Weeding Norman Rockwell

We weeded thousands of books from the middle school library where I work. Throughout the process teachers and staff glared at us. Some confronted us; How can you get rid of all these books? As a/n <insert subject> teacher, it would kill me to get rid of all these books.

As if I am a secret book burner who would love to have a book bonfire in the middle of the library if  allowed! 

The thought of weeding books is much worse than the act itself though. Once I got close to those books, and held each one in my hand, it was not so difficult to decide if it stayed or went. There were books with yellowing pages, disconnected covers, books that hadn't been checked out in a decade-or at all, ever. We had multiple copies of outdated books, nonfiction books on technology published in 2001, huge encyclopedias of American culture that had three pictures of Black people, showing only enslavement, not their contributions to art or entrepreneurism. Asians in those books were ignored entirely. We also had books that aren't interesting to a middle schooler of this day and age (or ever), like the fifteen books on gardening.  

Weeding books in a collection makes the books you keep more visible, and those books look better for it. Weeding also makes room for new books-yay!  

I did have quite a stack of nonfiction books that I found harder to get rid of: subjects of curiosity, books with beautiful pictures, or ones I felt were important for some reason or other. There was a psychedelic-covered biography of Frank L. Baum, a book called From Cakewalks to Concert Halls on the early history of jazz and popular music created by Black musicians, a tiny coffee table book of Norman Rockwell and his art.                          

  I picked up the book on Rockwell because I thought about how I'd taken him for granted as a great American artist and never paid much attention to his work. After reading about him, I can't help but like him. He suffered from the creatives angst, and probably depression. He was the type who always wanted to do right by others. He was a good person. He tried to make the world a better place through his art, he tried to bring attention to inequity and captured pivotal moments in American history. His artwork is stark reality tinged with nostalgia, even in the time of its creation. He painted scenes of everyday American life, capturing moments of frustration, pride, sadness, embarrassment, and elation.

Most of his paintings/illustrations were the covers of The Saturday Evening Post. He has many iconic illustrations; one could argue that all of his images are. His painting of Rosie the Riveter, is one of them. In Rockwell's painting she looks decidedly more masculine than she has been depicted in later years: 

image @https://learnodo-newtonic.com

I have many favorites now: 

"Girl at Mirror" seems to depict a young girl studying and comparing herself to Jane Russell, a sex symbol of the 40s and 50s. image @ https://learnodo-newtonic.com

"Shiner" was ahead of its time in depicting a girl as the proud combatant in a schoolyard scuffle. image @https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/

"Election Day" Dewey V. Truman image @https://totallyhistory.com

And of course, The Problem We All Live With that hangs in The White House:

We had about five books on Rockwell's art. We kept the two best in our collection and sent two to "the warehouse." The tiny book came home with me.

Do you have a favorite Norman Rockwell painting?