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Leonard Marcus is one of the children’s book world’s most respected and versatile writers, historians, and critics. His incisive book reviews have been featured in Parenting magazine in every issue since 1987. He has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, The Horn Book, Publishers Weekly, among other publications, and is a three-time judge of the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year prize. He has been featured on numerous programs on television and radio. Leonard speaks to children, parents, teachers, librarians, and professional groups throughout the U.S. and around the world. His books about children’s literature and the authors and artists who create them include: Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon; Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom; A Caldecott Celebration; Author Talk; Side by Side; Ways of Telling; Storied City; The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy; Golden Legacy; Minders of Make-Believe. Recent children’s books include Oscar: the Big Adventure of a Little Sock Monkey (co-authored and illustrated by Amy Schwartz) and Pass It Down: Five Picture-Book Families Make Their Mark. Leonard was born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, where he attended public school. He holds degrees in history from Yale and poetry from the University of Iowa Graduate Writers’ Workshop. In 2007, Leonard was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Bank Street College of Education. He and his wife, the picture-book artist Amy Schwartz, live with their son Jacob in Brooklyn, New York. |
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Funny Business:
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Minders of Make-Believe: An animated first-time history of the visionaries—editors, authors, librarians, booksellers, and others—whose passion for books has transformed American childhood and American culture What should children read? As the preeminent children’s literature authority, Leonard S. Marcus, shows incisively, that’s the three-hundred-year-old question that sparked the creation of a rambunctious children’s book publishing scene in Colonial times. And it’s the urgent issue that went on to fuel the transformation of twentieth-century children’s book publishing from a genteel backwater to big business. Marcus delivers a provocative look at the fierce turf wars fought among pioneering editors, progressive educators, and librarians—most of them women— throughout the twentieth century. His story of the emergence and growth of the major publishing houses—and of the distinctive literature for the young they shaped—gains extraordinary depth (and occasional dish) through the author’s path-finding research and in-depth interviews with dozens of editors, artists, and other key publishing figures whose careers go back to the 1930s, including Maurice Sendak, Ursula Nordstrom, Margaret K. McElderry, and Margret Rey. From The New England Primer to The Cat in the Hat to Cormier’s The Chocolate War, Marcus offers a richly informed, witty appraisal of the pivotal books that transformed children’s book publishing, and brings alive the revealing synergy between books like these and the national mood of their times. |
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| Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became An American Icon Along the Way Golden Books, 2008 ISBN 978-0375829963 The year 2007 marks the 65th anniversary of a bold experiment: the launch of the Little Golden Books during the dark days of World War II. At a time when the literacy rate was not nearly as high as it is now—and privation was felt by nearly all—quality books for children would now be available at a price nearly everyone could afford (25 cents), and sold where ordinary people shopped. Golden Legacy is a lively history of a company, a line of books, the groundbreaking writers and artists who created them, the clever mavericks who marketed and sold them, and the cultural landscape that surrounded them. |
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A Caldecott Celebration: Seven Artists and Their Paths to the Caldecott Medal To celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Caldecott Medal and another decade of award-winning picture books, noted children’s book historian Leonard S. Marcus has updated this absorbing and informative picture of the world’s most prestigious illustration award and seven of its acclaimed winners: Robert McCloskey, Marcia Brown, Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, and now Mordicai Gerstein. Along with a newly added preface and an introduction that provides a historical perspective on the origins of the award, Marcus takes us into the studios and behind the drawing boards of these seven noteworthy artists, each representing a decade of the award’s history. Through personal anecdotes and glimpses of their prize-winning books and works in progress—from doodles to sketches to dummies to finished art—readers will find out how their favorite picture books were imagined and created. The artists reveal their inspirations, work processes, and private reactions to receiving this unparalleled honor. A Caldecott Celebration illuminates the creative process while applauding the talents of the creators themselves. Complete with an up-to-date list of winners, this essential book belongs on the bookshelf of every teacher, parent, child, or book collector who has ever been dazzled by the art of children’s book illustration or has aspired to create original work of his or her own. |
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Pass It Down Our families help shape who we are—what we look like, what we like to eat, even what our strengths and abilities are. So when a parent is a renowned children’s book author or illustrator, creative ability may be part of an amazing legacy. |
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Oscar: the Big Adventure of a Little Sock Monkey Oscar is a sock monkey who can do anything. One day, his little girl, Susie Green, forgets something important, and Oscar knows he must bring it to her. He embarks on an adventure of epic proportions and learns to read a map, navigate a city, and defeat a bully. He even has time to enjoy cupcakes and subway music and dance a little jig. It's all in a day's work for this intrepid little sock monkey. |
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The Wand in the Word: Finely nuanced and continually revealing, Leonard S. Marcus’s interviews range widely over questions of literary craft and moral vision, as he asks thirteen noted fantasy authors about their pivotal life experiences, their literary influences and work routines, and their core beliefs about the place of fantasy in literature and in our lives. Includes interviews with Lloyd Alexander, Franny Billingsley, Susan Cooper, Nancy Farmer, Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle, Garth Nix, Tamora Pierce, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Jane Yolen. |
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Storied City In this handy-size book, renowned critic and historian (and New Yorker) Leonard S. Marcus has created and narrated twenty walking tours of New York City based on children's literature. Illustrated with maps, photographs, and book art, the tours can be followed from start to finish or abbreviated to suit a reader's, or a family's, particular interests. Together they feature over one hundred places and spaces by which New York has lit the imaginations of writers and artists as varied as E. B. White, Maurice Sendak, Judy Blume, Faith Ringgold, Madeleine L'Engle, and many more. Along the way, Marcus deftly discusses more than two hundred of the best books about New York City ever written for young people. |
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Ways of Tellings: Award-winning author, critic, and scholar of children's books Leonard S. Marcus is unmatched in his skill as an interviewer of children's-book makers. In these fourteen encounters with landmark creators of picture books—Mitsumasa Anno, Ashley Bryan, Eric Carle, Tana Hoban, Karla Kuskin, James Marshall, Robert McCloskey, Iona Opie, Helen Oxenbury, Jerry Pinkney, Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Rosemary Wells, and Charlotte Zolotow—Marcus's expertise elicits the formative experiences, the insights, the full weight of life lived in and out of art that shape the work of each. Full of humor, candor, and personal voice, this remarkable book delves into the creative process, the nature of childhood, and bookmaking in the culture of our times. It will be cherished by lovers of children's literature. |
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Side By Side: Five Picture Book Teams Go to Work Have you ever wondered how a picture book is made? The process is similar to the way we play a team sport, put on a play, or build a sandcastle—through collaboration. Writers and illustrators collaborate in a variety of ways. Sometimes they start as friends who choose to work together. Sometimes they become friends through the work they do. And sometimes they find that their feelings and styles change to the point where they can no longer work together. Each collaborative team and venture is unique. Side by Side focuses on five famous author/illustrator teams and favorite books they have published: Arthur Yorinks and Richard Egielski, Louis the Fish; Alice and Martin Provensen, The Glorious Flight; Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith, and Molly Leach, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales; Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney, Sam and the Tigers; Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen, The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses. Personal anecdotes, edited manuscripts, sketches, and dummy book pages show the give-and-take that goes on between authors, illustrators, editors, and designers as they are working on projects they feel passionate about. By taking readers behind the scenes of these works in progress, Marcus gives us insight into how teamwork, cooperation, and friendship play a role in shaping the creative process, and will inspire readers to view their own team effort in fresh new ways. |
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Author Talk Have you ever wanted to ask your favorite author: In fifteen short conversations with some of the best-known children's book authors, acclaimed author and editor Leonard S. Marcus asks these questions and more, discovering engaging details about their lives and their work. Throughout, you'll find childhood and adult pictures of the authors, as well as bibliographies, manuscript pages, and other fascinating memorabilia. Author Talk is a great introduction to the people behind some of your favorite books. |
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Dear Genius: the Letters of Ursula Nordstrom She trusted her immense intuition and generous heart--and published the most. Ursula Nordstrom, director of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973, was arguably the single most creative force for innovation in children's book publishing in the United States during the twentieth century. Considered an editor of maverick temperament and taste, her unorthodox vision helped create such classics as Goodnight Moon, Charlotte's Web, Where the Wild Things Are, Harold and the Purple Crayon, and The Giving Tree. |
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A Caldecott Celebration: Profiles six Caldecott award winning books and their authors, including Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings, Marcia Brown's Cinderella, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji, and David Wiesner's Tuesday. |
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Margaret Wise Brown:
Awakened by the Moon Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon and dozens of other children's classics, all but invented the picture book as we know it today. Combining poetic instinct with a profound empathy for small children, she knew of a child's need for security, love, and a sense of being at home in the world and she brought that unique tenderness to the page. Yet these were comforts that eluded her. Brown's youthful presence and professional success as an editor, bestselling author, and self-styled impresario masked an insecurity that left her restless and vulnerable. In this moving biography, Marcus portrays Brown's complex character and her tragic, seesaw life. Her literary achievement and groundbreaking discoveries about small children's emotional needs were offset by tormented romances including a passionate relationship with Michael Strange, the celebrity socialite once married to John Barrymore. |
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The Making of Goodnight Moon: Lively anecdotes about the making of the classic bedtime story Goodnight Moon will delight both new and devoted fans. Previously unpublished photographs of Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, as well as pages from the original dummy and full-color studies of the artwork, tell a personal story of friendship, respect, and inspired collaboration. |
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Although there have been many illustrated editions of Alice, rarely has one been done in Lewis Carroll's own visual medium of photography. Abelardo Morell, quickly gaining recognition as one of the major American photographers of our time, is the ideal artist to take on this challenge. His early photographs of illustrated books are striking images of worlds within worlds that in their alterations of an illustration's space and shape have the distinct flavor and mystery of Wonderland. So too do his oversize camera obscura images—magical, cityscape projections that have received national attention—mirror Carroll's own passion for upside-down and multiple worlds. For Alice, Morell goes further, photographing the Tenniel characters and then staging them in evocative three-dimensional settings. In his fascinating introduction, historian and critic Leonard S. Marcus offers a glimpse into the intriguing connection between Lewis Carroll's pioneering efforts as a photographer and his timeless contributions to the world of nonsense. Marcus shows in what ways Lewis Carroll and Abelardo Morell are kindred spirits in the fierce delight they take in the crazy patchwork quality of life and in their shared belief that nonsense makes the best sense of all. |
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75 Years of Children's Book Week Posters: From Jessie Willcox Smith and N.C. Wyeth to Maurice Sendak and Chris Van Allsburg, generations of renowned artists have lent their talents to help mark Children's Book Week. The posters they created—which are reproduced in full-color in this lavish volume—make for fascinating social commentary as well as a unique overview of American children's book art during the twentieth century. Biographical notes on the artists are provided along with an essay tracing the history of children's publishing in the United States. |
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Mother Goose's Little Misfortunes When things go wildly wrong in each of these Mother Goose rhymes —some familiar, others sure to be new—the result is sheer fun for readers. With high-spirited illustrations by Amy Schwartz. |
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