An animated first-time history of the visionaries--editors, authors, librarians, booksellers, and others--whose passion for books has transformed American childhood and American culture
What should children read? As the preeminent childrens literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus, shows incisively, thats the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of a rambunctious childrens book publishing scene in Colonial times. And its the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century childrens book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business.
Marcus delivers a provocative look at the fierce turf wars fought among pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians--most of them women--throughout the twentieth century. His story of the emergence and growth of the major publishing houses--and of the distinctive literature for the young they shaped--gains extraordinary depth (and occasional dish) through the authors path-finding research and in-depth interviews with dozens of editors, artists, and other key publishing figures whose careers go back to the 1930s, including Maurice Sendak, Ursula Nordstrom, Margaret K. McElderry, and Margret Rey.
From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to Cormiers The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty appraisal of the pivotal books that transformed childrens book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times.
What should children read? As the preeminent childrens literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus, shows incisively, thats the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of a rambunctious childrens book publishing scene in Colonial times. And its the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century childrens book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business.
Marcus delivers a provocative look at the fierce turf wars fought among pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians--most of them women--throughout the twentieth century. His story of the emergence and growth of the major publishing houses--and of the distinctive literature for the young they shaped--gains extraordinary depth (and occasional dish) through the authors path-finding research and in-depth interviews with dozens of editors, artists, and other key publishing figures whose careers go back to the 1930s, including Maurice Sendak, Ursula Nordstrom, Margaret K. McElderry, and Margret Rey.
From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to Cormiers The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty appraisal of the pivotal books that transformed childrens book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times.
