The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature

by Humphrey Carpenter, Mari Prichard

Dig into almost 2,000 entries in this bulging resource, where Anne of Green Gables rubs elbows with the Lord of the Rings , Mother Goose with Punch and Judy, Hans Christian Andersen with Christina Rossetti, and Maurice Sendak with Kate Greenaway. It's thorough -- and indispensable for teachers,
librarians, and parents.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Literature, Books About Books, Childrens, Literary Criticism

608 pages, Paperback

First published July 19, 1984

About the author

Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J.R.R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inklings. He won a Mythopoeic Award for his book The Inklings in 1982.

Reviews

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature gathers authors, stories, technological advances, trends, and more in the history of children's literature from the ancient time to the present.

Unfortunately, this is Humphrey Carpenter (and Mari Prichard, his wife), who wrote that heavily biased biography of Tolkien and unethically edited Tolkien's letters. His "prejudices" (to quote other reviews that picked up on this) are most prominent in the biographical entries. He makes speculations without providing evidence, and in many places I didn't know what to believe about an author because Carpenter was clearly not presenting facts but his own interpretations. In my view, analysis and interpretation have a severely limited role in encyclopedias and dictionaries. These resources are for cold, hard facts, not speculation on Kate Greenaway's feelings toward John Ruskin. Opinions are welcome in secondary literature, but reference material should be just the facts, ma'am. Don't include it if you can't cite it. Compared to other Oxford Companions, the biographical entries in this volume are downright unscholarly. Jack Zipes's Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature is much larger (5 volumes) but vastly better overall as a resource on this topic.

I'd like to get the 2015 edition by Daniel Hahn at some point, and perhaps compare the two to see if erring entries are corrected.

[Christopher Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've owned this book since the 80s and continue to enjoy delving into it as the mood strikes me.
My main objection: they're terrible on Freddy The Pig.

[Cheryl]

Huge. Like an encyclopedia, almost. No index (not really needed, of course) or table of contents. Fun to browse, from one entry to one mentioned there, or to flip through. But I have to give it back to the library!

February 2025

[Pondering Pig Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite reference books - great for daydreaming about all the great childrens books I'll never have time to read if I start now and don't stop. Much better on British than American books, though. It can the facts quite wrong on American books, like this entry on Freddy The Pig: "A pig in PICTURE BOOKS by the American writer Walter R. Brooks" I'm glad to see Brook's greatest creation is in the book, but there's nary a picture book to be found in the series of short comic novels for children.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a reference book, but I poked around it some this afternoon and learned some things I didn't know before. Unfortunately, my copy is from 1987, so it's not as useful as it could be. (We've had a lot of new classics-- or at least, notable names-- since then, not the least of which is Harry Potter.) The authors are unevenly judgmental-- many entries make no attempt to pass judgment on the quality of the work or author, and others make careful note of perceived faults.

[Saroon · Rating 2 out of 5]

it should be called a dictionary of children's literature.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

it should be called a dictionary of children's literature.