Sarah Pyke
LightNews LightNews
banner
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Sarah Pyke
@sarahpyke.bsky.social
790 followers 610 following 690 posts
teaching children's and YA literature at the University of Münster
london.ac.uk/seized-books | #QueerBibliography
researching and writing various things
close reading forever
Posts Replies Media Videos
sarahpyke.bsky.social
me: oh, the students are writing things down, I'm glad they're finding this useful!!

my students:
Quotes from Dr. Pyke at the Banned Books Event "The love story is real and it matters." "The most lesbian book of all time."
November 14, 2025 at 3:56 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
time to go
Cranes (I think) migrating from north-west Germany, a long line of birds flying in an elongated V in a blue sky with clouds, the top of a building partly visible Cranes (I think) migrating from north-west Germany, a long line of birds flying in a blue sky with clouds, the top of a building partly visible
November 6, 2025 at 1:37 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
how about, because sex between men was yet to be decriminalised?
Screenshot from an LRB review: 'Inbehelder, a Swiss physicist who spent time in London and Bristol in the early 1950s, became involved in a network of British tattoo clubs before taking his expertise to New York. He was much in demand within the Cold War defence industry. Although tattooing was banned in New York in 1961 following an outbreak of hepatitis, Inhelder went on to found the Tattoo Club of America in 1963. He missed, as Lodder writes, 'the camaraderie . . . of tattooers and tattooed people he had found in London.' It was also a way to meet people at a time when coming out could ruin one's career (queer men were said to be more susceptible to communism).'
November 2, 2025 at 4:37 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Last week I posted that the image on the left was one of the single greatest pages in twentieth century literature, and I stand by that! But look what I noticed for the very first time: Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are closes with an almost-identical page layout, to wildly different ends
A white page which says 'Goodnight nobody' at the bottom in black type. From Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon (1947), illustrated by Clement Hurd. Final double-page spread from Maurice Sendak's 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are. It's completely blank, apart from 'and it was still hot.' in black type in the lower left corner of the verso
October 31, 2025 at 1:58 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
good morning
October 27, 2025 at 7:35 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
everything is terrible apart from the University of Texas Austin students who, protesting a committee set up to review the humanities curriculum, have produced this graphic arranging committee members by length of hair
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Headshots of eighteen professors with the text ‘The President’s committee of mostly white professors tasked with deciding on curriculum for the University of Texas (arranged by length of hair)’
October 24, 2025 at 5:51 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
one of the greatest single pages of the twentieth-century, a masterpiece
A white page which says 'Goodnight nobody' at the bottom in black type. From Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon (1947), illustrated by Clement Hurd.
October 21, 2025 at 2:53 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
unexpectedly transcendent Saturday night: Pina Bausch’s Cafe Müller and Das Frühlingsopfer at the Opernhaus Wuppertal
Photo of dancers wearing pale pink dresses or dark grey trousers with no shirt. The stage is covered with soft rich brown earth. The dancers are barefoot
October 18, 2025 at 10:11 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
and here is MWB reading Stein’s manuscript for the first time, according to Leonard Marcus, accidentally celebrating with ‘an amusing cake in the shape of a boat’
A page from Leonard Marcus’s biography Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon (1992) in which he describes MWB receiving the manuscript of Gertrude Stein’s children’s book, The World is Round. ‘In the happy confusion, everyone forgot about supper and Margaret had not thought to pick up refreshments. The only food in the house was an amusing cake in the shape of a boat, which she had ordered for a friend’s going-away party and which the trio now appropriated in the name of experimental literature.’
October 5, 2025 at 3:51 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
oh yes and not forgetting

‘President Trumbull spoke from the White House. “What we have today, with the things that are happening in today’s society, is…”’
A page from M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003) which mentions a ‘President Trumbull’
October 3, 2025 at 11:42 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Teaching M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003) this semester because I feel its time has come

‘the girls were all missing their favourite feedcast, this show called Oh? Wow! Thing!’
A page from M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003) A page from M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2003)
October 3, 2025 at 11:39 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
There also this from sometime in the mid-80s and this story about an LGBT window display from Pride ‘98. I don’t know what went down with the Polari Prize really but I dunno, I just thought this was worth mentioning
‘I explained that the cafe was for women only, but he said nothing at all and stayed seated. Defiance, surliness, hostility, or embarrassment, vulnerability, bravery? Our experience, from the very beginning of Silver Moon, had been of relentless hostility, abuse and challenge by men, so our antennae were on the alert for attack and bad behaviour. Writing this now, 36 years later, I’d like to mention that the trans movement had virtually no voice and was not understood. Was this some guy aggressively trying it on? Or was she in transition and not wishing to talk. I’ll never know. I gave up and went back upstairs. It worries me to this day.’ From Jane Cholmeley’s A Bookshop of One’s Own. ‘In 1998, Louise had a better experience. “I remember doing a big paper cut out of the letters ‘LGBT’ for the Pride window and writing ‘Trans’ for the T … and someone ringing to say thank you as they’d never seen the word ‘Trans’ written anywhere or in a positive context.”’ From Jane Cholmeley’s A Bookshop of One’s Own.
August 28, 2025 at 4:18 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
As well as being a total joy to read on all kinds of topics, Cholmeley is explicitly trans-inclusive from the very first page (and makes clear that Silver Moon and its staff were throughout the 1980s, too — the shop opened in 1984). No fuss, no argument
Screenshot from the first page of Jane Cholmeley’s A Bookshop of One’s Own, where she is very clear on LGBT rights and that the Silver Moon bookshop was trans-inclusive from the beginning
August 28, 2025 at 3:54 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
very much enjoyed reviewing Jane Cholmeley's excellent A BOOKSHOP OF ONE'S OWN for Publishing Research Quarterly

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Screenshot of a book review, of Jane Cholmeley's A Bookshop of One's Own, in Publishing Research Quarterly
August 28, 2025 at 8:24 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
One of ours went out in hers. Ten minutes later she was back having swiftly disposed of it
A black and white cat with a black smudge on her nose wearing a multicoloured fabric ruff for a collar and a disgusted expression
August 23, 2025 at 7:29 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
new syllabus idea just dropped
The Purring Class (INSTRUCTIVE ARTICLE) If I keep a school everything shall be quite different. Nobody shall learn anything they don't want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring. 'Now, my dears,' the old cat will say, 'one, two, three -- all purr together,' and we shall purr like anything. She won't teach us to mew, but we shall know how without teaching. Children do know some things without being taught. ALICE' -- from Edith Nesbit's The Treasure Seekers.
July 28, 2025 at 9:44 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Yes, there is! And my favourite is the Bastables’ newspaper in Nesbit’s The Treasure Seekers
Two pages from Edith Nesbit’s novel The Treasure Seekers, showing the newspaper written by the Bastables, The Lewisham Recorder
July 25, 2025 at 12:50 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Having looked at the link you posted, I think this person thinks they are a lot cleverer than they are, but the framing lets them down. The tells for me are ‘I don’t remember too well’ (an Americanism), ‘gran’, in this context, ‘bollocks’ and ‘odds and sods’ in the same sentence, capital for ‘War’…
Screenshot from http://scissors-and-paste.net/pdf/Reddie_Letters.pdf
July 13, 2025 at 9:44 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Big thank you to my co-panellists @malcolmjnoble.bsky.social, @jdsargan.bsky.social and @brimwats.com for their excellent interventions in our panel Queer and Trans Communities and Values of the Book. What a pleasure to speak alongside and hear from and be in conversation with you all #SHARP2025
Graffiti on a bridge in Rochester, New York, which reads ‘“america” is a white supremacist death cult / trans dem liberation demands prison abolition’
July 12, 2025 at 12:10 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
What a nice week at #SHARP2025. Met up with some old friends and made some new ones, gave three (3) talks, drank a lot of iced coffee, visited Visual Studies Workshop and ate incredible Korean food on an industrial estate 10/10 experience thank you Rochester
A grand ivy-covered building on a leafy campus (Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester) Frederick Douglass Community Library, Rochester, with a mural of FD right outside Posters reading ‘We read banned books’ and ‘Let freedom read’ in Hippocampo children’s bookshop, Rochester Rochester Public Library, a stone building with columns, plus roadworks outside and a sign reading ‘Library is open’
July 12, 2025 at 12:04 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
My cats met a hen once
A small tabby cat pretends she isn’t scared of a large inquisitive chicken A small black and white cat faces off with a large and clearly in charge hen
July 5, 2025 at 1:14 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Looking back at old research photos and just found these lovely kids’ books by Pat Albeck from 1970
1970s early readers for kids: Ben at the shop, Ben in the kitchen, Ben in the garden, Ben and his toys. Stylised line drawings with black outlines filled with 70s shades of brown and orange. Quite Dick Bruna. 1970s early readers for kids, open to their title pages: Ben at the shop, Ben in the kitchen, Ben in the garden, Ben and his toys. Stylised line drawings with black outlines filled with 70s shades of brown and orange. Quite Dick Bruna. Back covers of 1970s early readers for kids. Stylised line drawings with black outlines filled with 70s shades of brown and orange. A satisfying picture of some garlic and some tomatoes. Quite Dick Bruna.
June 29, 2025 at 9:01 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
Hello, a little reminder that @jenniegouck.bsky.social and I wrote a long CFP for a conference we're organising, online, next February. Do you have thoughts about book banning and censorship in children's and YA literature? Send 'em in!
A CFP for a conference called Thinking of the Children: Book Bans, Censorship and Literature for Young People. Google doc here: bit.ly/CFPThinkingOfTheChildren Page two of a CFP for a conference called Thinking of the Children: Book Bans, Censorship and Literature for Young People. Google doc here: bit.ly/CFPThinkingOfTheChildren
June 23, 2025 at 9:44 AM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
V. much enjoyed writing about Jessica Love's Julián is a Mermaid, partly because I could start a sentence with 'Love's work...'
Double page spread from Jessica Love's Julián is a Mermaid (2018). Julián has slid into a kind of oceanic fantasy where is is becoming a mermaid and surrounded by sea creatures and fish of all kinds. His hair is growing longer and trailing out behind him and he has his arms in the air
June 22, 2025 at 6:04 PM
sarahpyke.bsky.social
CFP: Thinking of the Children: Book Bans, Censorship and Literature for Young People
An online conference hosted by the University of Münster
11-12 February 2026

Abstracts due 11:59pm on 31 August!
Full CFP and to submit: indico.uni-muenster.de/event/3505/
Please share!
A pile of books on a red background with a QR code with white text which reads: Thinking of the Children: Book Bans, Censorship and Literature for Young People. It's a CFP for an online conference hosted by the University of Münster, 11-12 February 2026. For the full CFP, an easier to read version is available at bit.ly/CFPThinkingOfTheChildren
June 2, 2025 at 7:36 PM