"The Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, & the Shaping of
American Children's Literature" by Leonard S. Marcus (Houghton Mifflin, ISBN
9780395674079, $28.00)
From the New England Primer to Harry Potter. Marcus covers both the business
side of things--from the days with no international copyright law, where
Americans could publish Hans Christian Andersen and Lewis Carroll without
giving them a dime, to the rise of women in publishing as maternal keepers
of the children's book departments, and the spawning and eventual
conglomeration of all the familiar houses: Simon & Schuster (who started
their own company because, as Jews, they were excluded from all others),
Houghton Mifflin, Random House, etc. Also deals with the high-minded purpose
of juvenile literature, which has been used for centuries as a means to
instill "proper" values in the young. Who decides what children read? Marcus
asks, and goes on to detail American answers: clergymen, businessmen,
librarians, educators, women. A fascinating history of a usually overlooked
segment of literature. Plus name-checks of all my favorites: Margaret Wise
Brown, Dr. Seuss, Robert McCloskey (who kept a whole flock of mallards in
his studio while writing "Make Way for Ducklings").
Review by Anna
Perleberg, June 19, 2008
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