Sometimes I wonder if my interest in collecting and discovering children’s literature is, at its heart, a desire to recreate my childhood library. I spent many afternoons at this library, and probably read most of its books (which, albeit, was not many). After I had grown up, and started to take my younger siblings there, I realized that it was bizarrely stuck in the 1950s. The majority of the non-classics that I grew up reading were boy’s adventure fiction, usually published circa 1950 (I turned up my nose at the girly, “soppy,” stories of orphans suddenly becoming wealthy and nurses falling in love with their patients).
No, I was all about the stories of Canadian Mounties struggling through blizzards with their wolf/husky companions, the young marines stuck on an island in the Pacific, trying to escape the Japanese, etc. Jim Kjelgaard, Jack O’Brian, Robb White, Jules Verne– these were the authors I read. It shouldn’t be any wonder that I couldn’t stomach the Victorians when I came upon them.
Last night I randomly came across an online biography of Robb White. He lived a fascinating life … fighting in WWII, buying an island in the Caribbean for $60 (as a newlywed) and then living on it for several years, writing adventure novels, writing for various magazines … these were all things I
known. But then to my surprise, I scrolled down to discover that he wrote the screenplays for several of William Castle’s 1950s and 60s horror flicks … 13 Ghosts, House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, and others.
Oh my. Horror films. Children’s literature. It’s a good thing for CH that Mr. White has long since passed away.
I can see the common love of the bizarre, melodramatic, and grotesque between the books and screenplays, but of course, now I want to go back and read/watch several.
This is almost as exciting as discovering that William Faulkner worked on the screen play for The Big Sleep.
R
I have seen that movie ‘House on haunted hill’.. it was soo scary.