Overview

At the height of the Cold War, dozens of radical and progressive writers, illustrators, editors, librarians, booksellers, and teachers cooperated to create and disseminate children's books that challenged the status quo. Learning from the Left provides the first historic overview of their work. Spanning from the 1920s, when both children's book publishing and American Communism were becoming significant on the American scene, to the late 1960s, when youth who had been raised on many of the books in this study unequivocally rejected the values of the Cold War, Learning from the Left shows how ""radical"" values and ideas that have now become mainstream (including cooperation, interracial friendship, critical thinking, the dignity of labor, feminism, and the history of marginalized people), were communicated to children in repressive times. A range of popular and critically acclaimed children's books, many by former teachers and others who had been blacklisted because of their political beliefs, made commonplace the ideas that McCarthyism tended to call ""subversive."" These books, about history, science, and contemporary social conditions-as well as imaginative works, science fiction, and popular girls' mystery series-were readily available to children: most could be found in public and school libraries, and some could even be purchased in classrooms through book clubs that catered to educational audiences. Drawing upon extensive interviews, archival research, and hundreds of children's books published from the 1920s through the 1970s, Learning from the Left offers a history of the children's book in light of the history of the history of the Left, and a new perspective on the links between the Old Left of the 1930s and the New Left of the 1960s.Winner of the Grace Abbott Book Prize of the Society for the History of Children and Youth

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9780195152814

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Reviews

Mickenberg delivers a painstakingly drawn account of the multifold ways radicals influenced children's literature in the first decades of the twentieth century. The Journal of American History

A richly detailed and incisive account. --Kenneith Teitelbaum, History of Education Quarterly A richly detailed and incisive account. --Kenneth Teitelbaum, History of Education Quarterly A fine book. --Gael Graham, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Julia L. Mickenberg's splendid book goes a long way in providing a clear picture of how much a contextualized reading of children's literature can add to the social history of an era. Thankfully, Julia Mickenberg has rescued a history that was disappearing, largely unnoticed. --Christine A. Jenkins, Library Quarterly A well-written, seminal book. --Gilliam Adams, Children's Literature Mickenberg documents a forgotten or ignored field, and encourages the reader to look once again at his or her own familiar turf, and wonder if there is more going on there than has been fully understood. --Gary D. Schmidt, Lion and the Unicorn A fine contribution to the history of children's literature as part of American cultural studies. --Paul C. Mishler, Peace & Change A richly detailed cultural history that restores a previously neglected radical past to its proper place. A model of careful, responsible scholarship. --Philip Nel, Children's Literature Association Quarterly Learning from the Left is a compelling and highly readable book. --Rebecca de Schweinitz, H-Net Reviews This beautifully written and well-argued book.... is a major contribution to Cold War studies and the history of American culture, American childhood, and the American left in the twentieth century. --Lisa Jacobson, American Historical Review

Mickenberg delivers a painstakingly drawn account of the multifold ways radicals influenced children's literature in the first decades of the twentieth century. * The Journal of American History *

Author Information

Julia L. Mickenberg is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.

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