Animals Are Us: Anthropomorphism in Children’s Literature; Celebrating the Peter J. Solomon Collection

another throughout history, children’s literature has much
to teach us about how our methods of literary production
have evolved. Perhaps most importantly, in conscious and
unconscious ways, children’s books teach customs and mores;
they represent one particularly potent way a society transmutes
its values from generation to generation. A critical reading of
children’s books reveals important aspects of our social and
cultural history, showing a wide range of human experience,
perspective, foibles, and triumphs. All of these elements can be
easily seen in this exhibition, and all serve the primary goals
of Houghton’s exhibition program: displaying selections from
our collections to draw more patrons into our reading rooms,
more faculty and students into our classrooms, and to promote
cultural enrichment at Harvard and beyond.
Animals Are Us succeeds in providing an engaging
and aesthetically pleasing experience for visitors, but it also
makes an even greater contribution. It makes a new set of
arguments about an approach commonly taken by the authors
and illustrators of children’s literature: anthropomorphism.
A quick glance through my own kids’ bookshelves reveals the
White Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, Frog and Toad, Elephant and
Piggie, Stuart Little, the Richard Scarry universe, and many
others. This exhibition and catalog celebrate and interrogate
this genre, showing us its potential—and its pitfalls. For while
literary anthropomorphism offers children a way to learn by
immersing themselves in stories marvelous and ordinary, it has,
until recently, uncritically mirrored the values and prejudices of
dominant cultures. This exhibition takes us through the genre’s
historical trajectory: from early morality tales to twentiethcentury
archetypes of social class (Toad in his motoring clothes
vaunts the carelessness of the upper class, while the pig Wilbur
only wants the right to live out his life). Issues around cultural
appropriation and the reclaiming of historical stories lead
into modern, more conscious, tales that better reflect the true
diversity of our societies today: young Julián lives his dream of
becoming a mermaid; an Ojibwe girl experiences firsthand how
intertwined the lives of dogs and humans are; and a new Sam
outwits the old tigers. We leave the exhibition with a greater
sense of the capacity of children’s literature to reflect and
promote a more inclusive society and culture.
Last but not least, the exhibition serves as a celebration
of the gift of a major collection by Houghton’s great friends
and supporters, Peter J. Solomon (Harvard College Class of
1960, MBA 1963) and Susan Solomon. The Solomons’ gift
inspired and enabled the exhibition, and magnificent selections
from their collection can be found throughout it. Over the
course of several decades, Peter Solomon has built a collection
distinguished by its rarity and quality, including first editions,
drawings for book illustrations, manuscripts, letters, and other
materials. Peter professes a love of whimsy and nonsense and,
appropriately, his collection is particularly strong in Lewis
Carroll (including a copy of the suppressed 1865 edition of Alice
in Wonderland), Beatrix Potter, and Edward Lear, among many
other authors and illustrators.
Houghton has at times been described as a “collection
of collections,” and in donating his books to the library, Peter
joins a proud group of Harvard alumni who have turned a
private passion into a public good. Though Houghton has
included important exemplars of children’s literature among its
collections to date, the Solomon collection takes our holdings
in this area to a new level and provides a strong foundation
for a new collecting emphasis for the Department of Printing
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