Preview: biography of Johnson and Krauss. First sentence & last sentence.

The manuscript is still going to be cut further, but – as it currently stands – here are the first and final sentences of the book. First sentence (from the Introduction): When a stranger knocked on Crockett Johnson’s front door one mild Friday in August 1950, he was not expecting was a visit from the

Professional Autodidact; or, How I Became a Children’s Literature Professor

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 Picture Book Is Dead; Long Live the Picture Book

The New York Times reports a rise in visual illiteracy among parents.  Only, that’s not quite the way the article puts it: instead, it notes that parents are pushing their children to read “big-kid” books earlier, steering them away from picture books, on the grounds that picture books are somehow lesser or easier.  As a