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Machines & Sensuality
I have a two-year old son. He really likes trucks.
Consequently, we buy many books about trucks.
I have noticed that such books fall into two categories:
- Books by people that like trucks, for whom trucks are intrinsically interesting.
- Books by people that like children but who don’t especially care about trucks
It is usually obvious which type of person wrote the story and drew the pictures.
I’m being charitable. Since both types of authors seem to like children, the truth is simply that some authors like machinery and some don’t.
This excavator was drawn by someone who is not an excavator fan.
I like metal objects. When I see something nice and heavy I want to hold it in my hand. I have a valve from a Porsche Speedster that is nice to hold.
When I see an excavator, I like the heavy, metal quality of it, in a sensual way. It feels good to stand near an excavator.
Books by people that are not themselves sensually aware of machines are not very satisfying to a truck lover.
The most obvious example is a book we have that starts out with a wrecking ball and a dump truck but ends up with the neighbors offering each other cupcakes.
When we get to the last three pages, my son always wants to go back to the trucks. He doesn’t care at all about the nice family moving in to the new house with a poem on the wall, he wants machinery.
Richard Scarry was a master of children’s books, who loved machinery:
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