Editing Children's literature (section)

===United States===
[[File:The story of a word.jpg|thumb|''[[The Story of Mankind]]'' (1921) by [[Hendrik van Loon]], 1st [[Newbery Award]] winner]]
Children's literature has been a part of American culture since Europeans first settled in America. The earliest books were used as tools to instill self-control in children and preach a life of morality in Puritan society. Eighteenth-century American youth began to shift away from the social upbringing of its European counterpart, bringing about a change in children's literature. It was in this time that ''A Little Book for Little Children'' was written by T. W. in 1712. It includes what is thought to be the earliest nursery rhyme and one of the earliest examples of a textbook approaching education from the child's point of view, rather than the adult's.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Bingham |author2=Scholt |title=Fifteen Centuries of Children's Literature |date=1980 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-22164-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fifteencenturies004198_0/page/99 99,107] |url=https://archive.org/details/fifteencenturies004198_0/page/99 }}</ref>

Children's magazines in the United States began with the ''Young'' ''Misses' Magazine'' (1806) of Brooklyn, New York.<ref>{{Cite EB1911 |last=Tedder  |first=Henry Richard |wstitle=Periodicals |volume=21 |page=155}}</ref>

One of the most famous books of American children's literature is [[L. Frank Baum]]'s fantasy novel ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'', published in 1900. "By combining the English fondness for word play with the American appetite for outdoor adventure", Connie Epstein in ''International Companion Encyclopedia Of Children's Literature'' says Baum "developed an original style and form that stands alone".<ref name="int.comp.ency" />{{rp|479}} Baum wrote fourteen more Oz novels, and other writers continued the [[List of Oz books|Oz series]] into the twenty-first century.

Demand continued to grow in [[North America]] between World War I and World War II, helped by the growth of libraries in both Canada and the United States. Children's reading rooms in libraries, staffed by specially trained librarians, helped create demand for classic juvenile books. Reviews of children's releases began appearing regularly in ''[[Publishers Weekly]]'' and in ''[[The Bookman (New York)|The Bookman]]'' magazine began to publish regular reviews of children's releases. The first Children's Book Week was launched in 1919. In that same year, [[Louise Seaman Bechtel]] became the first person to head a juvenile book publishing department in the country. She was followed by [[May Massee]] in 1922, and [[Alice Dalgliesh]] in 1934.<ref name="int.comp.ency" />{{rp|479–480}} During this period, Black authors began writing and publishing books for African American children. Writers like Helen Adele Whiting (1885–1959) and [[Jane Dabney Shackelford]] (1895–1979) produced books designed to instill pride in Black history and culture.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nocera |first1=Amato |title="May We Not Write Our Own Fairy Tales and Make Black Beautiful?" African American Teachers, Children's Literature, and the Construction of Race in the Curriculum, 1920–1945 |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=February 2023 |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=32–58 |doi=10.1017/heq.2022.41|s2cid=256417001 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The [[American Library Association]] began awarding the [[Newbery Medal]], the first children's book award, in 1922.<ref name=newbery>{{cite web |title=Newbery Awards |url=http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal |access-date=May 5, 2012 |date=1999-11-30 |archive-date=2011-10-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111024135429/http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal.cfm |url-status=dead }}</ref> The [[Caldecott Medal]] for illustration followed in 1938.<ref>{{cite web |title=Caldecott Medal Awards |url=http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecotthonors/caldecottmedal#30s |access-date=May 5, 2012 |date=1999-11-30 |archive-date=2019-04-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190424050901/http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecotthonors/caldecottmedal#30s |url-status=dead }}</ref> The first book by [[Laura Ingalls Wilder]] about her life on the [[American frontier]], ''[[Little House in the Big Woods]]'' appeared in 1932.<ref name=Silvey />{{rp|471}} In 1937 [[Theodor Seuss Geisel|Dr. Seuss]] published his first book, entitled, ''[[And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street]]''. The [[young adult book]] market developed during this period, thanks to sports books by popular writer [[John R. Tunis]]', the novel ''[[Seventeenth Summer]]'' by [[Maureen Daly]], and the ''[[Sue Barton (juvenile series)|Sue Barton]]'' nurse book series by [[Helen Dore Boylston]].<ref name=cart>{{cite book |last=Cart |first=Michael |title=Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism |year=2010 |publisher=[[ALA Editions]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=un4RJ8rOTTgC |isbn=978-0-8389-1045-0}}</ref>{{rp|11}}

The already vigorous growth in children's books became a boom in the 1950s, and children's publishing became big business.<ref name="int.comp.ency" />{{rp|481}} In 1952, American journalist [[E. B. White]] published ''[[Charlotte's Web]]'', which was described as "one of the very few books for young children that face, squarely, the subject of death".<ref name=Silvey />{{rp|467}} [[Maurice Sendak]] illustrated more than two dozen books during the decade, which established him as an innovator in book illustration.<ref name="int.comp.ency" />{{rp|481}} The [[Sputnik crisis]] that began in 1957, provided increased interest and government money for schools and libraries to buy science and math books and the non-fiction book market "seemed to materialize overnight".<ref name="int.comp.ency" />{{rp|482}}

The 1960s saw an age of new realism in children's books emerge. Given the atmosphere of social revolution in 1960s America, authors and illustrators began to break previously established taboos in children's literature. Controversial subjects dealing with alcoholism, death, divorce, and child abuse were now being published in stories for children. Maurice Sendak's ''[[Where the Wild Things Are]]'' in 1963 and [[Louise Fitzhugh]]'s ''[[Harriet the Spy]]'' in 1964 are often considered the first stories published in this new age of realism.<ref name="Tunnell 80–86" />

[[Esther Forbes]] in ''[[Johnny Tremain]]'' (1943) and [[Mildred D. Taylor]] in ''[[Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry]]'' (1976) continued the tradition of the historical adventure in an American setting.<ref name="oxford" /> The modern children's adventure novel sometimes deals with controversial issues like terrorism, as in [[Robert Cormier]]'s ''[[After the First Death]]'' in 1979, and warfare in the [[Third World]], as in [[Peter Dickinson]]'s ''AK'' in 1990.<ref name="oxford" />

In books for a younger age group, Bill Martin and John Archambault's ''[[Chicka Chicka Boom Boom]]'' (1989) presented a new spin on the [[alphabet book]]. [[Laura Numeroff]] published ''[[If You Give a Mouse a Cookie]]'' in 1985 and went on to create a series of similarly named books that is still popular for children and adults to read together.

[[Lloyd Alexander]]'s ''[[The Chronicles of Prydain]]'' (1964–1968) was set in a fictionalized version of medieval Britain.