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Inaugurating the Bank Street Center for Children's Literature
Welcoming an enthusiastic overflow audience in the Evelyn Rome Tabas and Daniel Tabas Auditorium at Bank Street on the evening of October 3, 2007, President Augusta Souza Kappner announced the launch of the new Bank Street Center for Children's Literature and the awarding of the Center's first Lifetime Achievement Award to Eric Carle, the renowned children's book author and illustrator.
The celebratory theme of the program was the "enduring power of children's literature," which, Dr. Kappner emphasized, Bank Street has focused on since its founding by Lucy Sprague Mitchell, whose observations of how children learn best inspired her advocacy of "the importance of good books to children's learning and growth in all spheres of their development-from character, to imagination, to intellect, to empathy for others."
Dr. Kappner cited a number of Bank Street publication highlights, beginning with Mrs. Mitchell's own 1921 Here and Now Story Book, to the 1960s' Bank Street Readers series for Grades Pre-K through 3, which were the first-ever literacy readers to feature the everyday lives of multi-ethnic urban children. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Readers. Other highlights include eight titles in the 1940's groundbreaking series, Little Golden Books, which sold for a quarter, making them the first books children could afford to buy themselves; the recent 72-book Ready To Read series; and extensive current curriculum programs in science, math, and reading for Grades Pre-K to 2. Dr. Kappner also noted Bank Street's expansion into other media, in particular children's television, of which the most prominent examples are the 1980s science adventure series, The Voyage of the Mimi and The Second Voyage of the Mimi, which are still used in classrooms today, and most recently, JoJo's Circus.
Then Dr. Kappner posed the question: "Given our long history in the world of children's literature, why are we creating this new Bank Street Center for Children's Literature now? That's a good question-and there is an even better answer."
By establishing the Center, she went on, Bank Street intends to confront a growing challenge: the diminishing use of children's literature in literacy programs, and the increase in the use of dull materials that stress rote and repetition, particularly in the early grades. The result is that many children are finding it much more difficult to "engage" in their own learning. Engaging children in literature and learning is what the Bank Street Center for Children's Literature is all about. Learning to read gives a child a tool for acquiring information. Loving to read equips a child with a whole set of tools for developing a rich, imaginative, and fully experienced life. 
And so, said Dr. Kappner, "we at Bank Street believe that we must take a more forceful role in restoring children's literature to its central place in children's learning. The founding of the Center is a first step in that more active role. We seek to fully realize the enduring power of children's literature by bringing together all the work we are currently doing in the field, creating an entity that can enhance all of our current efforts and provide us with a structure for effective advocacy."
The creation of the Center will enable Bank Street to increase its efforts on behalf of children everywhere through more outreach work in the public schools, as well as through conferences, panel discussions, workshops, and special events, many of which will be open to the public. The aim is to foster in parents, educators, and especially policy makers a commitment to and an understanding of the principle that good literature is fundamental to literacy, learning, and social-emotional, and aesthetic development at all levels of childhood education.
Keynote speaker Leonard Marcus, the distinguished children's literature historian and author, to whom Bank Street awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in May 2007, was introduced by Children's Librarian Lisa Von Drasek. She noted that she first learned of the "important role" Bank Street and the Writers Lab had "played in the development of American children's literature" in Mr. Marcus' biography, Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon.
In his address, Mr. Marcus focused on that important role, beginning with the 1937 revision of Mrs. Mitchell's 1921 controversial best-seller, Here and Now Story Book. For the new edition, Mrs. Mitchell enlisted the writing talents of several Bank Street people-among them, two of her writing students, Edith Thacher and Margaret Wise Brown. Looking ahead to consider "how to draw new writers into the Here and Now fold on a continuous basis," Mrs. Mitchell founded the Bank Street Writers Laboratory, which first met in October 1937. The weekly afternoon sessions often ran on into the evening, with many distinguished guests dropping by to speak to the group, among them Max Lerner, Pearl Buck, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Illustrators came too, such as Leonard Weisgard and Clement Hurd. Another participant was Ellen Tarry, an African-American student of Mrs. Mitchell's from 1937 to 1939, whom she "recruited out of concern for the fact that American children's books of the 1930s and 1940s rarely acknowledged the existence of people of color." Tarry went on to publish four picture books for young children and several biographies for young adults.
With manuscripts from the Writers Lab beginning to accumulate, Mrs. Mitchell looked ahead yet again. She talked a Bank Street nursery school parent, Bill Scott, into financing a publishing company housed at Bank Street. Scott and Co. published its first list of picture books in the fall of 1938, "exactly one year after the Writers Lab's first meeting." But Scott & Co. remained small, with limited distribution. Looking ahead once more, in 1943 Mrs. Mitchell entered into talks with the creators of the astoundingly successful Little Golden Books, 25-cent picture books that had captivated children everywhere. The result was eight Bank Street Little Golden Books, of which two are still in print: The Taxi That Hurried (1946) and I Can Fly (1951). Other ventures with other publishers also began to flourish.
In 1956, John Niemeyer became Bank Street's President when Mrs. Mitchell retired. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum and Mr. Neimeyer, already an advisor on education and desegregation to the U.S. Commissioner of Education, used his Washington experiences to formulate some new Bank Street initiatives. In 1965, he was invited to be on the Planning Committee for a new federal program named Head Start. Many Bank Street personnel participated in designing the Head Start Centers.
With Head Start underway, Mr. Niemeyer looked at public school literacy primers which, he discovered, featured all white children in an all white suburb. He asked the Publications Division, led by Irma Simonton Black, also then the chair of the Writers Lab, to create "a compelling alternative." The Bank Street Readers series, published by Macmillan, presented "young people with memorable stories and images of a world that took pride in its ethnic and racial diversity." But getting the series published was an uphill battle, as Macmillan's salesmen argued that they could not sell readers that featured multi-ethnic children and families. Only when Neimeyer gave Macmillan letters from the school superintendents of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles promising to purchase such a series, did the publisher go ahead. The Readers were a huge success and other publishers soon began to imitate them.
Over the years, said Mr. Marcus, "A great many writers have contributed to Bank Street's enduring legacy in children's literature." Calling the creation of the Bank Street Center for Children's Literature, "a wildly exciting new venture," he added, "Only time will tell what great new work may radiate from the Center and out into the world. What we can say now is this: that Bank Street's long and enduring tradition of questioning tradition in children's literature is a wonderful place from which to start."
Mr. Marcus then introduced each of the four Guest Readers on the program in turn, all of whose presentations were, in one form or another, tied to Mrs. Mitchell's "here and now" credo.
Lucy McLellan, great-granddaughter of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, read a "here and now excerpt" from Mrs. Mitchell's groundbreaking 1921 Here and Now Story Book, in which a lost dog learns about the subway and finds a new home. Ms. McLellan, Program Director of the non-profit Creative Alternatives of New York (CANY), leads drama therapy groups with client populations ranging from female survivors of domestic violence to children with developmental disorders.
Barbara Shook Hazen, a member of the Bank Street Writers Lab since the 1960s, worked on The Bank Street Readers as well as writing her own books. She read "here and now" themed excerpts-one on a child assuming responsibility from City Sidewalks, a Bank Street Reader, and one on the agonies of sibling rivalry from her book, Who Is Your Favorite Monster, Mama? (2006).
Dorothy Carter, Chair of the Bank Street Writers Lab, and previously a faculty member of Bank Street's Graduate School, began to write children's books on her "retirement." In 2006, she was awarded Bank Street's first Lucy Sprague Mitchell Distinguished Service Award for embodying and furthering the values of Bank Street's founder. Dr. Carter read excerpts from her book, Grandma's General Store: the Ark (2005) which dealt with the pain of separation from loved ones.
Camille Wiggins, a seven-year-old student in Bank Street's School for Children, read I Can Fly, a joyous picture book affirmation of a child's sense of empowerment, written by Writers Lab founding member, Ruth Krauss (1951).
Honoring Eric Carle
The evening then proceeded to, as Dr. Kappner had put it earlier, "the honor of presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Eric Carle, whose splendid and unique body of work is itself a testament to the enduring power of children's literature."
Mr. Marcus introduced Eric Carle by saying that "For more than forty years, Eric Carle has touched the lives of young people around the world by showing children not yet old enough to read that the joy of living goes hand in hand with the joy of learning. Eric's colorful, playful, deceptively simple books are the tangible expression of a practiced hand, a generous heart, and a clear, strong vision. They cross national boundaries and bridge cultural divides by communicating in the universal language of curiosity, wonder, and hope."
He added that "In recent years, Eric and his wife Barbara have embarked on the collaboration of a lifetime as co-founders of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, an institution dedicated to celebrating both the art form in which Eric has long worked and the people for whom picture books are made-children everywhere." 
Dr. Kappner came back on stage to present the Lifetime Achievement Award, which read:
Eric Carle,
In recognition of your inspired creation of more than seventy brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books that have won, and continue to win, the hearts of millions of young children all over the world
For your intuitive understanding of and respect for children's feelings and their endless curiosity about the world, and for their creativity and intellectual growth
For the sheer beauty and rigorous economy of both word and illustration, which make the reading of your books such a stimulating and lasting experience for all children
The Bank Street Center for Children's Literature proudly presents you with its first
Lifetime Achievement Award
Given with the deepest appreciation and admiration on this 3rd day of October 2007, in the City of New York.
Augusta Souza Kappner
President, Bank Street College of Education
The audience erupted in a standing ovation as Mr. Carle accepted the award from Dr. Kappner.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Carle remarked that people frequently ask him where he gets his ideas for books. Everywhere, he answered, you can get ideas everywhere. He then held up a small hole punch and a piece of paper. He punched several holes in the paper, and said this was how he'd gotten the inspiration for his most famous work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Originally, he said, he'd thought of doing a book about a worm. His editor, Ann Beneduce, suggested the caterpillar. Ah yes, he had said, the caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly. After another round of enthusiastic applause, everyone adjourned to the Lobby for the reception and book sale.
Elisabeth Jakab, Manager, Bank Street Center for Children's Literature
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