Since people have asked to be kept informed, “Radical Children’s Literature Now!” — Julia Mickenberg‘s and my article — is out in the latest issue of the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly. Â Here are the first two paragraphs and their respective footnotes: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Focusing on literature for younger children published in the last decade–as well as on
If you’ll be in (or near) Nashville on Friday 11th, Karin Westman and I are giving a free lecture: “Accidental Experts: Strategy, Serendipity, and the Places You’ll Go.” Â We’ll talk about children’s literature (me on Dr. Seuss, Karin on Harry Potter), and about navigating academia. When: 2:10 pm, Friday, November 11, 2011 Where: Vanderbilt University’s
The headline reads “Occupying children’s minds: ‘Radical children’s literature at Wall Street protests.’”  Featured prominently is Julia Mickenberg’s and my Tales for Little Rebels.  After reading the piece (though, not, I suspect, the book itself), one commenter, writing under the name of “forcerecon2,” worrries that Tales for Little Rebels represents “the indoctrination of our children.”  Coming from the left but
Bumble-Ardy gets adopted by his Aunt Adeline after his “immediate family gorged and gained weight. / And got ate.” When he throws himself a birthday party without her permission, Aunt Adeline threatens his guests: “Scat, get lost, vamoose, just scram! / Or else I’ll slice you into ham!” On the next two-page spread, Bumble tells
On her blog today, Anita Silvey asks her “readers to weigh in with their list of five books that they can’t live without or the ones they read again and again.” So, first, let me encourage you to weigh in over on her blog. As soon as this post is up, I’ll do the same.
Soon after its publication in the fall of 1936, the title character of Munro Leaf’s Ferdinand began to take on a life of his own. Since the story is set in Spain and the book appeared just months after the start of the Spanish Civil War, people began to speculate on Ferdinand’s political allegiance, labeling him variously as
The capacity to surprise is a sign of a true artist. Though famous for his visual and verbal wit, Lane Smith has written a gentle, moving book about growing old. Grandpa Green has humor, but it relegates its sole joke to a footnote. (After reporting that in fourth grade, Grandpa Green “got chicken pox,” Smith
I teach children’s literature, write books about children’s literature, and direct a graduate program in children’s literature. But I’ve never taken a single course in children’s literature, neither as a graduate student nor as an undergraduate student. I have no formal training in the field of my alleged expertise. So, in the words of David
The title of this post is deliberately silly. Â Children’s books are written (and edited and marketed and agented, etc.) by alleged grown-ups, and so — as Perry Nodelman points out — there is always a “hidden adult” in children’s literature. Â This is one of the central paradoxes of a literature defined primarily by its audience.
This piece appeared in Comic Art in 2004.  As the magazine is now (sadly) defunct, I’m posting the article here.  Until The Purple Crayon and a Hole to Dig: The Lives of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss appears in 2012, this essay is the most thorough account of Johnson’s life available.  Enjoy! Philip Nel, “Crockett Johnson and