Very interesting the obit for Iona Opie at NYT. She and her husband, Peter, authored the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, which, normally I don't think would cause a ripple with me, but I found their story compelling. That authorship of 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon' could be traced to 16th century playwright Thomas Preston is astonishing to me. What are the mechanics of such an effort? I wouldn't mind knowing.
Was impressed that the couple amassed 90 tons of children's toys and books. Really?
She collaborated with Maurice Sendak on 'I Saw Esau'. I only know of Sendak's 'Where the Wild Things Are', and the association between someone like him and Opie is remarkable.
The couple also wrote 'The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren', which I'm looking forward to.
Opie's simple observation -- "...mishaps might be funny rather than tragic, that tantrums can be comical as well as frightening, and that laughter is the cure for practically everything." -- reflects my own thinking.
Pomsidilious, indeed.
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