There’s a good chance you grew up reading the adventures of The Poky Little Puppy, Tootle, or Scuffy the Tugboat in the pages of Little Golden Books. Come along as we look at the history of these tiny tomes with the gold foil spine that have helped generations of kids learn to appreciate the printed word.
This month marks the end of a long, strange silence: For the first time in 30 years, Maurice Sendak has published a book that he both wrote and drew.......kids' books—the best ones—can challenge and edify children the same way we expect adult literature to challenge and edify us. By dumbing down or censoring their libraries we deprive children of the crucial means of confronting, then mastering, their fears. We take away their hope of finally letting go.
Today would have been Roald Dahl’s 95th birthday had he not died at the age of 74 in 1990. This year also marks the birthday of one of his most beloved books, “James and the Giant Peach,” which was published in the United States 50 years ago.
Joan Kiddell-Monroe (1908–1972) was a British-born author and illustrator of children's books. I've been collecting her work from the 50s and 60s for the Oxford Myths series. Read more about her at wikipedia. Maybe someday I'll visit her papers.
He knows kids respond to this darkness. "I take kids seriously," he says. "They have a lot of things wrong. They protect their parents. Children are brave little creatures."
Kurt Vonnegut said it best: “There’s only one rule I know of: goddamn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
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As Flaubert said, “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Since 1967, on or around Hans Christian Andersen's birthday, 2 April, International Children's Book Day (ICBD) is celebrated to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children's books.
