History on Paper

Kal found some things to appreciate when forced to look

I made Kal stop at the huge HarperCollins Publishers display. They were celebrating 200 years of publishing. I’m sure he had no desire to look at what seemed to be an old boring museum—too many words, not enough color—but Kal’s read some old books. Charlotte’s Web, Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are were some he recognized in the captions. I thought he should know what the bigger picture looks like.

Cover options for Danny and the Dinosaur

Illustrations by Syd Hoff

Then I showed him Harper’s monthly magazine in a shadow box on the wall, telling him once it was cutting edge. “I do like the design, but it could use some more color,” he said. The design of the type seemed to provoke a lot more thought from him than the different options for the cover of Danny and the Dinosaur. There was a picture of the original The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe cover that elicited jumps for joy. “I love that book!”

Madeline Strum Photography

When I pointed to Mark Twain’s name on the wall (in a portion also talking about Charles Dickens), he had no idea who that was. Um, he wrote the book you were reading at the start of this adventure... Tom Sawyer?

As a 7-year-old several hours into the day, this wasn’t making for very good video. At that time, I put away the shirt he was wearing and planned to shoot more video later. All this time later, I think the only part I’d be interested hear him talk about is why he thinks there seem to be only white people on that long wall. —MV

HarperCollins' display

Madeline Strum Photography