I wonder how Margaret Wise Brown pitched this story to
the Little Golden Book people?
“Well, Miss Brown, we liked The Color Kittens and The
Seven Little Postmen. What have you got for us this time?”
“I’ve decided to take my next book in a slightly
different direction. Picture this. A hairy, Republican nudist – no, it’s okay,
stay with me – convinces a little homeless boy to come and sleep with him. It
has a wonderful moral.”
Perhaps not. Nevertheless, that’s more or less what
happens in Mister Dog, surely one of
the most peculiar picture story books in existence. It begins with a
depressed-looking mutt pouring milk on his cornflakes, dressing-gown gaping
open at the front. Why go to the trouble of wearing a dressing-gown and slippers in the
morning when you leave the house in the nude? And is that a bone in your pocket
or are you just happy to see us? Oh. Oh, it literally is a bone in your pocket.
He certainly doesn’t look happy to see us. In fact, he
looks like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. Either that or he’s had
a massive night and needs hair of the dog rather than cereal and strawberries. Check
out the front cover at the top of the page. Look at his eyes. Has Mister Dog has
seen disturbing things that he cannot unsee? Or is that something stronger than
tobacco in his corncob pipe.
The dog’s name is Crispin’s Crispian. We are told that
“he was named Crispin’s Crispian because he belonged to himself”. Okay, so he
answers to nobody. An admirable sentiment. But then, if his name is Crispin,
why is he called Crispin’s Crispian? Why not Crispin’s Crispin? Where did the
“a” come from? And if his name is Crispian, why is he not Crispian’s Crispian? He
probably dreamed it up after a session on that pipe.
But the best part is when we are told that Mister Dog is "a conservative". That is a direct quote. And note the italics. It
is a word that Margaret Wise Brown wishes to define. “He liked everything at
the right time – dinner at dinner time, lunch at lunchtime, breakfast in time
for breakfast, and sunrise at sunrise, and sunset at sunset. And at bedtime he
liked everything in its own place – the cup in the saucer, the chair under the
table, the stars in the heavens, the moon in the sky, and himself in his own
little bed.”
Yeah, you gotta watch those damn liberals, they’ll move
sunset to the morning just to keep the unions happy. It’ll be a two-hour
working day. Only Eisenhower will keep the stars in the heavens and the moon in
the sky. A vote for Adlai Stevenson is a vote for chaos.
Still, it’s a rather quaint 1952 view of conservatism. What
might the 2016 version say?
“Crispin’s Crispian was a conservative. And not a pathetic thumb-sucking moderate. A proper Tea
Party-loving, Trump-voting, gun-toting far right conservative. He liked everything
at the right time, which was whenever he damn well wanted. He liked everything
in its own place – the cup in the saucer, the chair under the table, and the
Mexicans in Mexico, south of the wall.”
Margaret Wise Brown died the same year this was
published, and I can’t decide if she was an eccentric genius or a nut-job. She
is best known for Goodnight Moon,
which was haunting and strange, but Mister
Dog is at least a little warmer, thanks to Garth Williams’ fun
illustrations. Williams was probably best known for illustrating the classic
versions of Charlotte’s Web and the Little House on the Prairie series.
Yet for all the peculiarities (and there are a LOT of
them), Mister Dog has a very valid
message. Its subtitle is “The Dog Who Belonged to Himself”. He answers to no
human family and asks nothing of the state. He is clearly a classic conservative
lover of small government.
One day, Mister Dog meets a little boy who is fishing in a
stream. “Who and what are you?” Mister Dog asks. The boy replies: “I am a boy,
and I belong to myself”. Note that the boy does not introduce himself by name
but as “a boy”. Yet another oddity. Mister Dog is glad, and invites the boy to
come and live with him. The boy agrees, with an alarming lack of due diligence.
Then they went to a butcher shop – "to get his poor dog
a bone," Crispian said. Now, since Crispin’s Crispian belonged to himself, he
gave himself the bone and trotted home with it.
Note the direct quote. Why would Mister Dog say he wanted
“to get his poor dog a bone”? He
should say “to get my poor dog a
bone”. Who edited this stuff? Anyway, then the little boy prances off happily
with Crispin/Crispian, blissfully unaware that soon he will be tidying a dog’s living
room. They make dinner at Mister Dog’s house and each of them, in Brown’s words
“chewed it up and swallowed it into his little fat stomach”. Then boy and dog
sleep in side-by-side beds.
The moral of this story is clear:
your life is your own, and don’t let anyone else rule it. Mister Dog belongs to
himself. The boy belongs to himself. They both act on free will. If the boy can
be easily convinced to come and do chores then, hey, that’s just Mister Dog’s
good fortune.
For all of Margaret Wise Brown’s oddities, I think she knew how to tap into the brain of a child. The word “belong” resonated with me. As a child, I heard
it often. I “belonged” to my parents and my friends “belonged” to theirs. “Who
does such-and-such belong to?” adults would ask each other. This never sat well
with me, for I felt that nobody owned me. This is the child-like mindset Brown
exploits (and which Mister Dog then exploits with the little boy).
But Brown also implies that you’ll be happier if you let
people into your life. Look how despondent Mister Dog appeared when preparing
his breakfast cereal, back before he had met the boy. And look at how happy he
was afterwards. You can be yourself and belong to yourself without having to
keep to yourself.
Mister Dog is
strange, confusing, disturbing, and utterly unique. And I love it. If I was
American and Crispin’s Crispian was on the presidential ticket this year, I’d
vote conservative. He wouldn’t build a wall to keep the Mexicans out. Although
there is a fence around his house and a sign that says “NO CATS”, so I guess you
never know.
