Children's Literature

Children’s and Young Adult Literature – Structured Reviews

Sue Christian Parsons

Respecting Children as Readers: The Legacy, Wisdom, and Call of Classic Children’s Authors

A shared belief between those who seek to limit children’s access to books and those who vigorously champion their right to read them is that what we read influences who we are. Societies have enacted this truth for centuries, with literacy recognized as power and frequently apportioned in the attempt to maintain supremacy over others. Literature provides access to information, fuels reasoning, and encourages readers to explore ideas and dream possibilities. Perhaps most significantly, literature can spark the moral imagination, leading readers to consider not only what is but also what else might be. What really matters? How can and should we do things differently? It is in this last aspect that literature may seem dangerous to those whose priority is preserving a status quo. Children are future change agents.

Because children’s literature has long been a staple of instruction, debates over what books are appropriate for children are also debates over the purposes of schooling, the nature of reading, and how and about what we want children to think. The belief that literature is to be interpreted and responded to by children, that it should not just reflect but significantly expand and encourage them to question their experiences is a radical, even a dangerous one for adults who seek to strictly control the narrative. Recent years have seen a heightened frenzy of attempts to censor children’s literature, many of those from organized groups, along with legislation supporting and enabling such efforts. Books in the crosshairs are largely those that represent experiences of historically marginalized groups or call for social change toward inclusion (Friedman & Johnson, 2002). While those who seek to limit access seem to view such content as new, radical, and dangerous, the truth is that commitment to honoring the complexity of lived experiences and encouraging readers to question vigorously is deeply embedded in the last century of tradition in children’s publishing.

Three recent picture book biographies of well-known, well-loved authors of now classic children’s books highlight this tradition of radical respect for young readers. The subjects of these biographies, Ruth Krauss, Margaret Wise Brown, and Madeleine L’Engle, wrote and published in the mid-twentieth century. Their work, along with others of the era like Maurice Sendak, Charlotte Zolotow, and Ezra Jack Keats (also addressed in this piece) are still readily available, widely read, and enthusiastically shared with children. In the rearview mirror they seem safe, even quaint. Yet, their work embodies a radical respect for children as thinkers and creators with the ability to grapple with challenging ideas, encouraging children to question, even authority, to create, even if it makes a mess, and to claim and enact their own agency.

Ruth Krauss: Find Another Way

A Story is to Share: How Ruth Krauss Found Another Way to Tell a Tale by Carter Higgins, illustrated by Isabel Arsenault. Abrams, 2022.

As a child, Ruth Krauss was impelled to put a twist on the expected, to “find another way” to tell a story, play a violin, wear her clothes, defy the rules. As an adult, first a visual artist and later a writer, too, she continued to innovate and create. When “people say NO THAT’S NOT GOOD/ OR THAT ONE/ THAT ONE EITHER,” Ruth “thinks and plays and plans,” not willing to just do things their way. A simple question printed on the bottom of a blank page speaks plaintively to the heart of constrained creators everywhere: “What happens when ideas get stuck or when the stories hush?” Engaging with her young neighbor, listening, wondering, and playing, Ruth finds another way to tell a story.

Higgins captures the spirit of Krauss’s life and work in free verse that tumbles along as if exploring to see where it can go next, pausing abruptly to question, consider, then move ahead again. Arsenault’s images of Ruth dance in step with the narration, often multiplying to a page spread, punctuating Ruth’s liveliness as the text itself eschews conventional punctuation. A detailed, two-page author’s note offers rich insight into Ruth’s life and art, including her partnerships with legendary children’s editor Ursula Nordstrom and her husband, artist and illustrator Crockett Johnson. Johnson illustrated three of Krauss’s books—The Carrot Seed (1945/2020), How to Make an Earthquake (1954, and The Happy Egg (1967)—among others, and he, himself, is wellknown in children’s literature circles as the creator of Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955) and the series of books that followed. Ruth “loved children and hated injustice,” (p. 38) so she wanted to fit progressive ideas into small stories. Higgins describes her first book, The Carrot Seed, as “onehundred or so words of hope and grit and kid-ness.” She, along with Margaret Wise Brown and Edith Thatcher Heard, were early embers of the Bank Street Writer’s Lab, a collaborative of authors committed to writing books that respected children’s language, experiences, interests, and abilities to think in big ways. Higgins notes that Krauss’s work centered the importance of questioning.

The year 2020 marked 75 years in publication for Ruth Krauss’s The Carrot Seed. Most of her other books are readily available as well, some reissued with new artists’ interpretations.

Margaret Wise Brown: Notice What is Important

The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Sarah Jacoby. Balzer + Bray-Harper Collins, 2021.

“The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is that she wrote books,”(p. 1) famous books like Goodnight Moon (1947) and The Important Book (1949) that have been read and loved by generations of readers. In cadence that echoes Brown’s style, Barnett effectively and honestly portrays Brown’s determinedly unconventional life. He does so, as Brown did, with deep respect for the child reader, for their questions, their wisdom, and their need for truth.

Barnett points out right away and repeatedly that this book has 42 pages and Margaret Wise Brown lived only 42 years. He intertwines snapshot scenes from Brown’s life with commentary and conversation with the reader, posing questions for readers to ponder—a style Brown herself used. Sharing only one moment from Brown’s childhood--six-year-old Margaret skinning a deceased pet rabbit and wearing its pelt—Barnett notes, “There are people who will say a story like this doesn’t belong in a children’s book. But it happened…. And isn’t it important that children’s books contain the things children think of and the things children do, even if those things seem strange?” (p. 9). Barnett links this tale to three of her most famous books featuring rabbits, prompting readers to consider beyond the surface.

Even as an adult, Barnett tells the reader, people thought Brown was strange and they thought her books were strange, too. Margaret didn’t do things the way others expected, so she didn’t write that way, either. Of the 42 pages, 18, right in the middle, tell of Brown and her books being rejected by Anne Carroll Moore, the children’s librarian at the New York Public Library, stamped with “NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PURCHASE BY EXPERT” (pp. 30-31). When Brown was denied entry to an author/illustrator event at the library, attendees had to walk around Brown and her editor, Ursula Nordstrom, who held their own tea party on the library steps Barnett says, “No good book is loved by everyone, and any good book is bound to bother somebody” (p. 19)

Just as Brown challenged conventions and trusted children to understand books that were more than “darling and innocent” (p. 22), Barnett trusts his readers with important truths. Brown’s brief life was complicated and courageous, often unpredictable, innovative and imaginative, both difficult and delightful--and so are her books. “Lives,” Barnett explains, “are strange. And there are people who do not like strange stories, especially in books for children. But sometimes you find a book that feels as strange as life does. These books feel true. These books are important. Margaret Wise Brown wrote books like

this, and she wrote them for children, because she believed children deserve important books” (pp. 40 & 41). Barnett has created such a book with this biography, skillfully crafted with structure and voice as homage to Brown and rich with challenge for readers.

Madeleine L’Engle: Ask Question, Seek Answers

A Book, Too, Can Be a Star: The Story of Madeleine L’Engle and the Making of A Wrinkle in Time by Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Jennifer Adams, illustrated by Adalina Lirius. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2022.

The title of this biography of well-loved author Madeleine L’Engle comes from her 1963 Newbery Award acceptance speech for A Wrinkle in Time. Inspired by Newbery and Caldecott Award founder Frederic Melcher’s observation that books are ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” and by her own lifelong fascination with stars, L’Engle speaks about the challenge and importance of creating such material for young readers. She concludes her speech with, “A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,’ a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

Madeleine L’Engle was an only child. Her creative parents could be distant, but from them she learned that stories were a way to ask and answer questions, to understand herself and others around her better. And when she was lonely or afraid, the stars reminded her she was connected to the universe.

When Madeleine married and started a family with Hugh Franklin, she looked forward to “a life together full of questions and answers and even more questions” (p. 16). But when the manuscripts she submitted to publishers were rejected, she began to question herself. Then, a trip to the desert, stars shining brilliantly above, inspired her to write A Wrinkle in Time.

Publishers thought the book was too challenging for young readers and would not appeal to adults, but the book proved to be wildly popular with both. A Wrinkle in Time (1962) “made people ask big questions. And asking big questions is very important, even if we don’t always find an answer” (p. 24), a stance she continued throughout her long career writing for children and adults.

Voiklis, L’Engle’s granddaughter, teamed up with picture book author Jennifer Adams (known for her Baby Lit series) for this biography appropriate for all ages. Each image Lirius offers captures the fact and emotion of the actual scene but also swirls vigorously off the page, reinforcing the sense of wonder and possibility that permeated L’Engle’s world view. Extensive back matter addresses the crafting process, the significance of stars, and more about L’Engle, including a timeline of her life. The authors invite additional reading with a list of L’Engle’s books for young readers and books about her aimed at older audiences.

Classic Authors, Contemporary Issues

Each of these writers published in an era sometimes referred to as a golden age (Craig, 2015; Reading Rockets, 2015b) in children’s publishing. It was a time of experimentation, of breaking out of previous conceptions of books for children as merely edifying or adorable. These pieces were art and young readers were serious audiences (Reading Rockets, 2015a). Krauss’s first book was published in 1945, her last in 1987. Margaret Wise Brown’s career in children’ publishing spanned from 1937 to her death in 1952. Perhaps her best-known books among her extensive catalog, The Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon, and The Important Book came out in 1942, 1947, and 1949 respectively. Editor Ursula Nordstrom’s innovative and daring approach shaped both writers, and others still well-known and well-loved from this era such as Charlotte Zolotow, Maurice Sendak, and Ezra Jack Keats.

Zolotow worked for Nordstrom, starting as an assistant, working her way to editor, and becoming a prolific writer. Zolotow’s daughter, author Crescent Dragonwagon, reflects on Nordstrom’s influence:

You can’t read about contemporary books for children without running into her. Editor (and empress) of what became Harper and Row Junior Books Department, she was the first to articulate the then-revolutionary idea that children deserved real literature, that they should not be condescended or preached to.

She was passionate, imperious, brilliant, stubborn, and impatient with those who did not Understand her. She was also a lesbian at a time when lesbians lived firmly and completely in the Closet except when they knew that they were with friendly fellow travelers.

Ursula worked on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, was the discoverer of Maurice Sendak, published Goodnight Moon and many other books by Margaret Wise Brown, as well as the first book (and Many subsequent titles) by Charlotte Zolotow. That first: The Park Book. (C. Dragonwagon, 2019, n.p.)

Zolotow’s official website lists 70 picture books and poetry works for young children, with publication dates ranging from 1944 to 1993 (not including reprints), and her influence extends through her editing and advocacy work. Zolotow’s William’s Doll (1972) pushed back on gender stereotypes that were firmly entrenched at the time. Her work is infused with themes of tolerance and kindness and marked by emotional authenticity. Today, books purporting such stances are targets of book bans, such as this attempt to deny reader access to titles collected by The Conscious Kid organization that provide authentic representations of varied cultural experiences and promote positive self-identity.

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963) tops School Library Journal’s list of the Top 100 Picture Books for the 21st Century. Of Wild Things, author Kate Coombs writes, “Still perfectly crafted, perfectly illustrated. It doesn’t really matter that Maurice Sendak is sick of the thing, this is simply the epitome of a picture book. Sendak, like Shel Silverstein and Roald Dahl, rises above the rest in part because he is subversive” (Bird, 2012).

Sendak read Ruth Krauss’s work as an apprenticeship for his own. From Krauss, he learned to embrace wildness in children and to not shy away from the full force of their emotion (Nel, 2013). Indeed, children in his book confront and defeat life’s monsters (Zarin, 2006). Such respect and trust for children’s abilities to grasp big ideas and handle even the hard parts of life was and is indeed subversive in the face of adult constructions of the dearness of childhood. It continues to be so, subverting the idea that we should simplify and sanitize life for young readers instead of illuminating paths, helping them consider how best to navigate them, and trusting they can handle it.

Pushing back, too, was Ezra Jack Keats. Andrea Davis Pinkney celebrates his work in the biography in verse, A Poem for Peter (2016). A child of Jewish immigrants from Warsaw born into the poorest part of Brooklyn, Keats (born Katz) knew well “the dark heel of discrimination” (Pinkney, 2016, p. 5). He fought to hold onto his dream of being an artist in a world that rarely paid a living wage for any task to boys to him. He battled barrier after barrier, even changing his name to gain access in a world that pushed out Jews. He painted and drew, grasping each new opportunity. Along the way he spotted a beguiling image of a little Black boy in Life magazine. When he finally had the chance to write and illustrate his own book, he introduced Peter, a boy inspired by the magazine photo, onto the pages of U.S. children’s literature, winning the Caldecott and opening doors. “He dared to open a door. He awakened a wonderland. He brought a world of white suddenly alive with color” (Pinkney, 2016, p. 40).

Peter was a start. Focused research and advocacy in the late 80s and early 90s was key in pushing for inclusion of minoritized communities in children’s books. Rudine Sims Bishop’s work was and remains particularly influential (McNair & Edwards, 2021). Her study, “Shadow and Substance: AfroAmerican Experience in Contemporary Children’s Fiction (Sims, 1982) analyzed contemporary realistic fiction children’s books published between 1965 and 1979 that featured African American characters. Her analysis revealed three categories of books. “Social conscience” books (often written by White authors) centered racial segregation and prejudice as a problem to be solved. “Melting pot” books, like The Snowy Day, included physically identifiable Black characters but without culturally specific context. “Culturally conscious” books addressed reflected cultural distinctness with nuance and complexity.

Sims Bishop’s essay, “Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors” (1990) proved so powerful in helping the children’s literature and educational communities understand the critical importance of authentic representation in children’s book that her metaphors are often used as a shorthand for diverse literature (too often without crediting the source) and serve as foundation for expanded metaphors that continue the conversation. Such conversations consider the purposes such literature serves in children’s lives (Myers, 2014), claim the right of communities to have the say in how and by whom they are represented (Reese, 2016), and stress the critical importance of range and clarity in

representation (Enriquez, 2021). Her focus on African American representation led to a framework that supported scholarship about inclusion across cultures and identities.

Data on diversity in publishing collected by the CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center, n.d.), between 1985 and 2021 reveals some growth in publication of books by and about members of underrepresented/marginalized communities, but also considerable continuing misrepresentation, inaccuracy, and limited selections of quality literature (Hyuck & Dahlen, 2019). The We Need Diverse Books organization, founded in 2014, provided a strong push in publishing that is showing some positive effect across major children’s book awards in the last few years. Such awards influence purchases in libraries and inclusion in bookstores, so are likely to help land diverse books in children’s hands. But the 2021-2022 school year saw a marked increase in book bans in U.S. schools, the vast majority of those bans and related challenges targeting books reflecting experiences of historically marginalized communities and stances related to seeking equity.

Craig (2015) argues we are now in another golden age of children’s publishing. We are also in an era of intense challenge, with “not recommended” stamps slamming down on books that offer readers insights into other ways of being, address the world with honesty, and encourage questioning, courage, and connection. Now, as then, talented authors are writing for children with respect for their experiences, intellect, and ability to consider big ideas. Now, more than ever, diverse voices are being published, promoted, and shared so readers’ worlds expand and connect.

Perhaps these developments have created discomfort for some adults who, long centered in available narratives, find themselves sharing the pages. Children’s literature authors are expert teachers, able to frame complex ideas with accessible clarity and hopefulness. Adults reading such narratives may, too, find room in themselves for understanding and connecting if they are at all inclined.

Perhaps the idea that literature is for children, to be interpreted and responded to by children, that it should not just reflect their experiences but invite their interpretations, is a radical one, perhaps even a dangerous one, for adults who seek to control the narrative. Far from quaint and simple, these classic books, like poetry, hold spaces worth exploring again and again, and the authors trust children to know just what to do.

Perhaps adults who desire to control the narratives available to children truly yearn to protect them from hard emotions and complex truths. But insolating children makes them ill-prepared for engaging effectively in the real world. The best of children’s literature gives them safe and inviting spaces to consider and explore, the world more brightly lit than before. And children’s books shared allow us to walk the path with them, pondering together what is important.

Perhaps it’s helpful to consider that the books we so easily make room for today are the very books that were challenged at the time. In a publishing landscape where children’s nonfiction is flourishing, might the fantasy worlds that reigned in this era feel safer? While it is true that fantasy is not factual, the genre offers deep human truths for consideration. Or do the writers and their worlds seem quaint to us now? Does seeing them more clearly as people who had the courage to challenge social norms change the way you read the books? Perhaps we have learned to trust readers with these books because we as children could be trusted with them.

References

Bird, B. (2012). SLJ’s top 100 picture books. http://www.friendstnlibraries.org/wpcontent/uploads/School-Library-Journal-Top-100-Picture-Books-2.pdf Craig, A. (2015). Why this is a golden age of children’s publishing. Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/why-this-is-a-golden-agefor-children-s-literature-children-s-books-are-one-of-the-most-important-forms-of-writing-wehave-10340568.html. Cooperative Children’s Book Center (n.d.). CCBC Diversity Statistics. https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/literature-resources/ccbc-diversity-statistics/ Dragonwagon, C. (2019). Most flattering, and probably not coincidentally taken-when-youngest, photograph I have seen of the legendary children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom. [Facebook status update with image]. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10219181089903156&set=p.10219181089903156 Enriquez, G. (2021). Foggy mirrors, tiny windows, and heavy doors: Beyond diverse books toward meaningful literacy instruction. The Reading Teacher. 75(1). Huyck, D. & Dahlen, S.P. (2019). Diversity in children’s books 2018. sarahpark.com blog. (Created in consultation with E. Campbell, M.B. Griffin, K.T. Horning, D. Reese, E.E. Thomas, and M. Tyner, with statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison: ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp. http://sarahpark.com/ Friedman, J. & Johnson, N.F. (2002). Banned in the USA: The growing movement to sensor books in schools. PEN America. https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-booksin-schools/. McNair, J. C., & Edwards, P. A. (2021). The Lasting Legacy of Rudine Sims Bishop: Mirrors, Windows, Sliding Glass Doors, and More. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 70(1), 202212. https://doi-org.argo.library.okstate.edu/10.1177/23813377211028256. Myers, C. 2014). The apartheid of children’s literature. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/the-apartheid-of-childrensliterature.html. Nel, P. (2013). It’s a wild world: Maurice Sendak, wild things, and childhood. https://philnel.com/2013/10/15/wildthings/ Reading Rockets (2015b). Mac Barnett on the evolution of the picture book [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcYvuR-VdHo. Reading Rockets (2015a). Transcript from an interview with Mac Barnett: Words and pictures together. https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/barnett/transcript. Reese, D. (2016). Mirrors, windows, sliding glass doors, and curtains. [Video]. Writing the other master class: writing native american characters: How not to do a Rowling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctOJtK-ONgo Sims, R. (1984). Shadow and substance: Afro-American experience in contemporary children’s fiction. National Council of Teachers of English. Sims Bishop, R. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and using books for the classroom, 6(3). https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/MirrorsWindows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf. Zarin, C. (2006). Not nice! The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/17/notnice

Children’s Literature

Barnett, M. (2021). The important thing About Margaret Wise Brown (S. Jacoby, Illus.). Balzer + BrayHarper Collins. Brown, M.W. (2017). The runaway bunny: A 75th with an anniversary retrospective (C. Hurd, Illus.). Harper Collins. (Original work published 1942). Brown, M.W. (2007). Goodnight moon (C. Hurd, Illus.). Harper Collins. (Original work published 1947). Brown, M.W. (1999). The important book (L. Weisgard, Illus.). Harper Collins. (Original work published 1949). Higgins, C. (2022). A story is to share: How Ruth Krauss found another way to tell a tale (I. Arsenault, Illus.). Abrams. Kraus, R. (2020). The carrot seed: 75th anniversary edition (C. Johnson, Illus.). Harper and Row. (Original work published 1945). Kraus, R. (1954). How to make an earthquake (C. Johnson, Illus.). Harper & Brothers. Kraus, R. (2005). The happy egg (C. Johnson, Illus.). The Estate of Ruth Krauss. (Original work published 1967). Johnson, C. (1983). Harold and the purple crayon. (C. Johnson, Illus.). Harper Collins Publishers. (Original work published 1955). L’Engle, M. (1962). A wrinkle in time. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Pinkney, A. (2016). A poem for Peter: The story of Ezra Jack Keats and the creation of The Snowy Day (L. Fancher & S. Johnsons, IIllus.). Viking-Penguin Random House. Sendak, M. (2012). Where the wild things are. Harper Collins. (Originally published in 1963). Voiklis, C. J. & Adams, J. (2022). A book, too, can be a star: The story of Madeleine L’Engle and the making of A Wrinkle in Time (A. Lirius, Illus.). Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers. Zolotow, C. (1972). William’s Doll (Pène du Bois, W., Illus.) Harper Collins Publishers.

Additional Recommended Reading

Gary, L. (2017). The great green room: The brilliant and bold life of Margaret Wise Brown. Flatiron Books. Voiklis, C., & Roy, L. (2018). Becoming Madeleine: A biography of the author of A Wrinkle in Time by her granddaughters. Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers.

Suzii Parsons believes that books truly matter in the lives of young people. She serves as the Jacques Munroe Professor of Reading and Literacy at Oklahoma State University. You can contact her at sue.parsons@okstate.edu