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Children's Literature in Primary Schools

• David Waugh - University of Durham, UK
• Sally Neaum - Teesside University, UK
• Rosemary Waugh - Queen Margaret's School
• Description

How can you help children to develop a love of reading and books? Which books are the best ones to use in primary teaching? How do you make the most of children's literature in teaching across the curriculum? Trainee and experienced primary school teachers need an advanced knowledge of children's literature. This is your guide to the range of and scope of children's literature for the primary classroom. Through the exploration of different genres it covers a wide range of literature and helps you to consider what we mean by literature. Case studies that model good practice are included with suggestions for practical activities using literature to enhance teaching across the curriculum. Throughout, book recommendations show how specific texts can be used for teaching in exciting and innovative ways. What's new to this edition? - updated in line with the new Primary National Curriculum - includes new content on supporting children for whom English is an Additional Language - an extensive list of book recommendations for primary teaching - how to get more out of classic texts - introduces new texts and new children's authors

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I have found this text particularly helpful in signposting students about the links that they can make between selecting quality children's literature and teaching writing and reading in the classroom.

Waugh, Neaum and Waugh have produced something that all teachers who want to encourage pupils to engage with reading should have.

an extremely useful book which provides students with details on picture codes.

This is a very comprehensive examination of current children's literature. It offers advice and recommendations for the reader and will be very useful for enabling students to develop their knowledge and love of children's literature. We are currently planning an MA in Children's literature and if that passes validation this text will become a core text on the course.

Outside my role in St George's medical school, this book is perfect for international teachers of English at primary level to encourage teachers to facilitate a wide range of reading from traditional to electronic sources and captivate the attention of different learners both culturally and in terms of learning styles. Chapter on traditional stories and fairy tales is outstanding as this is increasingly being overlooked in modern children's literature

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Children’s Literature: Exploring Intertextual Relationships

• Original Paper
• Published: 22 January 2023

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• Esra Sever Serezli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1378-6335 1  

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Texts carry traces of the language, social and cultural characteristics of both the period in which they were written and the period before them. Because of this, it is important to read intertextually in order to make sense of the text. The reader needs to discover the mystery revealed by the author during the intertextual reading process, and to know where the intertextual relationship begins and ends. While adult readers may notice the intertextual relationship due to their experience with the reading process, children may have more difficulty in this situation than adults. The activities that children do with their teachers are important in the process of discovering intertextual relationships. Children’s interaction with different text types and the questions asked to understand the text support the process of establishing relationships between texts. However, the activities for the discovery of intertextual relations differ for beginning or more skilled readers. In this study, sample activities that can help beginning and advanced readers to discover intertextual relationships are presented to teachers to enable students to discover the relationships between texts, to construct meaning through questions, and to use cognitive processes.

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Translating culture in children’s literature: A case study on the Turkish translation of Letters from Father Christmas

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Translation has been considered as a cross-cultural act comprising the transference of the cultural signs, rather than only finding the equivalence of linguistic patterns in the target text. As bridge-builders between different cultures, translators assume a very significant role in order to achieve the most appropriate cognitive, cultural, stylistic, and linguistic equivalence in the target system. This role becomes more challenging and problematic when the target audience are children. By emphasizing the difficulties in translating children’s literature and the required strategies, the present study examines the Turkish translation of culturally-bound words and expressions in Tolkien’s Letters From Father Christmas . Within the framework of Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignization, and Klingberg’s scheme of cultural context adaptation categories, this study analysed the translator’s strategies and decisions and discussed whether the translator successfully co...

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• 1 Department of Pediatric Surgery, Ningbo Women and Children's Hospital, Ningbo, China
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Background: The ingestion of jujube pits by children is a rare cause of perianal infection.This article aimed to report two cases of perianal infection in children resulting from the ingestion of jujube pits.

Methods: We reviewed the clinical records of perianal infection caused by jujube pits at our hospital. Details of the patients’ presentation, imaging studies, complications and treatment were recorded.

Results: Both pediatric patients presented with perianal swelling and pain. The caregivers of both patients denied a history of jujube consumption. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indicated the presence of jujube pits, which were subsequently removed during surgery. Postoperatively, both patients recovered well, and follow-up showed no recurrence or the formation of anal fistulas.

Conclusion: The ingestion of jujube pits leading to perianal infection is rare and inconspicuous. Early diagnosis and treatment are beneficial in preventing the occurrence of serious complications.

Introduction

This article reports two cases of perianal infection in children resulting from the ingestion of jujube pits. In both cases, the pits became lodged in the anal canal, gradually shifting outward, leading to infection in the perianal tissues. Both cases presented with symptoms of perianal infection, with swelling evident on digital rectal examination but without apparent foreign bodies or fistulas. MRI confirmed the presence of perianal infection and identified the jujube pits. Extraction of the pits under general anesthesia was performed, resulting in successful recovery. No recurrence or anal fistula was observed during follow-up. The diagnosis and management of perianal infections in children should not overlook the rare occurrence of jujube pit impaction. Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment are crucial for alleviating pain and minimizing the risk of serious complications.

Case reports

Case 1: A 16-month-old male with left buttock redness and pain persisting for two weeks. The patient also experienced diarrhea and fever. Initial treatment with topical ointments and oral antibiotics yielded no improvement. Subsequent examination revealed a swollen and tender area on the left buttock. Rectal examination revealed swelling in the rectum but no evidence of foreign bodies or fistulas. MRI confirmed jujube pit impaction in the left buttock ( Figure 1 ). After antibiotic treatment and bowel preparation, the jujube pit was successfully removed under general anesthesia ( Figure 2 ). The wound was irrigated, a negative-pressure drain was placed, and the patient recovered and was discharged 10 days later, with no recurrence observed at the 1-year-4-month follow-up.

Figure 1 . MRI images of patient 1 in the sagittal ( A ), horizontal ( B ), and coronal plane ( C ) showing the jujube pit (indicated by arrows).

Figure 2 . Perianal infection area in patient 1 with a relatively large extent indicated by the red circle ( A ), and the extracted jujube pit after surgery ( B ).

Case 2: A 1-year-old male without significant medical history presented with perianal pain and discomfort. He developed right buttock redness and pain associated with fever. Initial treatment with oral antibiotics and topical antimicrobial agents showed no improvement. Examination revealed a swollen and tender area on the right buttock.Rectal examination revealed swelling but no foreign bodies or fistulas. MRI confirmed jujube pit impaction in the right buttock ( Figure 3 ). After antibiotic treatment and bowel preparation, the jujube pit was successfully removed under general anesthesia. The wound was irrigated, a negative-pressure drain was placed, and the patient recovered well and was discharged 11 days later, with no recurrence observed at the 2-month follow-up.

Figure 3 . MRI images of patient 2 in the sagittal ( A ), horizontal ( B ), and coronal plane ( C ) showing the jujube pit (indicated by arrows).

Ingesting foreign bodies into the digestive tract is a common emergency situation in children, with approximately 80%–90% naturally passing out of the body ( 1 ). However, special objects (such as magnets) or sharp objects (including jujube pits) indeed carry a high risk of mucosal injury in the digestive tract. Adverse events may include perforation, abscess, fistula, peritonitis, sepsis, or even death ( 2 ). It is relatively rare for jujube pits to become lodged in the anal canal, leading to perianal infection. Literature reports indicate that jujube pits most commonly get lodged in the esophagus, followed by the pylorus and duodenum ( 3 ), with the anal canal being an extremely rare site for jujube pit impaction ( 4 ). Due to the narrowness of the anal canal and the contraction of the anal sphincter, sharp and hard foreign bodies are more likely to become lodged, causing penetration into surrounding tissues and triggering infection.

Children's oral tendencies, especially during the oral stage, increase the risk of ingesting brightly colored jujubes. Communication challenges may obscure the medical history, posing a risk of overlooking rare causes like jujube pit impaction in perianal infections. In the two cases presented in this article, caregivers initially denied any history of jujube ingestion, but other family members confirmed jujube consumption. Additionally, both patients exhibited symptoms such as diarrhea and perianal discomfort, which may be related to jujube pit impaction in the anal canal. Therefore, primary prevention is crucial, aiming to prevent children from coming into contact with potentially harmful objects.

For cases where jujube pit impaction has already led to perianal infection, the unclear medical history and the unique texture of jujube pits make routine digital rectal examination and x-ray ineffective. CT and MRI imaging not only detect the presence and location of jujube pit foreign bodies but also assess damage to adjacent tissues ( 5 ). The treatment approach is well-established. We recommend ultrasound-guided incision and removal of the foreign body under general anesthesia, with careful inspection for any injuries or fistula formation. Thorough irrigation of the wound and appropriate drainage placement are essential. Notably, both cases presented with a relatively extensive area of infection. Surgery revealed minimal purulent fluid, likely due to the short symptom duration. The process of jujube pit impaction migrating from the anal canal to the perianal tissues, resembling the scenario in anal fistula procedures with seton placement, may explain the absence of perianal fistula formation.

In conclusion, perianal infection in children caused by ingested jujube pit impaction is extremely rare. A relatively extensive area of infection, along with a history of jujube consumption, and symptoms such as diarrhea, perianal discomfort, or recurrent infections may raise suspicions for the diagnosis. We recommend early confirmation through MRI or CT imaging and prompt surgical removal of the jujube pit, which is crucial for effective treatment.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by The Ethics Committee of Ningbo University Affiliated Women and Children’s Hospital. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardians/next of kin. Written informed consent was obtained from the minor(s)' legal guardian/next of kin for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

Author contributions

GJ: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. LW: Writing – review & editing. WR: Writing – review & editing. QS: Data curation, Writing – review & editing. JZ: Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ningbo medical key supporting discipline (2022-F25).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1. ASGE Standards of Practice Committee, Ikenberry SO, Jue TL, Anderson MA, Appalaneni V, Banerjee S, et al. Management of ingested foreign bodies and food impactions. Gastrointest Endosc . (2011) 73(6):1085–91. doi: 10.1016/j.gie.2010.11.010

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2. Gurevich Y, Sahn B, Weinstein T. Foreign body ingestion in pediatric patients. Curr Opin Pediatr . (2018) 30(5):677–82. doi: 10.1097/MOP.0000000000000670

3. Song JT, Chang XH, Liu SS, Chen J, Liu MN, Wen JF, et al. Individualized endoscopic management strategy for impacting jujube pits in the upper gastrointestinal tract: a 3-year single-center experience in Northern China. BMC Surg . (2021) 21(1):18. doi: 10.1186/s12893-020-01008-y

4. Liu YH, Lv ZB, Liu JB, Sheng QF. Perianorectal abscesses and fistula due to ingested jujube pit in infant: two case reports. World J Clin Cases . (2020) 8(20):4930–7. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i20.4930

5. Ozbilgin M, Arslan B, Yakut MC, Aksoy SO, Terzi MC. Five years with a rectal foreign body: a case report. Int J Surg Case Rep . (2015) 6C:210–3. doi: 10.1016/j.ijscr.2014.11.053

Keywords: perianal, infection, children, ingested, jujube pit, case report

Citation: Jiang G, Wu L, Ruan W, Shao Q and Zhu J (2024) Case Report: Perianal infection in children caused by ingested jujube pits: a report of two cases. Front. Pediatr. 12:1379689. doi: 10.3389/fped.2024.1379689

Received: 31 January 2024; Accepted: 29 March 2024; Published: 10 April 2024.

Reviewed by:

© 2024 Jiang, Wu, Ruan, Shao and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Guoping Jiang [email protected]

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O.J. Simpson, Football Star Whose Trial Riveted the Nation, Dies at 76

He ran to football fame and made fortunes in movies. His trial for the murder of his former wife and her friend became an inflection point on race in America.

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By Robert D. McFadden

O.J. Simpson, who ran to fame on the football field, made fortunes as an all-American in movies, television and advertising, and was acquitted of killing his former wife and her friend in a 1995 trial in Los Angeles that mesmerized the nation, died on Wednesday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 76.

The cause was cancer, his family announced on social media.

The jury in the murder trial cleared him, but the case, which had held up a cracked mirror to Black and white America, changed the trajectory of his life. In 1997, a civil suit by the victims’ families found him liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman, and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages. He paid little of the debt, moved to Florida and struggled to remake his life, raise his children and stay out of trouble.

In 2006, he sold a book manuscript, titled “If I Did It,” and a prospective TV interview, giving a “hypothetical” account of murders he had always denied committing. A public outcry ended both projects, but Mr. Goldman’s family secured the book rights, added material imputing guilt to Mr. Simpson and had it published.

In 2007, he was arrested after he and other men invaded a Las Vegas hotel room of some sports memorabilia dealers and took a trove of collectibles. He claimed that the items had been stolen from him, but a jury in 2008 found him guilty of 12 charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping, after a trial that drew only a smattering of reporters and spectators. He was sentenced to nine to 33 years in a Nevada state prison. He served the minimum term and was released in 2017.

Over the years, the story of O.J. Simpson generated a tide of tell-all books, movies, studies and debate over questions of justice, race relations and celebrity in a nation that adores its heroes, especially those cast in rags-to-riches stereotypes, but that has never been comfortable with its deeper contradictions.

There were many in the Simpson saga. Yellowing old newspaper clippings yield the earliest portraits of a postwar child of poverty afflicted with rickets and forced to wear steel braces on his spindly legs, of a hardscrabble life in a bleak housing project and of hanging with teenage gangs in the tough back streets of San Francisco, where he learned to run.

“Running, man, that’s what I do,” he said in 1975, when he was one of America’s best-known and highest-paid football players, the Buffalo Bills’ electrifying, swivel-hipped ball carrier, known universally as the Juice. “All my life I’ve been a runner.”

And so he had — running to daylight on the gridiron of the University of Southern California and in the roaring stadiums of the National Football League for 11 years; running for Hollywood movie moguls, for Madison Avenue image-makers and for television networks; running to pinnacles of success in sports and entertainment.

Along the way, he broke college and professional records, won the Heisman Trophy and was enshrined in pro football’s Hall of Fame. He appeared in dozens of movies and memorable commercials for Hertz and other clients; was a sports analyst for ABC and NBC; acquired homes, cars and a radiant family; and became an American idol — a handsome warrior with the gentle eyes and soft voice of a nice guy. And he played golf.

It was the good life, on the surface. But there was a deeper, more troubled reality — about an infant daughter drowning in the family pool and a divorce from his high school sweetheart; about his stormy marriage to a stunning young waitress and her frequent calls to the police when he beat her; about the jealous rages of a frustrated man.

Calls to the Police

The abuse left Nicole Simpson bruised and terrified on scores of occasions, but the police rarely took substantive action. After one call to the police on New Year’s Day, 1989, officers found her badly beaten and half-naked, hiding in the bushes outside their home. “He’s going to kill me!” she sobbed. Mr. Simpson was arrested and convicted of spousal abuse, but was let off with a fine and probation.

The couple divorced in 1992, but confrontations continued. On Oct. 25, 1993, Ms. Simpson called the police again. “He’s back,” she told a 911 operator, and officers once more intervened.

Then it happened. On June 12, 1994, Ms. Simpson, 35, and Mr. Goldman, 25, were attacked outside her condominium in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, not far from Mr. Simpson’s estate. She was nearly decapitated, and Mr. Goldman was slashed to death.

The knife was never found, but the police discovered a bloody glove at the scene and abundant hair, blood and fiber clues. Aware of Mr. Simpson’s earlier abuse and her calls for help, investigators believed from the start that Mr. Simpson, 46, was the killer. They found blood on his car and, in his home, a bloody glove that matched the one picked up near the bodies. There was never any other suspect.

Five days later, after Mr. Simpson had attended Nicole’s funeral with their two children, he was charged with the murders, but fled in his white Ford Bronco. With his old friend and teammate Al Cowlings at the wheel and the fugitive in the back holding a gun to his head and threatening suicide, the Bronco led a fleet of patrol cars and news helicopters on a slow 60-mile televised chase over the Southern California freeways.

Networks pre-empted prime-time programming for the spectacle, some of it captured by news cameras in helicopters, and a nationwide audience of 95 million people watched for hours. Overpasses and roadsides were crowded with spectators. The police closed highways and motorists pulled over to watch, some waving and cheering at the passing Bronco, which was not stopped. Mr. Simpson finally returned home and was taken into custody.

The ensuing trial lasted nine months, from January to early October 1995, and captivated the nation with its lurid accounts of the murders and the tactics and strategy of prosecutors and of a defense that included the “dream team” of Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. , F. Lee Bailey , Alan M. Dershowitz, Barry Scheck and Robert L. Shapiro.

The prosecution, led by Marcia Clark and Christopher A. Darden, had what seemed to be overwhelming evidence: tests showing that blood, shoe prints, hair strands, shirt fibers, carpet threads and other items found at the murder scene had come from Mr. Simpson or his home, and DNA tests showing that the bloody glove found at Mr. Simpson’s home matched the one left at the crime scene. Prosecutors also had a list of 62 incidents of abusive behavior by Mr. Simpson against his wife.

But as the trial unfolded before Judge Lance Ito and a 12-member jury that included 10 Black people, it became apparent that the police inquiry had been flawed. Photo evidence had been lost or mislabeled; DNA had been collected and stored improperly, raising a possibility that it was tainted. And Detective Mark Fuhrman, a key witness, admitted that he had entered the Simpson home and found the matching glove and other crucial evidence — all without a search warrant.

‘If the Glove Don’t Fit’

The defense argued, but never proved, that Mr. Fuhrman planted the second glove. More damaging, however, was its attack on his history of racist remarks. Mr. Fuhrman swore that he had not used racist language for a decade. But four witnesses and a taped radio interview played for the jury contradicted him and undermined his credibility. (After the trial, Mr. Fuhrman pleaded no contest to a perjury charge. He was the only person convicted in the case.)

In what was seen as the crucial blunder of the trial, the prosecution asked Mr. Simpson, who was not called to testify, to try on the gloves. He struggled to do so. They were apparently too small.

“If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit,” Mr. Cochran told the jury later.

In the end, it was the defense that had the overwhelming case, with many grounds for reasonable doubt, the standard for acquittal. But it wanted more. It portrayed the Los Angeles police as racist, charged that a Black man was being railroaded, and urged the jury to think beyond guilt or innocence and send a message to a racist society.

On the day of the verdict, autograph hounds, T-shirt vendors, street preachers and paparazzi engulfed the courthouse steps. After what some news media outlets had called “The Trial of the Century,” producing 126 witnesses, 1,105 items of evidence and 45,000 pages of transcripts, the jury — sequestered for 266 days, longer than any in California history — deliberated for only three hours.

Much of America came to a standstill. In homes, offices, airports and malls, people paused to watch. Even President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office to join his secretaries. In court, cries of “Yes!” and “Oh, no!” were echoed across the nation as the verdict left many Black people jubilant and many white people aghast.

In the aftermath, Mr. Simpson and the case became the grist for television specials, films and more than 30 books, many by participants who made millions. Mr. Simpson, with Lawrence Schiller, produced “I Want to Tell You,” a thin mosaic volume of letters, photographs and self-justifying commentary that sold hundreds of thousands of copies and earned Mr. Simpson more than $1 million.

He was released after 474 days in custody, but his ordeal was hardly over. Much of the case was resurrected for the civil suit by the Goldman and Brown families. A predominantly white jury with a looser standard of proof held Mr. Simpson culpable and awarded the families $33.5 million in damages. The civil case, which excluded racial issues as inflammatory and speculative, was a vindication of sorts for the families and a blow to Mr. Simpson, who insisted that he had no chance of ever paying the damages.

Mr. Simpson had spent large sums for his criminal defense. Records submitted in the murder trial showed his net worth at about $11 million, and people with knowledge of the case said he had only $3.5 million afterward. A 1999 auction of his Heisman Trophy and other memorabilia netted about $500,000, which went to the plaintiffs. But court records show he paid little of the balance that was owed.

He regained custody of the children he had with Ms. Simpson, and in 2000 he moved to Florida, bought a home south of Miami and settled into a quiet life, playing golf and living on pensions from the N.F.L., the Screen Actors Guild and other sources, about $400,000 a year. Florida laws protect a home and pension income from seizure to satisfy court judgments.

The glamour and lucrative contracts were gone, but Mr. Simpson sent his two children to prep school and college. He was seen in restaurants and malls, where he readily obliged requests for autographs. He was fined once for powerboat speeding in a manatee zone, and once for pirating cable television signals.

In 2006, as the debt to the murder victims’ families grew with interest to $38 million, he was sued by Fred Goldman, the father of Ronald Goldman, who contended that his book and television deal for “If I Did It” had advanced him $1 million and that it had been structured to cheat the family of the damages owed.

The projects were scrapped by News Corporation, parent of the publisher HarperCollins and the Fox Television Network, and a corporation spokesman said Mr. Simpson was not expected to repay an $800,000 advance. The Goldman family secured the book rights from a trustee after a bankruptcy court proceeding and had it published in 2007 under the title “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.” On the book’s cover, the “If” appeared in tiny type, and the “I Did It” in large red letters.

Another Trial, and Prison

After years in which it seemed he had been convicted in the court of public opinion, Mr. Simpson in 2008 again faced a jury. This time he was accused of raiding a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007 with five other men, most of them convicted criminals and two armed with guns, to steal a trove of sports memorabilia from a pair of collectible dealers.

Mr. Simpson claimed that he was only trying to retrieve items stolen from him, including eight footballs, two plaques and a photo of him with the F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover, and that he had not known about any guns. But four men, who had been arrested with him and pleaded guilty, testified against him, two saying they had carried guns at his request. Prosecutors also played hours of tapes secretly recorded by a co-conspirator detailing the planning and execution of the crime.

On Oct. 3 — 13 years to the day after his acquittal in Los Angeles — a jury of nine women and three men found him guilty of armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, conspiracy, coercion and other charges. After Mr. Simpson was sentenced to a minimum of nine years in prison, his lawyer vowed to appeal, noting that none of the jurors were Black and questioning whether they could be fair to Mr. Simpson after what had happened years earlier. But jurors said the double-murder case was never mentioned in deliberations.

In 2013, the Nevada Parole Board, citing his positive conduct in prison and participation in inmate programs, granted Mr. Simpson parole on several charges related to his robbery conviction. But the board left other verdicts in place. His bid for a new trial was rejected by a Nevada judge, and legal experts said that appeals were unlikely to succeed. He remained in custody until Oct. 1, 2017, when the parole board unanimously granted him parole when he became eligible.

Certain conditions of Mr. Simpson’s parole — travel restrictions, no contacts with co-defendants in the robbery case and no drinking to excess — remained until 2021, when they were lifted, making him a completely free man.

Questions about his guilt or innocence in the murders of his former wife and Mr. Goldman never went away. In May 2008, Mike Gilbert, a memorabilia dealer and former crony, said in a book that Mr. Simpson, high on marijuana, had admitted the killings to him after the trial. Mr. Gilbert quoted Mr. Simpson as saying that he had carried no knife but that he had used one that Ms. Simpson had in her hand when she opened the door. He also said that Mr. Simpson had stopped taking arthritis medicine to let his hands swell so that they would not fit the gloves in court. Mr. Simpson’s lawyer Yale L. Galanter denied Mr. Gilbert’s claims, calling him delusional.

In 2016, more than 20 years after his murder trial, the story of O.J. Simpson was told twice more for endlessly fascinated mass audiences on television. “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” Ryan Murphy’s installment in the “American Crime Story” anthology on FX, focused on the trial itself and on the constellation of characters brought together by the defendant (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.). “O.J.: Made in America,” a five-part, nearly eight-hour installment in ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary series (it was also released in theaters), detailed the trial but extended the narrative to include a biography of Mr. Simpson and an examination of race, fame, sports and Los Angeles over the previous half-century.

A.O. Scott, in a commentary in The New York Times, called “The People v. O.J. Simpson” a “tightly packed, almost indecently entertaining piece of pop realism, a Dreiser novel infused with the spirit of Tom Wolfe” and said “O.J.: Made in America” had “the grandeur and authority of the best long-form fiction.”

In Leg Braces as a Child

Orenthal James Simpson was born in San Francisco on July 9, 1947, one of four children of James and Eunice (Durden) Simpson. As an infant afflicted with the calcium deficiency rickets, he wore leg braces for several years but outgrew his disability. His father, a janitor and cook, left the family when the child was 4, and his mother, a hospital nurse’s aide, raised the children in a housing project in the tough Potrero Hill district.

As a teenager, Mr. Simpson, who hated the name Orenthal and called himself O.J., ran with street gangs. But at 15 he was introduced by a friend to Willie Mays, the renowned San Francisco Giants outfielder. The encounter was inspirational and turned his life around, Mr. Simpson recalled. He joined the Galileo High School football team and won All-City honors in his senior year.

In 1967, Mr. Simpson married his high school sweetheart, Marguerite Whitley. The couple had three children, Arnelle, Jason and Aaren. Shortly after their divorce in 1979, Aaren, 23 months old, fell into a swimming pool at home and died a week later.

Mr. Simpson married Nicole Brown in 1985; the couple had a daughter, Sydney, and a son, Justin. He is survived by Arnelle, Jason, Sydney and Justin Simpson and three grandchildren, his lawyer Malcolm P. LaVergne said.

After being released from prison in Nevada in 2017, Mr. Simpson moved into the Las Vegas country club home of a wealthy friend, James Barnett, for what he assumed would be a temporary stay. But he found himself enjoying the local golf scene and making friends, sometimes with people who introduced themselves to him at restaurants, Mr. LaVergne said. Mr. Simpson decided to remain in Las Vegas full time. At his death, he lived right on the course of the Rhodes Ranch Golf Club.

From his youth, Mr. Simpson was a natural on the gridiron. He had dazzling speed, power and finesse in a broken field that made him hard to catch, let alone tackle. He began his collegiate career at San Francisco City College, scoring 54 touchdowns in two years. In his third year he transferred to Southern Cal, where he shattered records — rushing for 3,423 yards and 36 touchdowns in 22 games — and led the Trojans into the Rose Bowl in successive years. He won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s best college football player of 1968. Some magazines called him the greatest running back in the history of the college game.

His professional career was even more illustrious, though it took time to get going. The No. 1 draft pick in 1969, Mr. Simpson went to the Buffalo Bills — the league’s worst team had the first pick — and was used sparingly in his rookie season; in his second, he was sidelined with a knee injury. But by 1971, behind a line known as the Electric Company because they “turned on the Juice,” he began breaking games open.

In 1973, Mr. Simpson became the first to rush for over 2,000 yards, breaking a record held by Jim Brown, and was named the N.F.L.’s most valuable player. In 1975, he led the American Football Conference in rushing and scoring. After nine seasons, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers, his hometown team, and played his last two years with them. He retired in 1979 as the highest-paid player in the league, with a salary over $800,000, having scored 61 touchdowns and rushed for more than 11,000 yards in his career. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

Mr. Simpson’s work as a network sports analyst overlapped with his football years. He was a color commentator for ABC from 1969 to 1977, and for NBC from 1978 to 1982. He rejoined ABC on “Monday Night Football” from 1983 to 1986.

Actor and Pitchman

And he had a parallel acting career. He appeared in some 30 films as well as television productions, including the mini-series “Roots” (1977) and the movies “The Towering Inferno” (1974), “Killer Force” (1976), “Cassandra Crossing” (1976), “Capricorn One” (1977), “Firepower” (1979) and others, including the comedy “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad” (1988) and its two sequels.

He did not pretend to be a serious actor. “I’m a realist,” he said. “No matter how many acting lessons I took, the public just wouldn’t buy me as Othello.”

Mr. Simpson was a congenial celebrity. He talked freely to reporters and fans, signed autographs, posed for pictures with children and was self-effacing in interviews, crediting his teammates and coaches, who clearly liked him. In an era of Black power displays, his only militancy was to crack heads on the gridiron.

His smiling, racially neutral image, easygoing manner and almost universal acceptance made him a perfect candidate for endorsements. Even before joining the N.F.L., he signed deals, including a three-year, $250,000 contract with Chevrolet. He later endorsed sporting goods, soft drinks, razor blades and other products.

In 1975, Hertz made him the first Black star of a national television advertising campaign. Memorable long-running commercials depicted him sprinting through airports and leaping over counters to get to a Hertz rental car. He earned millions, Hertz rentals shot up and the ads made O.J.’s face one of the most recognizable in America.

Mr. Simpson, in a way, wrote his own farewell on the day of his arrest. As he rode in the Bronco with a gun to his head, a friend, Robert Kardashian, released a handwritten letter to the public that he had left at home, expressing love for Ms. Simpson and denying that he killed her. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” he wrote. “I’ve had a great life, great friends. Please think of the real O.J. and not this lost person.”

Alex Traub contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to the glove that was an important piece of evidence in Mr. Simpson’s murder trial. It was not a golf glove. The error was repeated in a picture caption.

How we handle corrections

Robert D. McFadden is a Times reporter who writes advance obituaries of notable people. More about Robert D. McFadden

Sigur Center for Asian Studies

At the Elliott School of International Affairs

[4/24/24] Evacuation Campaigns in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and the Case of Children in Vinh Linh Special Zone

Friday, April 24, 2024

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Chung-wen Shih Asian Studies Conference Room

Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E Street NW Washington, D.C. 20052

Evacuation campaigns were part of the systematic response strategy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to minimize human and property losses, protect labor forces and production resources, and preserve material and spiritual resources to serve the national liberation war for reunification of Vietnam. These evacuation campaigns began shortly after the French attempted to recolonize Vietnam after 1945 and lasted until the U.S. ceased their air strikes in the North Vietnam and then withdrew from Vietnam in 1973. By collecting archival materials in Vietnam related to these campaigns, this presentation clarifies the systematic efforts of the central and local governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in evacuating the people to cope with the destructive war in the North Vietnam by the air and naval forces of the U.S. Through interviews, the presentation will also delve into the memories of those who were children in the Vinh Linh Special Zone adjacent to the Demilitarized Zone evacuated to other provinces of North Vietnam. From there, it will analyze some of the impacts of the evacuation campaigns on people, especially children, during and after the Vietnam War.

Dr. Lê Nam Trung Hiếu is a Vietnamese historian, with his field of interests in Vietnamese perspectives into the American war in Vietnam and diplomatic relations amongst relevant stakeholders of the war. He earned his PhD in International History in Hue University in 2017, with mobility periods at Ghent University for exchange MA program in Political Sciences and at Porto University for exchange PhD program in historiography. With the chapter “Another Kind of Vietnamization: Language Policies in Higher Education in the Two Vietnams”, he is a corresponding author in  Vietnam over the Long Twentieth Century – Becoming Modern, Going Global  (edited by Liam C.Kelly and Gerard Sasges) in the book series Global Vietnam published by Springer. He has also worked in a diplomatic history-pertaining project of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is based in Danang, Vietnam, and teaches at Duy Tan University.

Linda J. Yarr is Research Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs and Director of Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia (PISA). She began her work for PISA in 1995, when PISA was located within the American Council for Learned Societies. PISA promotes international affairs education training and research in cooperation with leading agencies and universities in Asia. Ms. Yarr has secured foundation grants and private donations to underwrite all of PISA’s activities and designed its collaborative and path-breaking programs in Asia. Ms. Yarr taught at American University, Friends World College, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of Denver. She has held visiting scholar appointments at the University of Helsinki, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, the Institute for Malaysian and International Studies of the National University of Malaysia, the School of International Service of American University, and the Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute. She serves on the board of directors of Critical Asian Studies and is a member of the National Committee on North Korea. 

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