By Leonard S. Marcus

How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way

Golden Legacy is a lively, never-before-told history of a company, its line of books, the groundbreaking writer and artists who created them, and the cultural landscape that surrounded them.

By Brian Alderson

The English Picture Book Tradition and Randolph Caldecott

The sixteen picture books that Randolph Caldecott produced between 1878 and 1886 represent a high-point in the Victorian craft of picture-book making and a model for the blending of words and pictures in books for children.

This book, prepared on the occasion of a commemorative exhibition at the British Library, is a tribute to Caldecott's pre-eminence as an illustrator. At the same time, it seeks to define his high standing in that distinctive tradition of narrative illustration in England that runs from Hogarth and Rowlandson to the present day -- a tradition characterized by comedy, storytelling and graphic exuberance.

By Leonard Marcus
Illustrated by Ursula Nordstom

Here are the editorial letters of Nordstom, director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973. Working with such talents as Maurice Sendak, E.B. White, Margaret Wise Brown, Shel Silverstein, Garth Williams, and John Steptoe- Nordstrom recognized that each was a genius to be nurtured, encouraged and published.

By Amy Weinstein

For many of us, our fondest childhood memories are inextricably bound with the pleasure of reading. From fairy tales and fables to alphabet and chapter books, the colorful illustrations that animated these tales remain forever captured in our mind's eye. Once Upon a Time reawakens the joys of childhood reading - of seeing a story come alive in words and pictures, both on the printed page and in our nascent imaginations. Drawing upon the outstanding collection of Victorian-era children's books amassed by Ellen Liman and her late husband, Arthur, this book presents over three hundred irresistible images. In her text, Amy Weinstein retells the timeless tales they illustrate and reveals their deep relevance to readers of yesterday and today.

By Leonard S. Marcus

What should children read? As the preeminent children's literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus, shows incisively, that's the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of 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 a genteel backwater to big business

From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty appraisal 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.