Karla Kuskin died late last week. As a kid, I was extremely obsessed with two of her books: The Philharmonic Gets Dressed and The Dallas Titans Get Ready For Bed. They're picture books, illustrated by the inimitable Marc Simont (also the genius who brought Nate The Great to life), and they are exactly what they sound like: spare but poetic accounts of musicians getting ready for the night ahead and football players putting on their pajamas.
Her LA Times obit sums up the boring glory of these books: they "celebrated mundane routine." The New York Times does it even better, noting the way the books describe the things that happen when we're not around to see them. That's exactly what I loved about both books when I was a kid. Reading about the absolute pettiest details of people's daily ablutions was so satisfying and comforting. It felt cozy. I also loved the voyeurism of each story; reading these books was like peering through a hundred dilapidated keyholes, and helped fuel my childhood nosiness (which I still prefer to think of as curiosity). These are pretty simple books, but they opened up this incredible adult world to me, the secrets of the musician's boudoir and the sight of a soaking wet football giant, the clumsy cellist hailing a cab with an instrument in tow, the exotic notions of other people's lives.
It's so sad when we lose a great artist, but I love that I spent this afternoon revisiting a chapter in my literary education.
And now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enact my own tribute to Karla Kuskin: the librarian passes out.
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