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Into the Archives
Jun. 3rd, 2025 03:06 pmAbout a year ago, I realized that some of the older children’s books that I wanted were available in the archive of the university where I work. “If only I knew where the archives were and how to request books there,” I mused, without of course making the faintest effort to acquire this information.
But I have become incrementally better at turning ideas into reality, so it took only a year before I learned where the archives are (the top floor of my favorite library, which incidentally is the library closest to my office) and how to request an appointment to read a book there. Then I traipsed over to the archives for The Little Angel: A Story of Old Rio, illustrated by Katherine Milhous of The Egg Tree, which is the real reason I wanted to read it, although I was also nothing loath to renew the acquaintance with the author, our old friend Alice Dalgliesh of Newbery fame.
The archives are not quite as fancy as the Lilly Library Reading Room: no mural of Great Thinkers in History! But they make up for it with comfy rolling chairs, and the archivists do still bring you your book on a pillow, which is the most important thing.
The book itself is in that particularly mid-twentieth century style where we’re gently drifting through some time in the life of a family long ago and far away. (Sometimes it is just long ago or just faraway, but here it’s both.) We enjoy some street festivals, meet a cute kitten named Gatinho, cheer as the daughter of the house furiously refuses an arranged marriage with a man who just tossed Gatinho across the room (Gatinho is unhurt, except for his dignity), and accept that this is not the kind of book that is ever going to interrogate the fact that this upper-class Brazilian family in the 1820s has slaves. Milhous’s illustrations are charming but not as magical as the illustrations in The Egg Tree or Appolonia’s Valentine.
Nonetheless, pleased by my success, I went back to trawl the library catalog for more books to read in the archives… and discovered they have a copy of one of my remaining Newbery books, Valenti Angelo’s Nino! What a score! So I’ve got an appointment tomorrow at lunch to begin reading.
But I have become incrementally better at turning ideas into reality, so it took only a year before I learned where the archives are (the top floor of my favorite library, which incidentally is the library closest to my office) and how to request an appointment to read a book there. Then I traipsed over to the archives for The Little Angel: A Story of Old Rio, illustrated by Katherine Milhous of The Egg Tree, which is the real reason I wanted to read it, although I was also nothing loath to renew the acquaintance with the author, our old friend Alice Dalgliesh of Newbery fame.
The archives are not quite as fancy as the Lilly Library Reading Room: no mural of Great Thinkers in History! But they make up for it with comfy rolling chairs, and the archivists do still bring you your book on a pillow, which is the most important thing.
The book itself is in that particularly mid-twentieth century style where we’re gently drifting through some time in the life of a family long ago and far away. (Sometimes it is just long ago or just faraway, but here it’s both.) We enjoy some street festivals, meet a cute kitten named Gatinho, cheer as the daughter of the house furiously refuses an arranged marriage with a man who just tossed Gatinho across the room (Gatinho is unhurt, except for his dignity), and accept that this is not the kind of book that is ever going to interrogate the fact that this upper-class Brazilian family in the 1820s has slaves. Milhous’s illustrations are charming but not as magical as the illustrations in The Egg Tree or Appolonia’s Valentine.
Nonetheless, pleased by my success, I went back to trawl the library catalog for more books to read in the archives… and discovered they have a copy of one of my remaining Newbery books, Valenti Angelo’s Nino! What a score! So I’ve got an appointment tomorrow at lunch to begin reading.
