Sculpture Fun II

Remember that post I wrote earlier in December about sculptures of children’s literary characters and where they could be located?  Good times, eh?  Well, apparently I missed a couple things here and there.  And since I’m fascinated with statuary and wish to catalog the lot of it, I’m keen to get down even more images.  Woo-hoo!

So the most egregious absence in my last post was the Pollyanna statue of Littleton, New Hampshire.  I even blogged about this statue earlier in the year.  It’s located in front of the Littleton Public Library and is just the sweetest l’il ole thing you ever did see.  Check it out.

Awwww.  Thanks for reminding me, Brooke.

My readers are the ones who know far far more than I, though.  Brooke, for example, let me know that there’s a Robin Hood statue in Nottingham, UK.  So, naturally, I had to find it.  And find it I did!

According to The Robin Hood Picture Gallery, "Many locals aren’t too fond of the statue and have dubbed in the World’s Largest Garden Gnome."  They may be on to something there.  And you can find others here and here and here, if you’ve a mind to.

Author Emily Jenkins let me know that in deepest darkest Brooklyn there also appears to be a statue of Peter and Willie from the Ezra Jack Keats books in Prospect Park.  Here they are looking very very chilly:

Julia Sarcone-Roach sent me an e-mail with the following information as well: "in Collodi, Italy there’s a whole Pinoccio themed sculpture park complete with gigantic whale to walk inside that blew my mind as a child – www.pinocchio.it/pinocchio/index.php And I think Abilene TX has a couple of William Joyce inspired creations – There’s a sculpture based on ‘Santa Calls’ in their National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature ( http://nccil.org/ ). AND evidently a Dinosaur Bob who’s facing extinction atop a parking lot – www.tellform.com/dino/"

Here’s a portion of the Pinocchio statue:

And here is poor almost extinct, Dinosaur Bob.

Finally, Jennifer Schultz was kind enough to mention that child-friendly sculpture gardens brimming with characters don’t come any clearer than the New Orleans Storyland.  There was even an NPR piece about it in October of 2005.  It was, as you can imagine, hit a little hard by Katrina.

And then, in my travels, I run across this page on Google.  Looks like I have plenty of material for a third posting on this subject, what hey?  Still, if you can think of anything I’ve missed, please let me know.  I’m keen on these creations.

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