Hi Readers! My friend Bob Eckstein, a cartoonist for The New Yorker (la-di-dah!), came up with this Free-Range Cartoon: a plea for a little less parental intrusion.
Besides being a whole-hearted supporter of this site, Bob has his own obsession. Snowmen. Yes, really — he is the first and only person to study their history. Did you know, for instance, that in pre-printing press Europe, snowmen were the editorials of their day? A wag might erect a prostitute snow-woman, for instance, in front of the mayor’s house, as a way of hinting at certain improprieties. The perp remained anonymous and his “crime” would melt, so it was just about the best way to get a point across without getting hanged. Anyway, Bob has a fantastic website devoted to all things snowmen and here it is. Enjoy!
7 Comments
great blog i liked the site very much thanks for sharing
Love the cartoon and I ADORE snowmen (Snowmen at Christmas is my favorite Christmas book.) Will definitely be reading the site.
very cute!
Lenore, I didn’t know you had a bungalow upstate! Nice. Bob blogged on this at Open Salon, that’s how i came here. Via Taiwan. By the way, nice work on the Free Range book. You know, in Tokyo, kids take the train to school and back all the time, across a city of 14 million people. Parents don’t mind at all. In Taiwan, kids play outside all the time. I left the USA 20 years ago and it seems the entire country has gone paranoid. Kids don’t play outside anymore? Whatever happened to my beloved USA? Oi.
And Bob’s cartoon, above, is wonderful. He’s some kind of genius. This toon should run in the NYer, too.
Isn’t there a song called “Home on the Range”? All kids should have free-range run of their neighborhoods. Why, back in 1954 in Springfield, Mass, I was always……….
By the way, Lenore, and this is important: are you READING this comment, or are you SCREENING it on a screen? There’s a big difference. Reading we do on paper surfaces, screening is what we all now do when read, er, ahem, on a screen. Get it?
Nobody believes me but it’s true. Even the MRI scans say that reading is vastly deeper embedded in our brains than mere “screening on a screen.” Kindle, beware! In fact, Leonore, google “The Bindle” and see my new reading device called, yes, The Bindle. Bob might even want to do a cartoon on this!
Cute! I love the jeopardy cartoon too. Snowmen at Night, another great book also for the little ones or just the kid in you;)
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Lenore,
You wont’ believe it, but i just got your email to me but it was sent to my SPAM box at first since i had not received an email from you from that address before and before i could stop the system it got deleted so i never got to read the email. it disappeared now, can you send again, or tell me what you said., i assume you were just saying hi. DANNY
I was actually in North Korea earlier this week and the funny thing is that you see a lot of young children playing outside without adult supervision there.
I guess it would be one of the safest places for children to go, as the country is so controlled that it would be difficult to do something unseen.