Classics Corner: Corduroy

Friends, life has been lobbing so many things at me these past few weeks, this is how I feel balancing it all (but not nearly as delightfully):

And off we go to the Classics Corner…

Corduroy

Written and Illustrated by Don Freeman

Recommended Ages: 2-5 years old

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Even now, I sometimes see my kid’s stuffies strewn about and wonder what they say about us when we’re not in the room. Am I crazy? Probably. But I still believe in the magic of toys that become sentient when adult eyes aren’t prying. I hope that these stuffies recognize a kindred spirit in me—even if I look like an adult, I still have the same childish belief in the magic of toys I did as a kid.

Corduroy, like all the other toys at the department store, longs to be bought so he has a place to call home. A sweet-looking bear in his bright green corduroy overalls with a button missing, it’s hard not to find Corduroy endearing. Lisa, a little girl shopping with her mom certainly thinks so and is soon begging her mother to buy him. But her mother shrugs off the request—there’s no money and Corduroy, with his missing button, hardly looks new.

Taking the mother’s words to heart, Corduroy realizes he needs to find his button if he ever wants to go home. When the store closes, Corduroy climbs off of his shelf and starts wandering through the store looking for his button. When one of his escapades lands him in the arms of a security officer, he’s brought back to his shelf, still button-less. Feeling sad and forlorn, Corduroy wonders if he’ll ever be adopted. But a surprise awaits him the next day, when Lisa reappears ready to buy Corduroy with her allowance and take him to his new home.

I cannot overstate how charming the pencil and watercolor illustrations are. Having been printed in 1968, there’s a vintage quality (gulp—can you believe that was more than 50 years ago?!) to the quaint illustrations that are utterly beguiling. There’s a longing in Corduroy’s eyes that you can see mirrored in Lisa’s. The artwork beautifully captures the subtleties between the lines of the text. I loved the illustrations where Lisa is taking out money to buy Corduroy and you see the other stuffed animals giving him envious side-long glances.

Don Freeman (Source: Wikipedia)

A Brief History Lesson

Corduroy was first published in the US in 1968 by Don Freeman. Don Freeman was an illustrator for the New York Times and other New York-based publications who turned to children’s books when he illustrated his friend, William Saroyan’s, children’s book, The Human Comedy.

There’s not much written about Don’s world views; we just know that he wrote Corduroy at a very interesting time in American history. For most Americans, we remember the 1960s as an extraordinarily busy decade: the space race, hippies, and the height of the civil rights movement. So it’s quite a surprise that a white author penned the iconic book Corduroy featuring a loving brown bear and Lisa, his Black friend. When Freeman was first shopping around for publishers, Corduroy was rejected. Knowing what we know about that time and era, I can’t help but wonder if that early rejection wasn’t rooted in racism.

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My thoughts

I’ve loved Corduroy since I was a little girl and I felt palpable relief knowing, after all this time, it’s still the same tender, sweet story I remember. I have vivid memories of how much I fell in love with the little brown bear who just wanted a bit of adventure and to see the world. I can still remember feeling the best kind of surprise when Lisa came on the scene, a little Black girl, who knew right off the bat that Corduroy was the one for her. Why the surprise? Because it was wonderful to see a non-white character on the page! I’ll be honest, it was truly one of the first times I saw a Black main character in a book as classic and iconic as Corduroy.

What made Corduroy so special to me then, and even now, was how endearing and innocent he was. As a child, you see a lot of your own curiosity and desire to experience new things in Corduroy. When Corduroy sees the “palace” that is a department store, who amongst us hasn’t marveled at the same thing when we were children walking into a huge-to-us store?

And let’s not forget the heart of it all—the desire to belong. Corduroy’s entire journey begins when he believes the reason he wasn’t adopted by Lisa is because he had a missing button. If he can just fix that, surely someone will take him home. There are echoes of this in Paddington—the desire to find a home—but Corduroy suffers the initial pangs of rejectment that Paddington never faces. This too is such a human experience and one that even the youngest amongst us can understand: a yearning to be in the place we are loved completely and unabashedly and how sad it is to not have a place like that of our own.

This is a story that will burrow its way into your heart. If you haven’t read this with your kids yet, I highly recommend you change that!

Conversation starters

• How do you think Corduroy felt when Lisa’s mother refused to buy him for Lisa? What clues in the story make you think that?

• Why do you think Lisa came back for Corduroy?

• Why does Corduroy want a home so badly?

Interesting facts

• Corduroy is named after the beloved corduroy overalls he’s always wearing. If you’ve ever wondered why Corduroy it’s because in the 1960s-1970s corduroy was the most popular fabric for childrenswear

• Ten years after Corduroy was first published, Don Freeman wrote a sequel but passed away before it was published in 1978. Many authors have written sequels to the original Corduroy story but very few feature Corduroy’s best mate, Lisa

Let’s Talk…

• Did you read Corduroy as a kid? What did you think about it?

• What toy did you want badly when you were a kid? How did it turn out?

• What’s been a home away from home for you?

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