Minders of Make Believe by Leonard S. Marcus, Published by Houghton Mifflin, 2008. 402 pp.

Lest you think that the Professional Bookshelf is only publishing reviews of books by Leonard Marcus, perhaps it better first be stated that Marcus is the pre-eminent historian of children’s books writing today. No other scholar has devoted himself or herself so completely to the preservation of the history of children’s’ literature.

Minders of Make-Believe builds upon Marcus’ previous works to provide a panoramic view of children’s books. The history of children’s books in America is the history of children in American in microcosm and provides a useful vehicle to see how children have evolved from being extra hands on a colonial farm to a powerful consumer class in their own right.

That said, Minders of Make-Believe is a must-read for anyone who has ever lost themselves in an N.C. Wyeth illustration, followed Alice through the looking glass or empathized with Holden Caulfield and wondered how these works came to be. Marcus is a master of both capturing the broad strokes of history as well as the miniature portraits. The grand influences are explored and examined here: The early bookseller/publishers who discovered that a primer was a good supplement to the Bible for teaching reading, to the advent of publishing books for children that aimed to entertain as much as to enlighten, to the growth of the juvenile magazines in the latter half of the nineteenth century and to the burgeoning librarian profession. Yet, Marcus also paints vivid portraits of the individuals who made today’s current healthy children’s publishing world possible.

If anyone, the librarians are the true “Minders of Make-Believe” in Marcus’ book. Early librarians beginning with Anne Carroll Moore wielded unprecedented power over the children’s book world, at once giving it stature but also imposing rigid rules. As the major publishing houses began forming their own juvenile divisions, the power of the original Minders was questioned and eventually diminished as iconoclast editors and authors published books that defied easy categorization.

One such book, Catcher in the Rye, ushered in the YA book movement that continues strong today. It is interesting to note the current debate on whether Holden Caulfield’s story is still relevant or if it has become stale. At the time it was published, its very freshness was mind-blowing to both the Minders and the teens who saw themselves reflected in Holden’s words.

For students of the Newbery and Caldecott awards, Minders of Make-Believe has a special allure. The story of the Newbery Award’s beginnings and its success at bringing attention to children’s literature gives context to each year’s winners and an appreciation of Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary who endowed first the Newbery and then the Caldecott. Marcus looks at selections that indicate sea changes in the attitudes of the committees including the watershed year that saw Ezra Jack Keats win for the Caldecott for A Snowy Day and A Wrinkle in Time, a book that had been rejected by 26 publishers, win the Newbery.

Marcus brings us up to the current day with references to the publishing consolidation of recent years and the success of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Read the final chapters before your next visit to the American Library Association conference and when you’re on the exhibit floor, read the nametags at the major children’s book publishing booths—you just may find yourself talking with one of today’s Minders of Make-Believe.

Reviewed by Ellen Myrick