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In 1744, John Newbery (1713–1767) opened a
bookstore in St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, where
he published and sold books for children. -
Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered the author of the first American book written specifically for children, A Wonder
Book for Boys and Girls (1851/1893). -
Lewis Carroll’s "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland," was soon reprinted in English-speaking countries all over the world.
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Both Lewis Carroll’s two books were written purely to give pleasure to children. There is not a trace of a lesson or moral in the books.
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"Heidi," "Pinocchio," and "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils," were British and American books that kids read with equal enthusiasm.
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Walter de la Mare, Songs of Childhood
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
E. Nesbit, Five Children and It
Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter
Rabbit -
The first child labor laws were passed for freed children to go to school.
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Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the
Willows
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green
Gables -
James M. Barrie, Peter Pan
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In 1919, the US publishing house Macmillan
launched a department devoted entirely to children’s books. Louise Bechtel Seaman, who had worked as an editor of adult books and taught in a progressive school, was appointed department head. -
Modern picture books began to develop during the 1920s and 1930s; from the 1940s through the 1960s, children’s and young adults’ books became an increasingly important part of libraries, schools, homes, and publishing houses.
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In 1922 and 1923, two women, Helen Dean Fish and May Massee, became the first children’s books editors, each at a different company.
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In 1922, the John Newbery Award was established by the American Library Association, followed by the Randolph Caldecott Award in 1938.
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Margery Williams, The Velveteen
Rabbit -
In 1924, The Horn Book Magazine was published by the Bookshop for Boys and Girls in Boston under the guidance of Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney.
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A. A. Milne, When We Were Very
Young -
In 1933, May Massee moved to open a children’s books department at Viking. Other publishers began to open children’s books departments, and children’s literature blossomed into the twentieth century.
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Jean de Brunhoff, The Story of Babar
P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins -
Edward Ardizzone, Little Tim and the
Brave Sea Captain -
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The
Yearling -
Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline
T. S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of
Practical Cats -
Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy
Eric Knight, Lassie Come-Home -
Robert McCloskey, Make Way for
Ducklings
H. A. Rey, Curious George -
Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain
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C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch,
and the Wardrobe -
Mary Norton, The Borrowers
E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web -
Lucy M. Boston, The Children of
Green Knowe
Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the
Ninth
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the
Ring -
Philippa Pearce, Tom’s Midnight
Garden -
It was difficult in the 1960s and 1970s to find books that presented girls and women in what at the time were “nontraditional” roles, that was not the case at the end of the twentieth century.
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The genre began in earnest in the 1960s and 1970s
with the publication of novels such as S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (A), Paul Zindel’s The Pigman (A), Robert Lipsyte’s The Contender (A), Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War (A), and Judy Blume’s Forever (A), among others. -
Ashley Bryan was named the winner of the 2012 Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement; in 1962, Bryan was the first African American to both write and illustrate a children’s book.
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Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time -
Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild
Things Are -
Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three
Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy -
Virginia Hamilton, Zeely
S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders -
Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Paul Zindel, The Pigman -
Special recognition of authors and illustrators of particular parallel cultures, such as the Coretta Scott King Awards (for
African American literature) and the Pura Belpré Awards (for Latino literature), were established in 1970 and 1996, respectively, and are administered by the American Library Association. -
Literature for young readers by and about Native Americans began to flower in the late 1970s, as Native American voices, so long suppressed, began to be heard. Children’s
literature now includes Native American poetry, folklore, historical fiction, and biography, as well as historical nonfiction from a Native American perspective. -
In 1975, disturbed by the lack of picturebooks
that reflected diversity, Harriet Rohmer established
Children’s Book Press, devoted to the publication of
bilingual picture books that reflected a diversity of cultural experiences. -
The first African American to win the Newbery Award, in 1975 for M. C. Higgins, the Great (I–A) and the international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the late Virginia Hamilton was also the first writer for children and adolescents to receive the prestigious MacArthur “genius” grant.
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Other small presses such as Just Us Books, founded in 1988, were established to address the lack of diversity in the field, and forward-thinking editors such as Phyllis Fogelman, at Dial, encouraged and supported the work of several now-notable African American authors and illustrators.
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The increasing attention paid to nonfiction in the final decades of the twentieth century is reflected in the establishment of the OrbisPictus Award, administered by the National Council of Teachers of English, in 1990, and the Robert F. Sibert Award for outstanding informational books, administered by the American Library Association, in 2001
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In 1994, Bishop found that only 3 to 4 percent of the children’s books published in 1990, 1991, and 1992 related to of color. Since 1999, less than 3 percent of books published each year were by or about people of color.
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The subsequent resurgence of adolescent literature was marked by the establishment of the Michael L. Printz Award in 2000; this award is administered by the American Library Association.
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In 2004, the Schneider Family Book Award, administered by the American Library Association, was inaugurated to honor an author or illustrator for his or her expression of the
disability experience for young readers. -
Outstanding International Books list, begun in 2006, and reviews of translated books in the USBBY newsletter, offer titles for those interested in global literature.
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Reflecting the increasing numbers of books that the Arab American community produces, the Arab American Book Award for literature for young readers was established in 2007.
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The classic description of a picture book was shaken with the awarding of the Caldecott Medal, given for the most distinguished picture book of the preceding year, to Brian Selznick for The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
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Chris Raschka’s A Ball for Daisy relied entirely on the illustrations to tell the story of a small dog who loved playing (and sleeping) with her big red ball, Raschka conveys emotions, action, and theme through use of line, color, and the sequence of the illustrations—and for this, he was awarded the 2012 Caldecott Medal.