Children's Literature in America

Children's Literature in America first consisted of aids to piety, seemingly addressed to miniature adults. The earliest examples include Cotton's Milk for Babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments (1646) and the perennial New England Primer (1683?). In the colonial era most books for children were imported from England or, like the popular Songs from the Nursery (1719), were republished by American printers such as Isaiah Thomas. Since the early 19th century, many adult books, particularly humorous fiction and adventure tales, have been adopted by children, some of the earliest including works on American subjects by Irving, Cooper, and Dana. The trend away from the religious to the generally moral and didactic as suited to a child began in mid‐19th‐century works by Hawthorne and in the Peter Parley tales. The more modern desire to entertain as well as instruct is also found in the novels by Jacob Abbott. Other works of his time include new versions and additions to Old World fairy tales, folklore, and stories of chivalry. Popular verse included C.C. Moore's A Visit from St. Nicholas, Sarah Josepha Hale's Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Longfellow's poems. Separate traditions of works for boys and girls grew up, but several generations of both sexes made best sellers of Harris's Uncle Remus stories, Howard Pyle's tales of pirates and medieval heroes, Seton‐Thompson's animal books, Palmer Cox's Brownies, Bennett's Master Skylark, Baum's Oz books, Gelett Burgess's Goops, the novels of Frank Stockton, and Thornton Burgess's stories of animal characters.

Among the most popular books for girls have been Mary Mapes Dodge's Hans Brinker, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Isabella Alden's Pansy series, Frances Baylor's Juan and Juanita, Harriet Lothrop's Five Little Peppers, Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy, Alice Hegan Rice's Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Kate Douglas Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie, the American Girl series, and the novels about Nancy Drew by Edward Stratemeyer and his syndicate. Boy readers, reputedly enamored of dime novels and adult stories of manly adventures, like those by Jack London, also probably read many of these works, just as girls frequently read such popular books for boys as D.P. Thompson's The Green Mountain Boys, Trowbridge's Cudjo's Cave, the stories of Mayne Reid, Aldrich's The Story of a Bad Boy, Noah Brooks's The Boy Emigrants, Eggleston's The Hoosier Schoolboy, the popular series of C.C. Coffin and Horatio Alger, Clemens's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tarkington's Penrod, and the various series concerned with the Rover Boys, Tom Swift, Frank Merriwell, and the Hardy Boys.

Works in these veins continue popular, but later vogues include the flashily illustrated and diverse subjects of so‐called comic books; highly imaginative science fiction novels with fantastic heroes like Tarzan and some supermen; quieter fantasies; histories, biographies, and studies of adult subjects (including scientific concepts and frank treatments of social and sexual issues), generally well written and illustrated for young people. Among the most popular of the many picture books for very young children are The Little Engine That Could (1930), Dorothy Kunhardt's Pat the Bunny (1942), and Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon (1947). Popular authors who write just for children include Dr. Seuss ( Theodore Geisel), Maurice Sendak (equally noted for his illustrations), Walter Farley, the creator of a series about a black stallion, Walter Dean Myers, and, notable for nonfiction, Patricia Lauber and Seymour Simon. Those who also write for adults include Asimov, Bemelmans, Pearl Buck, Ray Bradbury, Mary Ellen Chase, Marchette Chute, Howard Fast, Rachel Field, Esther Forbes, Will James, MacKinlay Kantor, Ursula K. Le Guin, Phyllis McGinley, Sandburg, Saroyan, Steinbeck, Thurber, Van Loon, and E.B. White. Each year since 1921 the book judged best receives the Newbery Medal, named for an 18th‐century chapbook publisher, and since 1938 the work considered to have the best illustrations receives a Caldecott Medal. Since The Children's Magazine (1789) there have been many periodicals edited exclusively for children, including The Youth's Companion (1827–1929), Parley's Magazine (1833–41), Merry's Museum for Boys and Girls (1841–72), St. Nicholas (1873–1940), American Boy (1899–1941), Boy's Life (1911– ), Highlights for Children (1946– ), Cricket (1973– ), and Cobblestone (1980– ).