Infant Joy from Songs of Innocence. William Blake. Watercolor, 1794. Henry W. and Albert A.

Berg Collection of English and American Literature

3
Introduction
Our rst books stir and shape us as few books ever can again.
Goodnight Moon! Pippi Longstocking! A Wrinkle in Time!
For more than three centuries, books made with the young in
mind have served as indispensable gateways to literature, art,
and knowledge of the world. And if, as adults, we nd that our
own childhood favorites remain as thrilling, funny, or heart-
stoppingly beautiful as ever, we should not be surprised.
As W. H. Auden wisely observed, There are no good books
which are only for children.
Todays brightly packaged, increasingly globalized literature
for young people has complex roots in world folklore,
Enlightenment philosophy, nationalist fervor, and the pictorial
narrative traditions of Asian and Western art, among other
sources. Collectively, these books form a vivid record of literate
societys changing hopes and dreams, and of the never-ending
challenge of communicating with young readers in the most
compelling possible way.
The ABC of It draws from collections across the Library
to present literature for children and teens against a
sweeping backdrop of history, the arts, popular culture, and
technological change. The books and related objects on view
reveal hidden contexts and connections, inviting second looks
and fresh discoveries. They suggest that books for young
people have stories to tell us about ourselvesand are rarely
as simple as they seem.
4
Visions of Childhood
ABOVE:
Detail of children from a hand-colored
etching. 1843. Picture Collection
are children born innocent or sinful? Empty-headed
or wise? Should they be seen and not heard, as an old adage recommends,
or granted free rein to play as raucously as they wish? Should they be taught
to think and act as good citizens?
Behind every childrens book is a vision of childhood: a shared understanding
of what growing up is all about. Accordingly, authoritative voices from the
realms of theology, philosophy, psychology, and education have all played
their part in shaping the nature of literature for young people.
Puritan minister Cotton Mather urged the Bible on children at the earliest
possible age. But Mathers near contemporary, philosopher John Locke,
believed that a reading life best began with books apt to delight and
entertain, such as Aesops fables. Jean-Jacques Rousseau dismissed
Lockes advice, arguing that the young needed the bare truth, not tales
that cover truth with a veil, and that preteens were in fact better off
reading the book of Nature, by which he meant their own experience.
Today, experts disagree just as vigorously about the good or harm
attributable to the fantasyor frank realismfound in contemporary books.
Now as then, when visions of childhood clash, literature for young people
becomes anything but childs play.
5
with rare exceptions, adults not only create
and publish what young people read but also serve as its gatekeepers,
determining what children canand cannotaccess.
As literacy rates skyrocketed in the 19th century, juvenile books and
magazines, including some of spectacularly beautiful design, became gifts
of choice in education-minded households throughout the industrialized
world. Victorians, inuenced by the eras Arts and Crafts Movement, cobbled
together clever homemade storybooks as unique tokens of affection that
occasionally found a wider audiencenone more famously than Lewis
Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland.
Around 1900, Americas young people became the worlds rst to enjoy
access to public libraries. The oasis-like Childrens Rooms that later
generations would take for granted rst opened their doors then, and
childrens librarianship emerged as a new, activist profession concerned with
both the accessibility and the quality of juvenile books.
Adults, of course, have not always had the last word. Adventure-laced dime
novels, rst sold at mid-19th-century tobacco shops, fueled the fantasy
lives of generations of teens, who could often afford to buy the reputedly vile
and disreputable paperbacks with their own pocket change. From the 1930s,
10-cent comics gave schoolchildren a thrilling forbidden literature of their
own to pore over in secret.
Of the Shelf:
Giving and Geting Books
ABOVE:
Drawing from Alices Adventures in
Wonderland. John Tenniel. Pencil,
ca. 1885. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg
Collection of English and American
Literature
6
Raising a Ruckus
childrens books have often served as lightning rods
for controversy, with topics considered taboodeath, race, and sex chief
among themand notions of child-appropriateness triggering sharp debate
and vigorous efforts to limit or bar access to certain books. While acts of
censorship are often driven by overt political or cultural agendas, other,
more ambiguous cases blur the line between blatant suppression and well-
intentioned editorialor parentaljudgment.
In the United States, censorship has typically been instigated by self-
appointed gatekeepers, not centralized governmental authorities. Cold
Warera authors Garth Williams, Madeleine LEngle, Maurice Sendak, and
Judy Blume saw their popular books routinely challenged, primarily by
fundamentalist religious groups. Nearly a century before, Mark Twain had
divined an upside to such pious literary witch-hunts. When informed that the
Concord, Massachusetts, public library had expelled Huckleberry Finn
from its shelves, deeming it trash, Twain crowed to his publisher, That
will sell 25,000 copies for us sure.
ABOVE:
Image removed.
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From Page to Stage
and Beyond
as an art form notable for its indelible characters
and well-turned plots, childrens literature has long served as a trove of
material for the performing arts and Hollywood. The earliest lm versions
of The Secret Garden and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz date from the Silent
Era. The tradition of fashioning operas, ballets, dramas, and musicals on a
fairy tale or storybook is older still. Who knew that a picture book, The Story
of Ferdinand, could inspire not only an animated lm but also symphonic
treatment, a pop song, and a hairdo involving a hornlike ip?
Toys, games, dolls, clothing, and other commercially licensed spin-offs
have had a similarly long and labyrinthine history. Decades before Disney,
Lewis Carroll and Beatrix Potter authorized the manufacture of gift items
inspired by their literary creations. To stabilize her hand-sewn Peter Rabbit
prototype, Potter weighted the bunnys soft fabric form with lead shotthe
very thing with which the gun-toting Farmer McGregor would gladly have
pulverized Peter!
Adding to its pop-cultural legacy are the memorable catchphrases and
images that have seeped from childrens literature into the vernacular. Like
Alice wandering through Wonderland, we deem the inexplicable in our own
world curiouser and curiouser, and thanks to the Harry Potter books, we
now have the perfect wordmugglesfor the unmagical (or, more broadly,
boorish) people we might meet in our travels. And as a surere metaphor for
any fall from grace, Humpty Dumpty remains forever at our beck and call.
ABOVE:
Original drawing for The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz. W. W. Denslow. Pen and
ink, 1901. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach
Division of Art, Prints and Photographs,
Print Collection
8
Artistry of the Picture Book
as the market for childrens books expanded and
matured, publishers developed a keener understanding of their audience.
Among the increasingly well-dened genres that emerged as a result was
the picture book, catering to the capacities and interests of younger, often
preliterate children.
Early picture books were of necessity printed in black and white, with color
sometimes added afterward by hand. By the mid-1800s, however, industrial-
age wizardry had rendered color printing feasible. Talented artistsled by
Englands Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and Randolph Caldecottocked
from the allied realms of satirical illustration, printmaking, and graphic
design to seize a new chance to make their mark.
The genre evolved rapidly via bold experimentation with media, formatting,
typography, paper, and a highly distilled approach to writing that, in the
hands of a master like Margaret Wise Brown, approximated poetry. It
continues to mature as an art form, even merging on occasion with the
graphic novel, which has done much to explode the myth that older children
and adultsoutgrow illustration. As digital publishing advances, the
picture book and its natural ally, the artists book, look increasingly like the
laboratory where the future of the printed book will be decided.
ABOVE:
Illustration from A Apple Pie. Kate
Greenaway. London: George Routledge
& Sons, 1886. George Arents Collection
FOLLOWING PAGE:
Illustration from The Diverting History
of John Gilpin. Randolph Caldecott.
London: George Routledge & Sons, 1878.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division
of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print
Collection
9
10
Storied City: New York
to some people, sighs the worldly, wisecracking 12-year-
old Peter Hatcher of Judy Blumes Superfudge, theres no place like Nu Yuk.
And I guess Im one of them. As Americas real-life Oz, Crossroads of the
World, and publishing epicenter, New York City remains an enduring source
of inspiration for authors of books for children and teens.
Mark Twain, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Ludwig Bemelmans, H. A. and
Margret Rey, Langston Hughes, Robert McCloskey, Roald Dahl, Maurice
Sendak, and Blume herself all called New York home at one time or another.
Providing more than mere residency, however, New York and its culture of
superlativesits tall taleish appetite for newests, biggests, and bests
has made it a natural backdrop for the exploits of colorful characters, from
Eloise and Harriet the Spy to Lyle Crocodile. In the same spirit, writers and
artists have celebrated the citys iconic landmarks; chronicled its historic role
as a seaport, arts mecca, and immigrant destination; and zoomed in tightly
on its endlessly evolving honeycomb of culturally diverse neighborhoods.
New Yorks openness to change is doubtless the main reason it has inspired
its own ourishing subgenre of young peoples literature, with stories to tell
about growing up, venturing out, and becoming ones own person.
ABOVE:
Engraving from The Cries of New-York.
New York: S. Wood & Sons, 1816. Rare
Book Division
FOLLOWING PAGE:
Detail from Hokusai manga. Hokusai
Katsushika. Biy [Nagoya]: Thekid,
1817. Spencer Collection
11
My thanks to the following New York Public Library curators, librarians,
and staff members for their unfailingly generous and professional
assistance: Myriam de Arteni, Edwina Ashie-Nikoi, Lyndsi Barnes,
Virginia Bartow, Jeffrey Bayer, Elizabeth Bird, George Boziwick, David G.
Christie, Thea Constantine, Stephen Corrsin, Marie Coughlin, Elizabeth
Cronin, Elizabeth Denlinger, Louise Deveaux, Ching-Yen Donahue,
Steven Fullwood, Andrew Gaylard, Caryn Gedell, Isaac Gewirtz, Margaret
Glover, Alvaro Lazo, Denise Hibay, Rick Hunter, Michael Inman, Diane
June, Bob Kosovsky, Diana Lachatanere, Jeanne Lamb, Thomas Lannon,
Elizabeth Lareau, Jeremy Megrew, Miranda Mims, Tal Nadan, Nicholas
Ouellette, Andrew Pastore, Jessica Pigza, R. Scott Porter, Jenny Santos,
Allison Schlegel, Amy Schwegel, Isabel Stauffer, Nick Teti, Annie Varnot,
Madeleine Viljoen, Melanie Yolles, and Hee-Gwone Yoo.
These individuals graciously responded to research queries or
were helpful in identifying needed material: Per Ola dAulaire, Lene
Balleby, Tatiana Bedjanian, Claudia Bedrick, Ann K. Beneduce, Robert
Bird, Joel Birenbaum, Miranda Blue, Patricia Boulos, Brenda Bowen,
Marcia Brown, Elisabeth von Buchwald, Angelica Carpenter, George
Cooper, Jonathan Cott, Brian Crowley, Carmen Diana Dearden, Steven
Diamond, Monica Edinger, Yvonne Ericson, Jules Feiffer, Tomomi
Fujimoto, Gary Guadagnolo, R. Harvey, Pedro Juan Hernndez, Beverly
Horowitz, Judy Taylor Hough, Andrea Immel, Caroline Jewell, Jacob
Jrgensen, Norton Juster, Victor Kholodkov, Hilary Knight, Deborah
Kurosz, Martha Lawler, Stephanie Lovett, Olga Maeots, Jean Marcellino,
John Mason, Emily Arnold McCully, Sharon McQueen, Diane Muldrow,
Walter Dean Myers, Eisha Neely, Iva Prokeov, Viviana Quinones,
Stanley Rabinowitz, Patrick J. Rodgers, Dean Rogers, Morton Schindel,
Vladimir Semenikhin, Veronika evkov, Adrienne Sharp, Umesh
Shukla, James Smith, Linda Gramatky Smith, Melissa Smith, John
Solum, Nancy Southworth, Tracy van Straaten, Vilm Strnsk, Alan
Tannenbaum, Jennifer Tobias, Nancy Vacek, Charlotte Jones Voiklis,
Bernard Waber, Abigail Weisgard, Debra Whelan, Martha White, David
Wiesner, Kazuko Yoda, Timothy Young, Mary Zuber, and Lisbeth Zwerger.
My special thanks to The New York Public Librarys
Susan Rabbiner and Kailen Rogers for their expert guidance and steadfast
support; my ne editor, Marcie Muscat; Urshula Barbour and Karilyn
Johanesen of Pure+Applied for their inspired exhibition design; and to
my research assistant, Patrick Kiley, for his superlative work and good
companionship at every stage of this project.
Leonard S. Marcus, Exhibition Curator
Acknowledgments
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Support for The New York Public Librarys Exhibitions
Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Sue and
Edgar Wachenheim III, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam
Bartos Exhibitions Fund, and Jonathan Altman. Additional
support for this exhibition has been provided by the Bertha
and Isaac Liberman Foundation, Inc., in memory of Ruth
and Seymour Klein.
The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden
Foundations, 2013. All rights reserved.
Not intended for sale.
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on discounted LIVE tickets, and invitations to events
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Visit www.nypl.org/support for more information.
Tours
Docent-led tours are an excellent way to see highlights
of The New York Public Librarys Stephen A. Schwarzman
Building. Free one-hour tours are available at 11:00 a.m.
and 2:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and at 2:00 p.m.
on Sunday. Tours begin at the reception desk in Astor Hall;
walk-in visitors welcome.
Free public tours of the exhibition are available at 12:30
and 2:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and at 3:30 p.m.
on Sunday.
All group tours, including school groups, must be scheduled
well in advance. Unauthorized tours are not permitted. To
schedule a group tour, call 212.930.0650. Group-tour fees
are $7 per person ($5 for seniors). To schedule a tour for
K12 students, call 212.576.0037; there is no charge for full-
time students.
Anthony W. Marx
President
Mary Lee Kennedy
Chief Library Ofcer
Ann Thornton
Andrew W. Mellon
Director of
The New York Public Libraries
EXHI BI TI ONS
Susan Rabbiner
Assistant Director
for Exhibitions
Kailen Rogers
Curatorial
Associate
Andrew Pastore
Installation
Coordinator
Andrew Gaylard
Nicholas Ouellette
Scott Porter
Diane TenerelliJune
Nicholas Teti
Annie Varnot
Art Handlers
Marcie Muscat
Editor
REGI STRATI ON
Caryn Gedell
Registrar
Isabel Stauffer
Head, Registrar
Services
CONSERVATI ON
Myriam de Arteni
Exhibitions
Conservator
Heather Hodge
Conservation
Technician
CURATORI AL
Leonard Marcus
Curator
Patrick Kiley
Research
Assistant

DESI GN
Pure+Applied
Exhibition Design
and Graphics
Brochure Design: Pure+Applied
Illustration from A Book of Nonsense. Edward Lear. Pen and ink, ca. 1850s. Spencer Collection