31 Days, 31 Lists: 2021 Books With a Message

I can see that today’s topic is going to require some explanation. What is it that I mean when I say “message”? Well, to explain that, let’s take a deep dive into the very beginnings of children’s books at all. As Leonard Marcus explains in Minders of Make-Believe, the earliest of American children’s books were created to instill puritanical morals in the young. As Leonard explains, the 17th century was when there was “immense popularity in the colonies of James Janeway’s A Token for Childre...