3 responses so far ↓

• 1 Johnny // Jun 16, 2008 at 12:30 pm

  I can sympathize with Laura Miller’s second grade teacher who kept checking out The Hobbit from the library because her parents couldn’t find it in the bookstores. For me it was a little different. I started reading Harry Potter in 2001 and after checking out the first two from my college library, I could not find the next two in any library. They were all checked out so I had to bide my time and keep searching.

  The subject of children’s literature and its publishing and marketing history as well as changing trends in both are a fascinating topic. Based on the review, Leonard Marcus’ book sounds interesting although Miller says that this book will interest mainly “historians and people in the industry”. The subtitle of the book shows the focus on the idealists and entrepreneurs behind the publishing of children’s literature rather than the authors and their works themselves. Still I would probably read this book.

  Have anyone heard of this new book: Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter by Seth Lerer? I placed it on hold and want to read it soon.

• 2 Beth // Jun 16, 2008 at 1:38 pm

  This does sound interesting! Thanks for posting the link.

  Marcus has really become the “chronicler” of the history of the editing and marketing of children’s literature in 20th century America. I recently read parts of his huge tome on the history of Golden Books (coffee-table sized!) parts of which were fascinating. Even better is his compilation of the Letters of Ursula Nordstrom. Nordstrom was one of those amazing “female editors” this article references. She headed the children’s lit department at Harper’s and edited so many of the books we think of as classics: from Good Night, Moon to Charlotte’s Web. She also edited Laura Ingalls Wilder (though she claimed Wilder didn’t need much editing!) and basically discovered Maurice Sendak (who was designing windows in toy stores before he became a children’s author and illustrator).

  I’d love to hear Marcus’ perspective on Harry Potter and how its editing and marketing fits within the traditional approach/history. Has HP transformed the children’s market in ways we haven’t thought about? And how do we, as parents and teachers, feel about our children being marketed to? Always an interesting question, that one.

• 3 Travis Prinzi // Jun 16, 2008 at 11:18 pm

  I know that Jack Zipes has been very critical of HP. It’s always nice to see someone able to look past the marketing hype and see the series for what it is. Philip Nel is good at this in his article, “Is There a Text in this Marketing Campaign?”

  I’m very interested in this whole aspect of children’s lit; it’s an area of the field that I’m not too familiar with. I’ve tended to just say, with Lewis and Chesterton, that children’s lit is just as much for adults as for kids, and if it’s not worth reading as an adult, it wasn’t worth reading as a kid. But that’s an entirely different approach - an aesthetic one, in a sense. I need to spend more time reading and thinking about all the marketing aspects of “children’s lit.”

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