The Last 50 Years in U.S. Children’s Books

“Landmarks in the Last Fifty Years of American Children’s Books” (from Bologna — Fifty Years of Children’s Books from Around the World)

What follows is, more or less, a list of distinguished children’s books published in the United States during the last fifty years (1963–2013). I offer this essay with some misgivings. First, mine is an impossible task: to reduce fifty years to five thousand words. Next, I am sure to disappoint those who will complain that, given my poor and eccentric choices, I have left out their favorite books, prized the wrong ones, and overlooked the obvious. Humble, I go forward.

I have also been uncertain about what methodology I should employ. Should my remarks be organized chronologically or by themes and genres? And to what extent should I contextualize these works in terms of their times? My answer? I have decided to do all of the above — leaping, as it were, from what I reckon one landmark book to the next.

1. Picture Books

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are was published in 1963. That year, John F…