One Hundred Years of Children's Books in America: Decade by Decade

by Marjorie N. Allen

Examines how contemporary children's literature reflects historical advances and social change

Genres: Nonfiction, Childrens

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Cricket Muse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Underrated and overlooked, Allen provides an overview of children’s books through the centuries up to 1996. She begins with highlights of that particular era in terms of social, political, and cultural events and then connects how that era’s events are reflected in a selection of annotated children’s books. She includes a variety of genres from picture books to young adult, even a couple of books that might be considered adult since YA designation is a more recent event.
Although somewhat dated at this point, and in need of a updated version, it nevertheless provides a succinct and meaningful overview into the history of children’s books.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was given this for free, which is good, because I would've been pissed if I'd had to pay for it. First of all, Allen uses the term "children's books" too loosely, considering books like Nancy Drew, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, A Wrinkle in Time, and Zeely "children's." She's too glib in her evaluation of controversial books like Little Black Sambo and the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, too.

This is a good book for people who want a quick overview of literature during the 20th century. It's clearly outdated--it was published in 1996, which seems ancient, considering how many wonderful children's and YA stories have been published since. She's very broad and basic in her chapter overviews: "In publishing, all restraints were off, and the authors of children's books were free to write about any subject they wished...By far the most popular author of the Seventies was Judy Blume" (208-09). For librarians, this book isn't useful; the most helpful part of the book is the (too-) brief bibliography and summary of books from the decade, though, again, if you're looking for children's books, this is not the book for you, because many of her titles are YA.

[April Helms · Rating 2 out of 5]

This text includes a lot of information that could be useful if it weren’t so scattershot and poorly organized. The book includes some nice reviews of a wide sampling of books through the decades – but they are organized by publication date (???). The only thing that saves this reference is the complete index. It is very hard to follow, and without the index, it would be impossible to pinpoint any time reference or book.