Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature
Author: Leonard S Marcus
An animated first-time history of the visionaries—editors, illustrators, and others—whose books have transformed American childhood and American culture.
What should children read? As preeminent children's literature authority Leonard S. Marcus shows incisively, that's the three-hundred-year-old question that created a rambunctious children's book publishing scene in colonial times. And it's the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century children's book publishing from genteel backwater to big business.
Marcus delivers a provocative look at the fierce turf wars fought among the pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians—most of them women—throughout the twentieth century. His story of the emergence, growth, and impact of the major publishing houses gains dramatic depth (and occasional dish) through the author's path-finding research and in-depth interviews with d ozens of editors, artists, and other key publishing figures whose careers go back to the 1930s, including the late Ursula Nordstrom, Margaret K. McElderry, Charlotte Zolotow, Maurice Sendak, the late Clement Hurd, and many others.
From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to Cormier's The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty analysis of the pivotal books that transformed children's book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times.
The Washington Post - Michael Sims
Marcus sketches the early U.S. history of children's books in his first chapter and in the next surveys the Reconstruction era. Starting with the third, he devotes a chapter to every decade of the 20th century. At first this approach seems an unimaginative system rather than a narrative, but Marcus keeps it lively and engaging. He is a master of the brief, revealing anecdote…It's a lively spectacle, this parade down the long and winding road from the New-England Primer to Heather Has Two Mommies.
Publishers Weekly
This broad survey distills the history of American children's publishing and librarianship, from colonial times to British interloper Harry Potter, including children's periodicals, major publishers and changes in printing technology. While Marcus, a veteran historian and critic of children's publishing (Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon), gives founders like editor Mary Mapes Dodge due respect, he is most in his element chronicling the 20th century: the influence of librarian Anne Carroll Moore, the educational reforms of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the foresightedness of Harper editor Ursula Nordstrom and the careers of author-illustrators like Maurice Sendak. Devotees of prewar classics may be disappointed that Marcus devotes just two pages to Baum and Denslow; that he says W.E.B. Du Bois's groundbreaking The Brownies' Book failed to reach its audience; and that he skips whole generations almost entirely (e.g., 1905-1918). Marcus succeeds best at discussing the subjects of his past research, including Children's Book Week and the Golden Books series; to his credit, he also builds on Nancy Larrick's work on how white middle-class prejudices determined children's books' lack of racial and ethnic diversity. Drawing upon Horn Book Magazine articles and behind-the-scenes accounts of feuds and trends, Marcus's history is ideal for industry insiders. < I>(May 7)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Children's Literature
This text about children's literature explores the origins of the genre. It also looks into the tensions that existed among the early editors, educators, and librarians and addresses the growth of major publishing houses. Those who are interested in such writers as Maurice Sendak, Ursula Nordstrom, and Margaret Rey will be thrilled to find that this book offers interviews with them. This is a useful reference book for those who are interested in children's literature either academically or recreationally. However, even though it deals with children's literature, the book is not necessarily meant for young children. It could be utilized in a high school English class, because children's literature is relegated to a distant memory after a certain age. It becomes nothing more than child's play to many. But it is not. This text and others like it would make for an interesting and enlightening part of any lesson plan or academic curriculum. Rev iewer: Monserrat Urena
School Library Journal
Chock-full of interesting facts such as when the first printing press was established in America (1639) and how the first children's book followed 50 years later, this intriguing book grabs readers from the start. Learning about the origins of the publishing houses and the legends that populated them is fascinating. Lovers of children's books will delight in this rich history as Marcus looks at such varied aspects as the impact of television on children's books, the beginnings of famous series such as the Landmark Books and the Hardy Boys, and how Maurice Sendak went from being a member of the display staff at F.A.O. Schwarz to getting his first contract with Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Row. There is an overwhelming amount of information in this book but its inspired chronological organization saves the day. This readable and entertaining survey deserves a place on the bookshelves of all who work in the children's book field.-J oan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Kirkus Reviews
Who really decides what American children read? Children's book historian and critic Marcus (A Caldecott Celebration: Seven Artists and their Paths to the Caldecott Medal, 2008, etc.) answers this question by deftly tracing the evolution of American children's literature from colonial primers to Harry Potter. The author approaches the story from the little-known perspective of the publishers, librarians, critics, educators and booksellers who shaped the genre over three centuries. Beginning with American publisher Isaiah Thomas, who in 1779 offered American children pirated copies of London bookseller John Newbery's toy books, Marcus shows the gradual shift from didactic, moralistic texts to illustrated books that entertained as well as instructed. He tracks the 19th-century emergence of entrepreneurial publishers in Boston and New York who recognized the potential kid-lit market in Jacob Abbott's popular Rollo series and Samuel Goodrich's Peter Parley tales. He chronicles the post-Civil War competition among children's magazines like Our Young Folks, Riverside Magazine for Young People and St. Nicholas, which led to publication of high-quality stories and illustrations from the best authors and artists. Marcus provides an in-depth look at the impact of powerful children's librarians like Anne Carroll Moore, such creative female editors as May Massee and Louise Seaman Bechtel, and emerging critics like Horn Book founder Bertha Mahony Miller. He explores the effects of Children's Book Week, the prestigious Newbery and Caldecott prizes and the increased mass-marketing of popular culture in comic books, Golden Books, Disney spinoffs and series like Nancy Drew. Marcus notes the rise ofmulticulturalism, new realism, overseas printing, independent bookshops and single-editor imprints as evidence of the profound social and technological changes in late 20th-century America and astutely parallels trends in children's books with movements in the larger culture. Throughout he features insightful anecdotes about such luminaries as Mary Mapes Dodge, Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Wise Brown, Robert McCloskey, Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), E.B. White, Ursula Nordstrom, Maurice Sendak, Margaret McElderry, Robert Cormier and John Steptoe. A well-documented, thorough history.
Table of Contents:
1 Providence and Purpose in Colonial America and the Young Republic 1
2 Wonder in the Wake of War: Publishing for Children from the Gilded Age to the Dawn of the New Century 32
3 Innocence Lost and Found: The 1920s 71
4 Sisters in Crisis and in Conflict: The 1930s 110
5 World War and Mass Market: The 1940s 142
6 Fun and Fear: The 1950s 183
7 Shaken and Stirred: The 1960s 218
8 Change and More Change: The 1970s 249
9 Suits and Wizards at the Millennium's Gate 280
Acknowledgments 319
Notes 322
Index 370
Macroeconomics
Author: Mankiw
The #1 bestselling intermediate macroeconomics book, Mankiw's masterful text covers the field as accessibly and concisely as possible, in a way that emphasizes the relevance of both macroeconomics's classical roots and its current practice. Featuring the latest data, new case studies, and a number of significant content updates, the new Sixth Edition takes the Mankiw legacy even further.
Table of Contents:
1. The Science of Macroeconomics2. The Data of Macroeconomics
3. National Income. Where It Comes From and Where It Goes
4. Money and Inflation
5. The Open Economy
6. Unemployment
7. Economic Growth I: Capital Accumulation and Population Growth
8. Economic Growth II: Technology, Empirics, and Policy
9. Introduction to Economic Fluctuations
10. Aggregate Demand I: Building the IS-LM Model
11. Aggregate Demand II: Applying the IS-LM Model
12. The Open Economy Revisited: The Mundell-Fleming Model and the Exchange-Rate Regime
13. Aggregate Supply and the Short-run Tradeoff Between In flation and Unemployment
14. Stabilization Policy
15. Government Debt
16. Consumption
17. Investment
18. Money Supply and Money Demand
19. Advances in Business Cycle Theory
Epilogue: What We Know, What We Don't
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