I Could Just Cry!

I just found this out:

The prairie landscape of Laura Ingalls Wilder will soon be
changing. HarperCollins, in an effort to keep the classic Little House
on the Prairie series relevant to a new generation, is repackaging the
paperback editions, and will replace the familiar covers by Garth
Williams with photographic covers, and remove the inside art, starting
in January.

Williams, who died in 1996, had a signature style—whimsical and
folksy—that has endeared readers not only to the Ingalls books, but to
E.B. White’s classics as well, among others. Since 1953 Williams’s work
has graced the Ingalls series. But according to Tara Weikum, executive
editor of HarperCollins Children’s Books, sales of backlist properties
in the competitive middle-grade market have been lagging. “For readers
who view historical novels as old-fashioned,” says Weikum, “this offers
them an edition that dispels that notion and suggests that these books
have all the great qualities of a novel set in a contemporary time.”

Before deciding to make the change, Harper consulted its market.
It held an informal poll of roughly 100 attendees at the 2004 National
Council of Teachers of English conference, which persuaded them that
librarians and teachers would welcome the idea of updated covers.

But some booksellers aren’t so sure. Leslie Hawkins, owner of
Spellbound Children’s Bookstore in Asheville, N.C., says she will give
the new covers a try, but she worries that parents, who like purchasing
beloved titles from their youth, might be put off by the new look.

HarperCollins isn’t scrapping the Garth Williams art entirely;
his jackets and interior art will still be available in hardcover, as
will the colorized paperback editions from 2004. That’s good news to
Alison Morris, children’s book buyer for Wellesley Booksmith in
Wellesley, Mass. Morris believes that “when you take a classic book and
put a trendy cover on it, it’s not a classic anymore.” She feels that
Harper should have kept the interior illustrations, and won’t be buying
any copies of the new editions. Instead she’s stocking up on the
colorized paperbacks.

Kate Jackson, editor-in-chief at HarperCollins Children’s Books,
understands Morris’s point, but believes that Harper’s responsibility
is to keep the books “relevant and vibrant for kids today. A childhood
book is an emotional, tactile object, and you want it to be as it was,”
she says. “But Laura Ingalls was a real little girl, not a made-up
character. Using photographs highlights that these are not history but
adventure books.”

(The original article is here: Little House Under Renovation)

How could they?! The Garth Williams illustrations have become as much a part of our beloved “Little House” books as the stories themselves. The books were originally released with different illustrations, and later reissued with Williams’ drawings. He interviewed Laura before drawing them and she was delighted when she saw them. From her biography: “She immediately sent a telegraph to her publisher saying, ‘Mary, Laura and their folks live again in these illustrations.’ ” I remember seeing a photograph of Laura and Almanzo taken shortly after their wedding. She is wearing a coat and hat that she describes in one of her books which I recognized immediately from the Williams’ illustration. I was delighted to see for myself that he had so accurately captured these moments of her life.

I am so saddened to find out that these wonderful drawings will no longer bring to life Laura’s wonderful stories. I am grateful that my own boxed set of the Little House books is sitting safely on my shelf. I’m afraid I will be reluctant to let my daughter read them lest they end up in the Pit of No Return. She’ll have to make do with sturdy library copies for now. I still read these books as an adult and now my set will become even more cherished. I will pass them on to Pumpkin Girl in the future. I know I will not be buying any of these new editions.

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