{"id":5444,"date":"2024-12-20T10:35:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T15:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=5444"},"modified":"2025-09-28T15:42:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:42:17","slug":"a-muppet-history-of-the-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2024\/12\/20\/a-muppet-history-of-the-book\/","title":{"rendered":"A Muppet History of the Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n
\n

A Muppet History of the Book<\/h1>\n\n
\n
\n
Henry Handley<\/a><\/div>\n\n
in <\/span>Features<\/a>, <\/span>Reflections on pedagogy<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"Two<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of special collections instruction sessions, I sometimes ask students what books are meaningful to them and why. If there\u2019s time, I might share The Monster at the End of this Book<\/em> as one that\u2019s important to me \u2014 a Little Golden Book (libellus aureus<\/em>, if you will) written by Jon Stone and illustrated by Michael Smollin. Its sole character is Muppet (and monster) Grover from the children\u2019s TV series Sesame Street<\/em>. It\u2019s one of my earliest memories of a book, and now a book I use to demonstrate how new readers learn to operate a book and how to face emotions about books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Monster at the End of this Book<\/em> is a more than usually bookish entry into Sesame Street<\/em> and the wider Muppets universe. Grover breaks the fourth wall in screen or theater terms, but his pleas for the reader to stop turning leaves also resemble notes to the reader and colophons in much earlier books, asking for readers to extend compassion for the author and their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incorporating The Monster at the End of this Book<\/em> into library instruction grew out of working with education students studying literacy and its connection to books as artifacts in library instruction over the course of a semester. As I remind students in these sessions, interacting with books as artifacts means revisiting the skills and senses we take for granted when interacting with books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first weeks of teaching a mini course on book history, I also shared Martians encountering a book on Sesame Street<\/em>. They encounter new objects with silly incorrect approaches. The Martians would make ideal students of book history: the Martians\u2019 instinct to \u201csmell book\u201d is aimed at young children, but easily corresponds to Ian Gadd\u2019s introductory \u201cbook and a blindfold\u201d classroom exercise. Their attention to the ways the book moves, what it does and what it doesn\u2019t do, are examples worth emulating in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Learning About Books<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Muppet readers like Grover and the Martians often engage in silliness \u2014 actions like \u201csmell book\u201d and \u201chear book\u201d \u2014 which turns out to be key to learning about books as material objects. These sensory exercises can reach back to earlier experiences with books. To continue down the path of \u201ceat book\u201d: gnaw book, throw book, tear book are all forbidden in a reading room but accommodated in children\u2019s books \u2014 sturdy board books, even cloth book toys are made expecting them. Touch and taste are key sources of information for the pre-readers who make up the audience of those books, just as sensory information is important to studying books as material objects more broadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students of book history can be reticent to touch or interpret a book, and can experience tension when they can\u2019t read a book\/text the way they\u2019re used to reading. It\u2019s easy to sympathize with Grover or the Martians in this case, exemplars when asking students to follow the book\u2019s lead in the give of its binding or the texture of paper; to continue on when asked to adjust the way they handle the book, and to note their immediate reactions, shaping them into a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like Grover, students may not have straightforward, conclusive interactions with a book. Grover\u2019s monologue to the reader makes reading an exchange, even when it\u2019s not positive. The Monster at the End of this Book<\/em> is a way in to acknowledging fear, boredom, even disgust when interacting with books and texts, and how those emotions can shape reading, collecting, and preserving books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

What is Muppet Book History?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

One approach to Muppet book history incorporates play, affect, and pedagogy linked to the \u201cvisual shorthand for the general idea of learned-ness\u201d of Pop Bibliography. In the classroom, book materiality is often connected to books as symbols of literacy: interrogating what literacy means in different times, places, and contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are certainly further areas to explore in Muppet bookishness outside of the classroom. In texts and readership, there\u2019s tracing the social media phenomenon of discussion threads proposing Muppet casts for book adaptations and film remakes, in line with Muppet Treasure Island<\/em> and The Muppet Christmas Carol<\/em>. Muppets also appear in print, with numerous Sesame Street books for children produced over five decades, as well as different iterations of Muppets comics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To return to a pedagogy of book history, though, there are further connections to book history scholarship. Many bookmakers demonstrate \u201ca combination of commercial savvy and anticonformist creativity,\u201d as Jordan Schildcrout describes Jim Henson\u2019s work. And so the Muppets have a majuscule M as an Aldine has a majuscule A. There\u2019s also the matter of intellectual property: compare the reuse of the Aldine dolphin and anchor to any number of Muppet imitations and iterations, and what Muppetness conveys to an enterprise. The world isn\u2019t lacking for examples of art balanced with commerce which can be compared to printing and selling books, but Muppets have a breadth of work, a cultural and commercial presence, and, frequently, a queerness which aligns well with my own goals toward a queer history of the book in library instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Muppet book history recognizes the sometimes messy and uncanny interactions between humans and books not easily diagramed, and perhaps unresolved underneath the performance of academic participation. Queer bibliographies have connections to a Muppet book history, as they embrace  \u201ccelebrating the out-of-place and ephemeral\u201d \u201ccenter affect and embodiment.\u201d Introducing students to the study of books as material objects should mean balancing the unusual with the rote, and questioning as teachers what we are taking for granted. A Muppet book history offers the opportunity to address failures, fragments, and odd embodiments, to destabilize the \u201chidden gems\u201d and \u201ctreasures\u201d rhetoric that often accompanies one-shot instruction with rare books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Teaching Muppet Book History: Resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the greatest hits of a standard show-and-tell instruction session, special collections can and do get much stranger. A Muppety intervention could consist of even one or two items that disrupt assumptions about literacy, readership, and rare books, and could include examples and categories like the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n