So THAT’s why this book made me chuckle in ‘57, in my then-reactionary country. Our family justice system was not fair, for the 1950’s were the era of Spare the Rod & Spoil the Child! It took me nearly seventy years to see that justice everywhere is unjust.īut guess what? The nonstop friction we kids harboured in our hearts - back in the 50’s when we always had to be Seen and Not Heard (unless we wanted a good flogging!) - left us with priceless pearls within them.įor having had our heads bashed repeatedly we now cherish silence and boredom.Īnd the laughs now come more easily, having been pent up inside us for so long.Īnd Love itself may now rise again like a Phoenix from such ashes! I harboured a lotta inner unrest back then. As - rue the day - I laughed in 1957 at this book.
Still we round pegs in our square holes squirm.īut laughter eases unrest. Rank injustice of which we're now rightly ashamed.Īnd still the world is unjust today. True North strong and free? Sure, if you were white, male & straight… others need not apply!Īt the turn of the twentieth century, there were abundant feelings that some Chinese citizens had magical powers - like these five brothers - and were bent on some mysterious evil, as witness Bartok's violent early opera The Miraculous Mandarin.Īnd with the rise of Mao's brand of communism, sinophobia gave vent in Quebec to the stern label of "la perile jaune!" You know, in the fifties those friends were - due to unjust immigration laws - few and far between. Their silence shoulda spoken volumes to us, had we then listened. But books like this made our too-polite Far Eastern friends squirm. Oh, none of us ordinary WASP kids in Canada realized that back in 1957. Beal was the President of International Council of Christians & Jews from 1975–1977, and the President of the Jewish-Christian Fellowship of France from 1976-1981.Īfter residing in New York for 50 years, Bishop returned to France and died in Paris in 1993. She was a lecturer and storyteller throughout the U.S., and a children's book editor. She was an apologist for Roman Catholicism and an opponent of antisemitism. She worked for the New York City Public Library from 1932-1936. She attended the Sorbonne and started the first children's library in France.Īfter marrying American concert pianist Frank Bishop, she moved to the United States. She was the winner of the Newbery Honor Medal for "Pancakes-Paris" and "All Alone," and won the Josette Frank Award for "Twenty and Ten." Her children's book "The Five Chinese Brothers" won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1959.Īn American born in Geneva, Switzerland, Bishop grew up in France and Geneva. Claire Huchet Bishop (Decem– 13 March 1993) was a Swiss-born American children's novelist and librarian.
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