“I like the climate.” What he hated was Beaumont, Texas - in his words, “a swamp” - the town he had to move to in the middle of high school when his father got a job there. (He was born across the street from The Alamo.) “y roots are there,” he said. He was actually very fond of Texas, especially west Texas and his hometown of San Antonio. I am all for any praise for James Marshall, but there’s one thing that Bloom got wrong: she writes, “He hated Texas.” Now, I’m not one to defend Texas, even though I’ve lived here for over a decade, but this is false. (Although, personally, I prefer the self-contained individual paperback editions.) George and Martha are my absolute favorite books to read to my boys - if I know you and you have a baby, I will probably gift you George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends Collector’s Edition. In The New York Times this week novelist Amy Bloom has a piece, “ For the Love of ‘George and Martha,’” praising the stories of the hippo duo created by the under-appreciated picture book genius James Marshall.
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