Gertrude Stein, bell hooks, and More Who Penned Children's Books

Emily Temple lines up little-known children's books by well-known writers, in the spirit of James Baldwin's Little Man, Little Man, which is being reissued this week. "In fact, quite a number of established literary writers have dabbled in kids lit," writes Temple. From Lit Hub:

bell hooks, Happy to Be Nappy (1999)

You may know her as a legendary author, feminist thinker, and social activist, but bell hooks also wrote a number of board books (yes, board books, the cutest kind of books!) for small children. These include the above Happy to be Nappy, and also Homemade Love, Grump Groan Growl, and others. Unsurprisingly, this one is an adorable ode to girls and their hair:

Happy to be nappy!
Happy with hair all short and strong.
Happy with locks that twist and curl.
Just all girl happy!
Happy to be nappy hair!

Then there's Gertrude Stein's The World is Round (1938):

This book is exactly the children’s book I would expect Gertrude Stein to write: obscure and poignant and strange and delightful. It was published by Young Scott Books, after one of their new authors, Margaret Wise Brown (maybe you’ve heard of her), reached out to Stein, as well as Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, asking them to write children’s books. The men declined, but Stein already had a manuscript and happily submitted it. After some struggle (over, you’ll be shocked to hear, whether it was accessible enough), it was accepted. However, according to Maria Popova, Stein had some demands. The pages had to be pink. The ink had to be blue. The illustrator had to be Francis Rose. She got two out of the three—the drawings, in the end, were created by Young Scott standby Clement Hurd, who also illustrated Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny.

Here’s how the book begins:

Once upon a time the world was round and you could go on it around and around.

Everywhere there was somewhere and everywhere there were men women children dogs cows wild pigs little rabbits cats lizards and animals. That is the way it was. And everybody dogs cats sheep rabbits and lizards and children all wanted to tell everybody all about it and they wanted to tell all about themselves.

And then there was Rose.

Rose was her name and would she have been rose if her name had not been Rose. She used to think and then she used to think again.

Read on here!