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David Nicholas: And this is All Things Considered here on WCMU. And it is the end of an era on WCMU with the final airing of The Children's Bookshelf this week. Dr. Sue Ann Martin, professor emerita from CMU, sat down with me to look back on sharing the gift of story with youngsters for the past twenty years. So, as we look back, the Dean's list and then the transition into bookshelf; Take us back to those first days and how everything got started.
Sue Ann Martin: Yeah, the first days really happened because another Dean and I both love books, and we thought, “Well, you know, we should do something about books.” So, we got together, and we started to try to put something together and see what it sounded like and brought it over here. And everybody was enthusiastic about trying to do, so it was called “the Dean's List children's bookshelves”, “The Dean's list?” Something like that. So that that was the fun of it when we started that way, and we enjoyed it and people enjoyed it, so we decided to keep right on.
DN: And just like that, 20 years goes.
SAM: Yeah, all of a sudden.
DN: As you were making the visits to the station to record the segments, what went into how you would zero in on the books that you wanted to select for the reviews?
SAM: That's hard, because you have to keep yourself out of it you know, a little bit or you're not doing your job really. So that's hard. But of course, when you get the books, and publishers send the books to us, you read it and you see who has done it, and kids have loved them, and they've got a good thing that they're saying to them and all of that. That's kind of what you do. And you read through them, and you pull what you think might be interesting. And you know that's very important, I think too.
DN: Doctor Sue Ann Martin, the reviewer, and the one who looked at the value of children's literature. Let's maybe go back to a very young Sue Ann Martin. Where did your interests and love for children's literature really take hold on you?
SAM: Well, it came from my mom, and I can tell you that if she had not done this with me, I don't—I think I probably would be doing something else, you know? So, I have to tell you that I was the person that was really called the lap baby. I was a lap baby; I got to sit right on her lap. I could feel her time with this book being important to her, and sometimes I wouldn't even understand what it was about because I was not yet there. But I got there, I always got there after a few times. But the problem was the lap baby, me. I had to move. I just got moved out because another baby came in and my brother came in and he was the lap baby, and I became a baby that was sitting from the knee. So, he was a lap baby, and I was a knee baby, and I didn't know if that was going to work out, but I can remember “Well, I want to be up there too. Know. Can't she put both of us up there too?”, where she's handling the book and everything like that.
DN: It's quite a dilemma for a little one.
SAM: Yeah, for someone who is used to being in a big spot here. But that was good, and that's the kind of thing that I thought was so important after I looked at it as an older person because I could hear her. I could see her. I could taste the story. I could feel the story. I knew, I knew what that was about because I could feel it in her.
DN: As we were winding down and talking about 20 years' worth of all these books, you did bring in some of your favorites. We talked about it earlier and I think it would be fitting if just for a few lines or whatever you feel that you would want to read, to share something with one of those favorites with us, if you would.
SAM: There once was a youngster named Chester Van Chime, who woke up one day and forgot how to rhyme. The picture here shows him getting up and not able to even get out of bed and get dressed hardly because he's forgotten it. See, Chester loved rhyming in poem or song. It always felt right, but today it felt wrong. And we took this one out because I could get them up on their feet and move them around because they get tired, you know, after half an hour long. So, we took this out with us, and when we would do it one day, especially when I was doing it, and I got to a place where “It was over. We were done.” I would then get them to start rhyming and doing fun things. A little boy in the front row got up and came over to me and laid his head down on my chest, and I looked over to his mother and she didn't seem to be, you know, like don't do that or, you know. So, I just sat there. And I don't think I've ever been dumbfounded before because that was a very...That meant something great to him and I couldn't figure it out. And he stayed there with his head down. I couldn't see his face. He was just hanging on and then he got up and walked back to his mother and he was just fine. And I thought, “I wonder what was going on there.” But you know what? Something was going on. And that was one of the most beautiful times I've had telling stories to children.
DN: Hmm....He said volumes without saying a word.
SAM: Mm hmm.
DN: Word legacy gets tossed around a lot, but I think I would be remiss if I did not give that as an attribute and a tribute to you, Sue Ann. 20 years is a long time for anything to be a part of and get established. But for all of the pages, for all of the voices, for all of the insight into the book and maybe the greatest gift of all: Preserving something that, over time, can be lost. The simple and very basic enjoyment of sitting down with a child and engaging them in a story and lighting that spark in them. To be fascinated by story and imagination and learning as society has gotten so fast-paced. These 20 years here, through your work with us here at WCMU, has done so much to keep that alive and we can't think of anything more fitting to say than thank you. It's been a wonderful gift and certainly parents, grandparents and all with young children and in the generations to come, those little ones hopefully passing it on as well. Thank you very, very much.
SAM: And thank you very, very much.
