Children's literature

Léo Dex was the pseudonym of the brillant and distinguished aeronautical engineer Edouard-Léopold-Joseph Deburaux, who was commander of a company of hot-air balloonists attached to the French Army’s First Corps of Engineers. Under his given name, he wrote many books and papers on the possible uses of hot-air balloons for exploration and warfare. His grand experiment in balloon exploration—sending hot-air balloons across the Sahara from Tunisia to the region of Timbuktu—ended in failure, and he died shortly thereafter.

The stark black publisher’s binding—contrasted with brilliant gold, blue, green, and red embellishments—would certainly have attracted any child to this astronomical children’s text. This book broke with the more traditional format of the dissemination of astronomical knowledge in France at the time, which often took place in a belles-lettres format under the pretext of a knowledgeable man conversing with a young and pretty woman.

Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie...Imagine those blackbirds popping out at you! The Pop-Up Mother Goose includes surprises on every page. Author Harold Lentz was a commercial artist who delved into the world of book publication in the 1930s, when he designed a series of colorful fairy tales, incorporating imaginative drawings and paper engineering. Lentz and his publisher were the first to coin the term "pop-up" to describe their surprising design. Produced and sold during the Great Depression, these imaginative books provided readers a joyful distraction.

Brown Gold traces the development of African American children’s literature from the 1870s to the 2000s. The book includes literary criticism and pedagogy, as well as literary history and cultural analysis. The author discusses the use and impact of racial terms such as Afro, Negro, African American, and others. The book also focuses on African American illustrations, and on how African Americans were portrayed and caricaturized in children’s picture books. The discussion addresses the impact of these portrayals on the experiences of African Americans in their daily lives.

This 180-page book is written for older children. The book tracks the adventures of an Irish American family, the Cullens, who were caught up in a competition between two railroad companies vying for government funding in the 1860s. Union Pacific was laying track westward from Omaha, Nebraska, while Central Pacific was laying track eastward from Sacramento, California. This work of historical fiction for young readers includes authentic details from the period.