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About Charlotte's book But Not BillyDo you wonder about why a writer writes a particular book at a particular time --- and why Charlotte's second book, after The Park Book, was But Not Billy? Read on to find the answers. Two stories behind the story --- one scholarly...The stages of child development had interested Charlotte since her days as a young student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, when she studied with fascination the theories of Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget (read more about his work at http://www.piaget.org/ ).
That this seems like common sense to us today only shows how widely
accepted and influential Piaget's theories were. Not so long ago, children were
thought of as "small adults," and there was little understanding or
comprehension as to the distinct ways in which they perceived and experienced
the world.
But Charlotte's interest in theory was nothing remotely akin to the fascination with which she observed her first, much-loved infant son, Stephen (shown above, taking a bath at about age 3). As she watched him, acutely interested in him long before he had language, she noticed how he communicated --- and how, at times, he resembled various animals: aaaaaking like a duck when he cried, sleeping with his legs bent like a frog, and so on. Combining her permutation of Piaget's theories with what she saw her small son doing, and what she felt about him, she wrote a book which would celebrate the very first growing up stages of a baby --- and his mother's falling in love with him. But Not Billy was written in 1945, the same year Stephen was born. Two different artists, one But Not Billy
Charlotte wrote But Not Billy in 1945, the year Stephen was born, and the book was published two years later, in 1947, by Harper and Brothers. The illustrations were by Lys Cassal. The pictures are lovely: extraordinarily warm pencil drawings, soft in mood and shade, yet very literal and precise both anatomically and proportionally. They have a "painterly" quality. (You can see the Cassal cover just above.)
Thirty-six years later, in 1983, the company, by then Harper & Row, released a second edition. This time But Not Billy was illustrated by Kay Chorao. She captured the same soft and loving feeling Cassal had, but in a different way. She uses pastel tones of light brown, shades of green and soft coral-pink, and far more details in each picture. The baby and mother's body are not quite so detailed and proportional, but the overall effect is still wonderful. Chorao's version of the But Not Billy cover is just above. Which do you like better? Or do you like them both? The dedicationBoth editions of the book are "For Ella and Louis Shapiro, Stevie's grandparents." Ella and Louis were Charlotte's parents (you can see them, below, next to a baby carriage with Charlotte's second child, a little girl, Ellen, with Charlotte on the right). And what did Charlotte hand-inscribe in the second edition of But Not Billy, when she sent a copy to her former husband, Maurice Zolotow? "For Billy's father -- Love Charlotte."
A click will enable you to learn more about other Books CZ Has Written. |
Piaget
(1896-1980), spent his life researching a single question: how does knowledge
grow? His answer, simplified, is that knowledge is constructed progressively and inclusively. One after the next,
logically rooted structures supercede each other as humans develop, building on and
supplanting earlier knowledge. As a child matures and develops, his or her early
logical conclusions are incorporated step by step, into higher and more powerful
ones, up to adulthood. Therefore,
said Piaget, children's logic and modes of thinking are at first entirely
different from those of adults. (Piaget is pictured
above, with two of his obviously well-loved subjects).
