Children's Picture Books with Librarians and Libraries:
An Annotated Bibliography

Matthew Z. Heintzelman
School of Library and Information Science
University of Iowa
Foundations of Library and Information Science (21:101)
December 1, 2000

Building upon the article by Marie L. Radford and Gary P. Radford ("Power, knowledge, and fear: feminism, Foucault, and the stereotype of the female librarian"), the following study considers the means by which invalidating stereotypes of librarians are passed on from generation to generation. One of the more overlooked aspects of defining librarianship is in the realm of children's literature. While the (usually "de-powering") stereotypes of librarians most often catch our attention in the adult world of film, television, advertising, literature, and the like, the earliest and most formative time for the development of attitudes is really during childhood. Most children have probably established their cultural definition of librarians by the time they have become teenagers. Indeed, it is likely that negative responses to reference help reported by Dewdney and Ross may also be colored by existing prejudices. After all, the reference interview is between two or more people, both (or all) of whom are bringing their past experiences and current expectations into the situation.

Much of the problem of the "librarian stereotype" and the dissatisfaction with interactions with librarians may stem from images of the librarian as authoritarian and not authoritative. It is central to the argument being posited here, that mixed into this discourse is the perception that librarians are cut-off from their respective communities. It is this perception of aloofness that turns their voices from authoritative ones to authoritarian ones in the ears of their communities. How do librarians interact with their communities? How do they define who is and who is not included in their community? Do they act as facilitators or hindrances to those searching for information in the library? Do they respond in friendly or fearsome ways? Or, more importantly, are they perceived to be reacting in friendly or fearsome ways?

First, let us review the role of stereotypes in cultural relationships. The anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1993, 24) lists five essential aspects to the need for stereotypes between ethnic groups:

1. they "help the individual to create order in an otherwise excruciatingly complicated social universe";
2. they justify privileges and differences in access to resources;
3. they aid in the defining of the boundaries of one's own group;
4. they may contain self-fulfilling prophecies; and
5. they can be morally ambiguous (i.e., they may be held by both sides in the relationship, but understood differently).

Much of this seems true here as well. Stereotypes about librarians can make it simpler for patrons (and librarians) to assume that they know exactly how the other will act in any given situation. This provides a certain sense of control for both. Certainly, the stereotypes can also be self-fulling: If one expects a negative experience, chances are greater that one will have a negative experience. Children are no different in these regards: They too need to develop a sense of control over their situations, and simplifying their perceptions of others (i.e., forming stereotypes) may aid them in this. Most children who are taken to the library by their parents or teachers will learn about librarians from their own, immediate experiences. However, many will initially experience librarians through books, television, and the words of others. As time passes, most children probably come to recognize and accept the stereotypes as correct. Thus, it is necessary for librarians to pay attention to what is being said about them in children's literature. Below are two recent examples of librarians in children's literature:

	Elizabeth Brown Entered the world Dropping straight down from the sky. Elizabeth Brown Entered the World Skinny, nearsighted, and shy. She didn't like to play with dolls, She didn't like to skate. She learned to read quite early And at an incredible rate. Sarah Stewart,The Library, illustrated by David Small, A Sunburst Book (n.p.: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1995).
My aunt Lulu is big and strong. She lives in a house with her pets. She has a cat. She has a fish. She has a mouse. She has fourteen dogs. The dogs are all huskies. Aunt Lulu got them when she lived in Alaska. They are sled dogs Daniel Pinkwater, Aunt Lulu, Aladdin Books (New York: Macmillan, 1991).

These provide us with interesting contrasts: While both are essentially loners, and both attempt to maintain control over collections and patrons, Elizabeth Brown (in The Library) resembles the common stereotype of librarians in a positive way: She is bookish, shy, and prefers the company of her collection. When she has no more room for new acquisitions at her home, she turns it into a public library. A wonderfully generous gift from a person who was so unworldly that she got lost when she took the train (which led to her career as a tutor--she never found her way back to where she came from). She withdraws to live with a friend who is reader much like her. Elizabeth seems to be unable to function in the real world with the rest of humanity and is nearly fully cut off. The authoritarian stereotype of women librarians serves both to undercut their ability to speak with true authority and to sever them from their community. Elizabeth Brown definitely does not connect with her community. The author's depiction of her is no doubt very affectionate, but she ultimately moves us little beyond the "lovable but slightly silly" librarian.

By contrast, Aunt Lulu is perhaps one of the strangest librarians to drive a dogsled across the frozen tundra. While her character is rather odd and free-thinking, many of the other characters in the book are even odder. She is seen interacting with her "family" (see list above) in very affectionate give-and-take. She also interacts with her patrons quite easily. IN FACT, her patrons, the gold miners, are always extremely happy to see her coming with a load of books on her sled. She is in control because she brings everything the miners want: books on cowboys, pirates, sweet little kittens, gold miners, wolves, and freezing to death. When she decides to move to Parsippany, New Jersey (she's tired of snow and cold--and even her patrons, who are "nice fellows," but "boring after a while."), her community (i.e., the gold miners) comes out and celebrates her departure. Daniel Pinkwater's image of the librarian is empowering and encouraging for those in the profession. In many ways Aunt Lulu is out of step with her environment, but that is precisely what makes her a strong character: She continues to travel by dogsled in New Jersey (both in winter and summer), since there is no reason to buy a car as long as she has a "perfectly good dog team."

Studies of librarian stereotypes are not new. Radford and Radford (1997) list numerous such studies. In a recent Master's thesis from Cental Missouri State University (1998), Melissa A. McConnell applied content analysis to a large number of children's picture books from the 1950's up to the 1990's. My conclusions neither contradict nor borrow from her results. While we may agree in numerous aspects, she devoted her study primarily to images, while I include text as well; she only reviewed fictional, non-photographed materials while I have a large section on non-fiction books (with photographs); and finally, she grouped her results around stereotypical images such as the presence of eyeglasses, ethnicity, gender, bow ties and buns, etc. The current study approaches the corpus from the perspective of the interactions between librarians and their clientele, based on evidence as it can be found within the picture books.

Some of the earliest exposure to images of the librarian and libraries comes in the picture books that various authority figures (parents, teachers, librarians, babysitters, et al.) read to children. While the basic purpose of these books is to entertain, they usually provide a structure around which children can better understand their world. There are not vast numbers of picture books with librarians in them, but the ones that do present librarians often play with the question of whether the librarian is in touch with her/his community--usually children. The influence of such books should not be exaggerated, however, as television has taken on a greater role in teaching children about the world. This study could not include the various presentations of libraries and librarians in such programs as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Barney and Friends, Reading Rainbow, or even the relatively new program, Between the Lions. The last of these is potentially the most interesting as it is directed toward learning to read, and takes place within a library (the "lions" being both the family that visits (lives in?) the library and the stone lions on either side of the library entrance). The books in this study are primarily targeted for children from the earliest ages (infancy) up to age six or seven. Some of these stretch the parameters a little (e.g., the book by Lasky, or the books that are borderline "readers"), but books that were primarily readers or more advanced were omitted from the sample.

The books discussed are separated below into broad categories according to their treatment of the librarian(s) within them. General comments appear at the beginning of each category, and specific notes come after the citation for each book. Sometimes a book could have been placed under more than one category, and this was noted in the discussion of it. I do not assert that this list is exhaustive--these titles were located using a keyword search in the children's materials primarily at the Public Library of Des Moines, and a similar search in the SILO Locator. I also consulted the catalogs at the University of Iowa Curriculum Lab, the Urbandale (IA) Public Library, and the Iowa City Public Library, although I was not able to incorporate all of the materials cited at these locations. Some titles were also found by searching for children's books with librarians in amazon.com. If this study were to be expanded, it would be necessary to search Books in Print and other publishing databases, as well. Suggestions for other picture books with librarians are most welcome.

Throughout the bibliography are links to images of book covers which are located at the amazon.com website. Clicking on these links will take the reader to an image at the amazon.com website. To return to the Bibliography, please use the Back button in the browser. Each page also has a navigation bar at the top and bottom, which allows the reader to move quickly from one thematic page to another. There is no primary order to the pages, so one can peruse the pages in the order that it most grabs one's attention. At the bottom of each page is a response option: Readers are encouraged to offer their complements (new titles or themes to discuss), compliments (what they liked about the site), and/or annoyances (what they did not like about the site).

To summarize, librarians are often judged on the basis of their ability to connect with their respective communities. Perceptions of the librarian as aloof, shy, bookish, authoritarian, fragile, etc., are so ingrained into the popular psyche that their image--and that of libraries--in popular culture is rarely varied. Often, perhaps, the negative stereotypes of librarians (in particular, female librarians--see Radner and Radner) is based on the undercutting of what is perceived to be an invalid authority. This perception is a result of seeing the librarian as disconnected from her/his community. Authority exercised by those outside the community is seen as authoritarian, and thus open to ridicule. For example, returning an overdue book is not a reflection on the (possibly irresponsible) patron, but rather an instance in which an exterior evil force (the librarian and all her/his evil realm of rules) imposes unreasonable conditions upon the "innocent." With very few exceptions, the librarians in these books are female, and only one might be seen as an "academic" librarian. Nearly all others are either public or school librarians, and of these, many are children's librarians.

Children are exposed to many images like these as they grow. Those images and stereotypes of librarians which will be current in twenty years are being formed now. In particular, the treatment of the woman as librarian stands at a juncture as new modes of information science take hold. Perhaps we should aspire in some way to become one of the "good librarians everywhere" to whom Mr. Pinkwater dedicates his book.

Complements, compliments, annoyances: Matthew Z. Heintzelman