Sascha Previn, baby Fletcher Previn, and daughter Lark Song Previn, Martha’s Vineyard, summer 1974, by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Time/Life, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Joan Didion Reads Honey Bear to Quintana Roo

In this charming photo from 1969, novelist/screenwriter/essayist/writing icon Joan Didion reads HONEY BEAR by Dixie Willson to three-year-old daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. Since Didion is a writer par excellence, we are assuming that she picked only the best books to read to her daughter — and it follows that Honey Bear is a classic.

Wow! Yes! None other than Tom Wolfe — author of one of my favorite novels THE BONFIRES OF THE VANITIES and many other fiction and nonfiction works — claims that Honey Bear by Dixie Willson was the piece of literature that inspired him to become a writer (no kidding!). Because Wolfe’s take on Willson’s book is so fascinating and informative, I’m including an excerpt from his musings below.

From “The Books that Made the Writers” (YALE ALUMNI MAGAZINE) by Tom Wolfe:

“…I was… galvanized…by a writer who never rated so much as a footnote to American literary history: Dixie Willson. Dixie Willson wrote, and Maginel Wright Barney illustrated, a book called Honey Bear in 1923. My mother used to read it to me at bedtime long before I knew one letter of the alphabet from another. Over and over she read it to me. I was small, but like many people my age I had already mastered the art of having things my way. I had memorized the entire poem in the passive sense that I could tell whenever Mother skipped a passage in the vain hope of getting the 110th or 232nd reading over with a little sooner. Oh, no-ho-ho…there was no fooling His Majesty the Baby. He wanted it all. He couldn’t get enough of it.

Honey Bear is a narrative poem about a baby kidnapped from a bassinet by a black bear. Maginel Wright Barney drew and painted in the japanais Vienna Secession style. To me, her pictures were pure magic. But Honey Bear’s main attraction was Dixie Willson’s rollicking and rolling rhythm: anapestic quadrameter with spondees at regular intervals. One has to read it out loud in order to be there:

Once upon a summer in the hills by the river
Was a deep green forest where the wild things grew.
There were caves as dark as midnight—there were tangled trees and thickets
And a thousand little places where the sky looked through.

The Willson beat made me think writing must be not only magical but fun…I resolved then and there, lying illiterate on a little pillow in a tiny bed, to be a writer. In homage to Dixie Willson, I’ve slipped a phrase or two from Honey Bear into every book I’ve written. I tucked the fourth line, above, into the opening chapter of The Right Stuff (page 4) from memory as I described how not-yet-an-Astronaut Pete Conrad’s and his Jean Simmons-lookalike wife Jane’s little white brick cottage near Jacksonville Naval Air Base was set in a thick green grove of pine trees with ‘a thousand little places where the sun peeks through.’ Peeks… looked… Ah, well, hey ho…”

Read more of of “The Books that Made the Writers” at YALE ALUMNI REVIEW.

Photo: Joan Didion Reads Honey Bear by Dixie Willson to daughter Quintana Roo Dunne, Los Angeles Times, 1969, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: Honey Bear by Dixie Willson is currently out of print, but copies are usually available on ebay (starting at around  $100)…

Jacqueline Kennedy Reads to Caroline

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”

JACQUELINE KENNEDY

Photo: Jacqueline Kennedy reads to 21-month-old daughter Caroline, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, August 1959. (Corbis images)

Auguste Reading to Her Daughter, Painting by Mary Cassatt

We’d like to wish a very happy Mother’s Day to all the materfamiliases in the world — with a special tip of the hat to women who take time to read to their children.

You may have tangible wealth untold

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold

Richer than I you can never be

I had a mother who read to me.

From “The Reading Mother” by STRICKLAND GILLILAN

Painting: “August Reading to Her Daughter” (1910) by Mary Cassat

Books and Reading, Quote by Haruki Murakami

May is “Get Caught Reading” Month, Starring Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp (in a photo from a few years ago, it appears) gets caught reading on a train — and looks none too thrilled. Go back to your book, Johnny. Looks like it will take many train rides to finish this one — whatever it is. If you’re reading this Monsieur Depp, let us know. Bon voyage!

UPDATE: Duh! I realize this is a scene from the film THE TOURIST (2010) — a not-that-great movie but worth seeing for the locations.

UPDATE 2: The novel that Johnny Depp reads on the train in THE TOURIST is The Berlin Vendetta by Charles Torbett — a book that exists only in the movie.