No man has a right to bring up children without surrounding them with books . . . Children learn to read being in the presence of books. — Horace Mann (1796-1859)
Collectible Children's Books Related Links
The Cotsen Children's Library is an important historical collection of 23,000 illustrated children's books and related items on deposit at Princeton University. The site features some unusual online exhibits which are lots of fun. Don't miss Creepy Crawlies, Insects in Picture Books and Water Babies, Swimming in Picture Books. Also interesting is Magic Lantern and Beatrix Potter, Fabulist.
DareWright.com is a special site for the many admirers of Ms. Wright's delightful photographic books.
If you and/or your kids love Robert McCloskey's Make Way For Ducklings, the Caldecott Medal winner which has been in print since 1941, then you have to see this. It's wonderful. Make Way For Ducklings 2008
"To learn to love books and reading is one of the very best things that can happen to anybody." —Walter de la Mare in his introduction to Tom Tiddler's Ground
The Afterlife of Alice and Her Adventures in Wonderland, a recent exhibit held in the University of Florida Smathers Library, included "other editions (of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), including the early draft Alice's Adventures Underground which includes Lewis Carroll's own illustrations, later editions and illustrated versions of the book, texts that reference Alice, and other materials from popular culture." Some images are available online and there is also a downloadable PowerPoint file.
If you loved this author's books as a child, you'll enjoy the website of the Thornton W. Burgess Society whose aim is "to inspire reverence for wildlife and concern for the natural environment."
"Perhaps we are born knowing the tales for our grandmothers and all their ancestral kin continually run about in our blood repeating them endlessly, and the shock they give us when we first hear them is not of surprise but of recognition." —P.L. Travers speaking of fairy tales in About the Sleeping Beauty
A collection of Children's Books of the Early Soviet Era was displayed at McGill University in 1998 and is here reproduced online. The Russian children's books of this era are characterized by the most amazing and wonderful graphics.
An exhibit of Frank L. Baum's American Fairy Tale The Wizard of Oz can be found at the website of the Library of Congress.
The Elizabeth Nesbitt Room at the University of Pittsburgh houses several special collections on the history of children and their books dating from the 1600's to the present.
The American Library Association (ALA) features the home pages of the Caldecott Medal and the Newbery Medal. Complete lists of medal winners and honor books (from 1938 and from 1922 respectively) can be found on the site.
"I, Florence Figg, am a bookman. I dream of a gentle world, peopled with good people and filled with simple and quiet things." —Ellen Raskin, Figgs & Phantoms (Newbery Honor)
"'I've been at this job for a lifetime,' he said. 'Still, I don't know all about books.'" —Mr O'Clery in Irish writer Patricia Lynch's The Bookshop on the Quay
The University of North Texas Libraries has a fine exhibit on Victorian Bookbinding.
How long have dustjackets been around, you've sometimes wondered? Ponder no longer - at least since 1832. NYPL has a fascinating collection of the jackets preserved by aesthetically minded librarians in an online exhibit: Dust Jackets from American and European Books, 1926-1947. Definitely worth a look. Click the link at the top of the page on the left which says, "See all Images". Among many other interesting digital collections on the site are: America's First Illustrator: Alexander Anderson and Publisher's Proofs and Related Work from L. Prang & Company. Prang published some wonderful children's books; the firm's chromolithography was outstanding.
For those of us who can't get enough of printed words and images, Wikipedia has a multi-linked treatment of the subject: The History of Printing. Quite a nice overview.
