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Since then, the many educational and emotional benefits of reading to the preschool-age child have been demonstrated in numerous scientific studies. A few years ago, a group of Boston pediatricians deemed this activity so important in the development of the whole child that they began distributing free books at their clinic. This in turn helped spark the White House's nationwide "America Reads" initiative. After nearly forty years of working in the children's book publishing industry, I find it gratifying to see that more and more Americans understand that books help give children a leg up on the ladder of life. The picture books and stories that I have selected for this anthology
are all personal favorites of mine; the majority are also the
tried-and-true favorites of millions of others. Included are four
books that were awarded the Caldecott Medal by the American Library
Association for "the most distinguished American picture book
for children" in the year of their publication and eight runners-up
(Caldecott Honor Books) as well as many other award-winning books.
With the exception of one story, which I will discuss later, all
of the selections were written and illustrated in the twentieth
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This was the century during which children's books, and most especially the picture book, came into fruition. Starting in 1919, in response to the rapid expansion of the free public library system, American publishers began establishing children's book departments. At the same time, new printing technologies made it possible to manufacture beautiful books at affordable prices. And then after World War II came the baby boom, and with it a vastly expanded audience for children's books. Without those developments, it seems unlikely that we would have such a rich array of children's books today. The selections in this book present an overview of the authors and illustrators who have shaped children's picture books during this century. I have had the good fortune of living with many of these books, from my childhood in the 1930s through my continuing work with children's books as an editor and writer. The very first book I remember owning, though I am sure there were earlier ones that have faded from memory, was The Story of Ferdinand. It was given to me on my third birthday and it had just been published. How I loved that bull who preferred sniffing the flowers to fighting! Ferdinand is now in his sixties and still captivating the imagination of children throughout the world. Really good stories--Millions of Cats, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Make Way for Ducklings, to name a few of the older gems in this anthology--do that. And if some of the illustrations look "old-fashioned" to us adults, remember that a child comes to every book with fresh eyes. Sometimes, however, beloved books of an earlier age can offend and hurt. The transformation of The Story of Little Black Sambo, originally published in l899 and the only story in this anthology written before the turn of the century, into The Story of Little Babaji, published in 1996, is a triumph in finding an authentic way to preserve the best of a longtime favorite story. Helen Bannerman, the author and illustrator of the original book, lived in India when she wrote this story about tigers who chased each other so furiously that they turned into a pool of "ghi," an Indian word for melted butter. Unfortunately the names she gave her characters and her amateurish illustrations depicted them as gross stereotypes of Africans. Millions of children in America grew up with this story until mid-century, when American librarians, both black and white, made us realize how offensive the illustrations were. I have closed this anthology with The Story of Little Babaji in which Fred Marcellino has given Mrs. Bannerman's characters real Indian names and created beautiful new illustrations that are clearly set in India. Thus a wonderful story, nearly one hundred years old, has been given a new life for all children. Almost every child has a favorite story--really, a favorite character, be it human or animal--that they never grow tired of hearing. To my daughter, the rebellious little boy, Max, who sailed his boat to Where the Wild Things Are, was totally real. "Hi, Max!" she used to call from our window overlooking the Hudson River whenever a sailboat went by. And I have heard of children who, when visiting France, are interested only in seeing fearless Madeline's "old house in Paris that was covered with vines" and its "twelve little girls in two straight lines." Curious George, Frog and Toad, and Frances are some of the other classic storybook characters children will make lifelong friends with in this book. I am not clairvoyant, but I feel fairly certain that fifty years from now some of the characters from the more recently published books in this anthology will be included along with the beloved favorites I've mentioned. With two exceptions (Amelia Bedelia and Petunia, which were abridged slightly), all of the selections include the entire original text. Each story is presented on the oversized pages with an eye to capturing the spirit of the original book. Thus this anthology is designed to function as a comfortable lap book to be read and shared with the children in your family. Older children who have learned to read will also enjoy reading some of their favorites to themselves or to their younger siblings. But once reading aloud has become a habit in your family, even school-age children who are good readers will want to have you read to them from time to time, and, chances are, you will want to! Because children are not little robots, all on the same programmed course of development, there is no pretested way to know precisely which stories a child will most enjoy at a particular age. However, to help parents who have not had a lot of trial-and-error experience in selecting books for children, we have placed a color-coded symbol with each story to indicate three broad age levels. A red book at the bottom of the page indicates a story for the youngest child. These range from Helen Oxenbury's I Hear, I See, and I Touch and other early-learning concept books for babies and toddlers to wonderfully simple stories such as Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon and Peggy Rathmann's Good Night, Gorilla. These are often what we often call "see and say" books, in which the reader helps the toddler learn the names of objects and animals by pointing to the pictures and saying what they are called. A blue book represents the next step up, and herein lies the heart of the true preschool picture book: a narrative story told with few words (sometimes no words) and many pictures. The span of childhood experiences displayed in these picture books is vast, from Ezra Jack Keats's celebration of The Snowy Day to Kevin Henkes's saga of Owen, the boy who would not give up his security blanket. Longer stories that are told primarily with words, such as Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day or the adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, are indicated with a green book. They often require a greater attention span or a range of experience that isthat are most frequently found in children over five years of age. As you begin using this book with children, you will soon become your own best judge of which stories are right for your child now and which ones your child will grow into. If your child falls in love with one of the stories and must hear it night after night after night, consider purchasing the original book. It will be easier to tote to nursery school, the playground, or Grandma's--thirty years from now it will be a cherished childhood memento. While I believe that the selections in this book are among the best from the twentieth century, there are other books that certainly deserve to be called "best" also. To publish this book at an affordable price, it was necessary to limit the number of selections, and I have selected only books whose integrity would not be compromised when the illustrations were reduced to fit the format. Biographical notes about each of the authors and illustrators, starting on page 298, include some of the other excellent books by them. But it is really my hope that the pleasure this collection brings you and your family will motivate you to visit your library or bookstore more often and become a children's book expert in your own right, discovering authors and illustrators not represented here and always being on the look out for someone new and good. In closing I would like to thank Simon Boughton, publishing director of Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, for asking me to compile this anthology and, along with Sarah Morgan, for giving me so much help in seeing it through. Special thanks also to Pat Buckley at HarperCollins and Regina Hayes at Viking for their early support of this project and to all the publishers who followed by granting permission to include their books. Here's wishing that you have as much fun reading and looking at The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury as I had putting it together.
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