A Classic Poem for Children...and Adults!

                

Norma Farber.

What a lovely book for children (and adults!) she wrote.

If you have littles, they will probably love this book and it will probably be an educational experience for child and parent both, because this charming poem by Norma Farber features an A-Z menagerie of some of the lesser-known creatures on planet earth!

I knew sixteen out of the twenty-six before reading this, but two or three would have probably taken me ten minutes or more to dredge up the actual image of the creature from a backward abysm of brain.

The book also boasts really charming illustrations by Arnold Lobel cataloguing the serial growth of the poem, as more and more animals enter the poem.

This book was roundly celebrated (see below) when it was published but seems to have fallen into desuetude. That's a real shame, because it is one of the best children's books out there, and it's very educational.

Many of the names of the animals would be difficult to pronounce without a guide, so a glossary of the names is included, and you can either read the poem and wonder, and check at the end, or you can flip back and forth while reading it to see what this oddly-named creature is and how on earth you pronounce it!

If the book is out of print I'm sure it can be found on ABE. In fact, you'd probably do better with ABE or half.com for price anyway and you can always find copies on there of virtually anything fairly recent like this in "bookstore new" condition.

As I Was Crossing Boston Common is an abecedarian book and a concatenation book. So if you're fans of either of those fun genres, this is definitely one for your collecton.

I found Norma Farber's bio online at a university site. The archive headnotes include some interesting information. It sounds as though she had an interesting life.

I have never seen any of her poetry written "for adults."

Collection Summary
Creator: Farber, Norma
Title: Norma Farber Papers
Date: 1967-1997
Abstract: Norma Farber's papers contain production material for 20 children's books. It includes typescripts, galley proofs, clippings, correspondence, and research material.
Collection Number: CLRC-630
Location: See Detailed Descriptions for Each Title Item for Box Locations
Repository: University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc]


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Biographical Sketch
Norma Holzman was born in August of 1909 in Boston, MA. In 1928, at the age of 18, she married Sidney Farber, then a recent Harvard Medical School graduate . Early in their marriage, the Farbers lived in Europe, where Dr. Farber was continuing his studies. When they returned to the United States, Norma enrolled at Wellesley College and received an A. B. in 1931. From there she went on to obtain an M. A. from Radcliffe in 1932. After years of writing poetry for adults, Farber began penning stories and poetry for children in the 1960s. She is remembered for the variety of her books, which include nonsense verse, instructional stories, and retellings of biblical tales. Her best known work, As I Was Crossing Boston Common, published in 1975, won a National Book Award and a Children's Book Showcase Award. Another of her books published that same year, This Is the Ambulance Leaving the Zoo, was a Junior Literary Guild selection. In addition to her writing, Farber was also an accomplished singer, performing as a soprano in the United States and abroad. She died in 1984 of a vascular disease. Biographical Source: Something About the Author, Vol. 75, p. 56-58

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Scope and Content
The collection contains production material for 20 titles published between 1967 and 1997. Included are typescripts, galley proofs, clippings, correspondence, and research material.


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I'm going to type the poem itself below. I actually found this in Clifton Fadiman's The World Treasury of Children's Literature. I can't recommend this highly enough, either, as a great book for a child's library. It excerpts from an extremely wide range of truly beautiful children's books, and is very generous in its inclusion of illustrations.

Many books are given in their entirety, so I suppose this is an amphigorey.

This is over 600 pages, and I only have Volume II. I hope to find Vol I sometime on my thrift store rounds. It's a well-designed sturdy oversize blue cloth hardback with a swan family in gilt on the front cover. On the back cover there is a single gilded swan floating towards you.

Fadiman is truly cosmopolitan in his selections and chooses charming children's books and stories from Europe, Asia and elsewhere. And of course he includes Aesop's Fables and Nursery Rhymes. Oh wait, those are in Volume I. I'm seeing the entire table of contents here for both volumes. But this volume (the second) has two Maurice Sendak books in their entirety (with illustrations) and some Dr. Seuss works and Marcel Ayme(!) and Beverly Cleary and Josef Capek(!) and Gunter Spang and Beatrix Potter and another book that was a discovery for me here, Mitsumasa Anno's great tale "The King's Flower." I love the illustrations for that one. All those authors and many more are in the second volume. The art is often full-color and really well done. It's not plated but who does that anymore?

This came out in 1984 and it is a first edition. I hadn't checked that before since I planned on keeping this anyway.

Here is Farber's charming poem, with the glossary...odd, I'm more used to the narwhal spelling but I guess there are variants on that...makes sense considering the derivation...little did she know when she published this that the B-52s would soon make sure everyone knew what a narwhal is.

The poem ends perfectly, almost mystically. Rather Edenic. This could be read as an evolutionary fable or an ecological one, or it could even be read as a poem illustrating Lovelock's Gaea hypothesis.

I just think it's a great poem. For kids or adults.


     As I Was Crossing Boston Common

As I was crossing Boston Common--
not very fast, not very slow--
I met a man with a creature in tow.
Its collar was labeled Angwantibo.
I thought it rather uncommon.

As I was crossing Boston Common--
not very fast, not very slow--
Angwantibo passed with a Boobook in tow,
Boobook passed with a Coypu in tow.
Where in the town were they going to go,
so seldom and uncommon?

As I was crossing Boston Common--
not very fast, not very slow--
Coypu passed with a Desman in tow,
Desman had an Entellus in tow,
Entellus, in turn, had a Fennec in tow,
where Boston folk went to and fro,
scanning the creatures from head to toe,
and murmuring, "How uncommon!"

As I was crossing Boston Common--
not very fast, not very slow--
Fennec passed me, pulling a Galliwasp,
Galliwasp passed, with a Hoopoe in tow,
Hoopoe, an Isabelita in tow
(in a bowl with a spout--for the overflow).
The fish bowl pulled in tow a Jacare--
I snapped a picture, to prove it was so.
And everyone said, "How uncommon!"
"Uncommon!" cried pigeon, squirrel, crow,
and sparrows lined up in a common row.
"Most uncommon!"

As I was crossing Boston Common--
not very fast, not very slow--
Jacare passed me, pulling a Kiang,
Kiang was pulling a Lory in tow,
Lory was pulling in tow a Mandrill,
Mandrill was pulling a Narwhale in tow,
in a wagon heaped with ice and snow
(the rope being tied to his horn, in a bow).
Narwhale, riding, pulled an Okapi.
Where were they going? I wanted to know
I looked for a reason, high and low,
for activity so uncommon.

As I slowed down on Boston Common--
not very slow, yet rather slow--
Okapi passed me, pulling a Pudu,
Pudu, passing, pulled a Quirquincho,
Quirquincho passed me, pulling a Rhea,
Rhea passed me, pulling a Sassaby,
Sassaby passed me, pulling a Trogon,
Trogon had an Umbrette in tow.
The line was long, and continued to grow.
A boy cried out, "Bravissimo!"
at the company so uncommon.

As I was dawdling on Boston Common--
slower than ever, slower than slow--
Umbrette came by with a Vervet in tow,
Vervet, in turn, was towing a Wapiti,
Wapiti pulled in tow a Xenopus,
Xeonpus pulled on a Yaguarundi,
Yaguarundi was leading a Zibet.
Zibet--imagine! was leading a man!--
the man who'd passed a while ago!
He himself now looked uncommon.

As I stood still on Boston Common,
they formed a circle, sweet and slow,
with everyone pulling someone in tow--
beginning with A for Angwantibo
in tow to the man, himself in tow--
sweet and slow, sweet and slow,
surprising and uncommon.

And round they went, round and round, although
the dusk of Boston began to glow.
The lamps gave light enough to show
the turn of events was uncommon:
sweet and slow, a circular tow,
round as the moon that leaned to blow
its beams upon Boston Common.



    Glossary

Angwantibo (an-GWAN-ti-boh) a small West African lemur
Boobook (BOO-book) a small Australian owl
Coypu (KOY-poo) a South American rodent with webbed hind feet
Desman (DES-man) a Russian mole-like, water-loving animal
Entellus (en-TELL-us) a long-tailed East Indian monkey
Fennec (FEN-nec) a small African fox with large ears
Galliwasp (GALL-i-wasp) a harmless lizard of Jamaica
Hoopoe (HOO-poo) an Old World bird with a handsome crest
Isabelita (iz-a-bel-EE-ta) a highly colored West Indian angelfish
Jacare (JA-ca-ray) a tropical American alligator
Kiang (kyang) a Tibetan wild ass
Lory (LO-ri) an Australian parrot that feeds on honey and soft fruit.
Mandrill (MAN-drill) a large African baboon
Narwhale (NAR-whale) an Arctic sea mammal with a long, twisted, pointed tusk
Okapi (oh-KAP-i) a short-necked relative of the giraffe, from Africa
Pudu (POO-doo) a small, reddish deer with simple spike-like antlers
Quirquincho (kir-KEEN-choh) a small, hairy armadillo of South America
Rhea (REE-a) a South American ostrich with three toes on each foot
Sassaby (SASS-a-bi) a large, dark South African antelope with curved horns
Trogon (TROH-gon) a colorful tropical bird whose first and second toes are turned backward
Umbrette (um-BRET) an African wading bird
Vervet (VUR-vet) a long-tailed African monkey
Wapiti (WO-pi-ti) the noble American elk, high as a horse
Xenopus (ZEN-oh-pus) a tongueless African toad
Yaguarundi (yag-war-UN-di) a grayish unspotted wildcat
Zibet (ZI-bet) an East Indian civet cat