This program is dedicated to Paul Hazard, a French scholar, the author of "Books, Children and Men".

His writings bestowed a new importance on children's literature.

He wrote that he could imagine young people pleading, give us books, say the children, give us wings.

You who are powerful and strong.

Help us to escape into the far away.

Build us as your palaces in the midst of enchanted gardens.

We are willing to learn everything we are taught at school.

But please let us keep our dreams.

♪ Oh I can't believe ♪ ♪ in everything I read.

♪ ♪ Little boy blue.

♪ ♪ A lady with a shoe and a dish.

♪ ♪ Run off with a spoon.

♪ ♪ The hickory dickory dock.

♪ ♪ A scholar his way to school.

♪ ♪ And I like a cow jump over the moon.

♪ ♪ Narrator> When you're only 2 or 3ft tall, it's easy to believe in giants.

The world is too big.

It seems to have been designed for huge creatures.

>> Hello there, may I help you?

Would you like to read some more books this time?

Narrator> Children have to rely on older, bigger people for all kinds of help.

First of all, kids need food, clothing and shelter.

Adults today are also expected to give children some attention and affection.

Childhood is recognized as an important part of life.

A time of rapid development, incredible change and continual discovery.

Adults must teach children how to survive in this world, which must often seem baffling and bizarre.

And teaching children is no easy task.

Books, however, can make the task simpler and much more fun.

Books can introduce children to nearly all aspects of life, from the important to the frivolous.

Books, especially picture books designed for small children, will be the focus of this series of programs titled Jump Over the Moon.

My name is Rick Seebach, and I'll be your host.

Our title obviously comes from the Mother Goose rhyme about the cat and the fiddle and the madness which surrounds them.

Such a title may be misleading at first.

Jump Over the Moon sounds like a show for children.

It was selected, however, not only because of the historical and cultural significance of nursery rhymes, but also because of the exuberance which it implies.

The sort of crazy abandon that causes a dish to run away with a spoon to jump over the moon is also the kind of impossible feat which children like to consider, and one which may be accomplished with some imagination and a little help from an adult.

You may be surprised by the vast number and the incredible diversity of children's books that are available today.

The publishing of books for children is a big business.

It's estimated that over 40,000 children's books are in print right now, with several thousand new titles appearing each year.

We're not going to try to cover the whole subject of children's literature in this series.

We hope simply to introduce you to the world of literature for young kids.

We'll look at the history of picture books.

We'll consider what experts have had to say.

We'll discuss several types of books.

For instance, you may be surprised to see how many different alphabet books are available.

We'll talk with some people who are involved in the creation of children's literature, and we'll look at many examples of books.

This series is subtitled Sharing Literature with Young Children.

We hope that a certain familiarity with the topic will make it easier and more enjoyable for you to share books with the children in your life, whether they be your own or someone else's.

Not all of the books we show will be available at your local bookstore.

Many are too old and too rare.

The only known copy of Tommy Thumb's Pretty Songbook, for example, is in the British Museum in London.

A priceless treasure.

It's considered to be the first book of nursery rhymes.

Other books may be simply out of print.

We found them where we expect that.

You may find them at a library.

We'll also mention a number of books written for adults about children's literature, important text books, psychological studies like Bruno Bettelheim The Uses of Enchantment, and some prominent works in the field of children's literature like Books, Children and Men by Paul Hazard.

In that book, Hazard writes about the important role of parents, teachers, librarians and all grown ups who work with children.

You can refer to these adults as the friendly powers.

He writes that imagination cannot keep alive by itself, and the spirit too, requires food.

Since we do not live by bread alone.

So children turn to those who give them home, clothes, love everything they need to the friendly powers that comfort and protect them in this strange universe.

They beg for pictures, stories, and they must have plenty of them in abundance.

For they are hard to satisfy.

Trying to satisfy the needs and desires of children is a relatively recent human activity.

In fact, before the 17th century, little attention at all was paid to children.

In some ancient societies, children were considered as less than human.

The historian Barbara Kay Greenleaf points out that many peoples, including the Phoenicians and the Moabites, regularly practice child sacrifice.

In her book children Through the Ages.

Greenleaf states that they did away with children for a variety of reasons, in addition to propitiating the gods.

In fact, infanticide was an accepted everyday occurrence to the ancients, for whom it was the one sure means of population control.

Euripides, who wrote Greek tragedies in the fifth century B.C., once reported that infants were abandoned on every hill and roadside and that they were prey for birds, food for wild creatures.

Of course, the class of society into which a child was born has always had an influence on his care and upbringing.

In the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, there were reports of seemingly inhumane cruelty to children.

In the first chapter of Exodus, the King of Egypt orders that all male Hebrew babies be cast into the river.

Moses was fortunate in his ark of bulrushes.

In the Gospel of Saint Matthew.

Herod orders the execution of all the children in the area around Bethlehem.

The Bible also offers other clues about the ancient treatment of children.

Saint Luke describes the birth of Christ and mentions that Mary wrapped him in swaddling clothes.

But the baby Jesus is often pictured naked or casually covered by cloth.

To be wrapped in swaddling clothes was not so picturesque.

Swaddling is an ancient custom, which consists of wrapping an infant tightly in bandages or strips of cloth, and sometimes includes binding the baby to a board.

Many reasons have been given for swaddling.

Some cultures swaddle babies because it seemed to ensure that the child's body would develop into a straight and proper shape.

Others feared that unbound children might pull off their own ears or pluck out their eyes, or, worst of all, crawl on all fours like an animal.

In centuries of childhood, the French historian Philippe Aries traces the development of modern attitudes toward children.

He studied how children have been portrayed in various works of art.

In classic times, the god Cupid or Eros was often depicted as a realistic young child.

But such careful treatment of young figures disappeared in the Middle Ages.

Children then were considered as adults in miniature.

Even babies were pictured not as infants but as men on a reduced scale.

In the Middle Ages, children, even more so than adults, had a rough time.

They often died from common illnesses, from poor nutrition and a lack of hygiene, all complicated by a lack of concern on the part of their parents and other adults.

Aries states that medieval attitudes now seem shocking, but nobody thought, as we ordinarily think today, that every child already contained a man's personality.

Too many of them died eventually, due perhaps to this high infant mortality rate and widespread lack of parental concern.

The powerful influence of the church was brought to bear on the treatment of children.

The church called for the baptizing of all infants concerned.

For the immortal soul of a child was a novel idea.

Aries notes that about the 13th century, children started to appear as children in various paintings.

Later, beginning around the 14th century, the Prudie appeared naked babies, often with wings like Cupid, who remained immensely popular for centuries.

Aries points out that the taste for the pudo corresponded to something far deeper than the taste for classical nudity, something which can be ascribed only to a broad surge of interest in childhood.

That interest continued to grow.

And by the 17th century, children had become more important and more prominent in works of art.

During the Middle Ages, the education of the young had been severely limited.

Peasant children received little, if any schooling.

Only clerics and men in religious orders received any substantial education.

Education became increasingly important in the lives of children in the 16th and 17th centuries.

By this time, children had begun to receive some special treatment that eventually removed them from adult society and created a special world of children.

Arias explained that the extraordinary development of the school in the 17th century was a consequence of the new interest taken by parents in their children's education.

The surge of interest in education is often identified as an important characteristic of the era known as the enlightenment, in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Education was started early in the child's life.

Home still played an important part, but schools and special kinds of primers were devised to help young students.

This is what is called a horn book.

It was a common sort of tool for children, used both in learning and in playing, generally made of wood and usually small enough to fit comfortably in small hands.

A horn book was a sort of paddle which featured a piece of parchment or paper on which was written the alphabet, the Lord's Prayer, and often some Roman numerals.

This brief text was placed on the paddle in a recessed area and covered with a thin slice of transparent horn, which protected the parchment from wear and tear.

And while children played with these horn books and learned the alphabet, adults in the 17th century were trying to decide what were the best ways to educate the young.

In 1693, the English philosopher John Locke published his Thoughts Concerning Education, in which he expounded his theories about child rearing.

He stressed the use of reason with children and the development of self-control.

In 1762, a French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, produced a book entitled A meal, which may be the single most influence work in the history of education.

He attacked some of Locke's presumptions about children and discouraged the use of reason.

He stated those children who have been constantly reasoned with.

Strike me as exceedingly silly.

Rousseau saw society as a corrupting influence which destroyed children's natural goodness.

He advocated a return to nature.

His writings had an immediate and profound effect.

At his suggestion, mothers of all classes started to breastfeed their own children instead of sending them to nurses almost single handedly.

Rousseau brought an end to the practice of swaddling.

Pointing out that the baby had been freer and less constrained in the womb than in swaddling bands.

Rousseau felt that his rules for education, though very different from those generally accepted at the time, were so plain and obviously truthful that a sensible man could not refuse to accept them.

Rousseau's interest in the process of maturing was revolutionary and has influenced all thinking on education.

Even today.

Rousseau also had some very definite thoughts about books for children.

Even though there were few volumes printed, especially for youngsters at that time, he said, reading is the curse of childhood.

It is almost the only occupation you can find for children.

Rousseau stated at one point I hate books.

They only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

Nonetheless, he decided that the first book Emile would read would be Robinson Crusoe, a novel which would furnish the boy with matter both for work and play.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, first appeared in 1719 as a book for adults.

Certain elements in the story about the man shipwrecked on a desert island appealed to children, and it soon became a favorite of young people.

There are several other important books originally intended for mature audiences, which became especially popular as stories for children, often in simplified versions.

Aesop's fables is probably the oldest of such works.

It was first published in England by William Caxton in 1484.

Children also were given books like The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan and Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Children read these adult books because until the 17th century there were few books made, especially for children, except for highly didactic ones with a religious or moral purpose.

Children have always liked pictures, and even during the Middle Ages enjoyed looking at best theories which were written and designed by monks, usually manuscripts.

Best theories featured pictures of animals, sometimes strange and mythological creatures.

There's a long history of courtesy books, which began to appear in Europe about the 14th century.

These were serious tomes written to instruct the children of nobles about correct behavior and etiquette.

In 16th century England, Fox's Book of Martyrs became a favorite volume of many children.

Its lurid illustrations, showing the torture and death of many church heroes, fascinated kids who must have relished the excruciating violence.

Children were also encouraged to read the Bible, which was often adapted for young readers.

As the interest in education grew.

By the start of the 17th century, printing had become cheap enough to allow the publication of inexpensive books which could be made available to the general public.

In England, a new type of book appeared.

The chapbook, named for the Chapman or traveling salesman who peddled the slim, sometimes paper bound volumes all over the country.

The books cost about a penny and were usually fiction.

It soon became apparent, that children were reading and enjoying the books as well as adults.

Children were a whole new market.

These pictures are from a Latin grammar printed in Paris in the mid-17th century, called Methode Nouvelle.

It is sometimes considered the first picture book made especially for young readers.

In 1697, a Frenchman named Charles Perreault published a collection of folktales in a book he called Histoires Du Contes Du Temps Passe.

It included versions of Cinderella, little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Puss in Boots.

These age old stories delighted the royal court at Versailles and soon delighted children everywhere.

Perrault's book was translated into English in 1729 and was printed in London, where the market for children's books was growing rapidly.

Two Englishmen generally received the credit for being the first to make a business from printing books for children.

Thomas Boorman issued a series of miniature books in the early 1740s.

Tiny volumes called Gigantic Histories.

Boorman thought that children could profit even from works which lacked an obvious moral purpose.

He once wrote, during the infant age, ever busy and always inquiring, there is no fixing the attention of the mind, but by amusing it.

The other man, who is often credited as the first publisher for children, is John Newbery, who printed his first, A Little Pretty Pocket Book, in 1744, In the 20th century volume titled Childrens Books in England.

The author, F.J. Harvey Darton calls Newbery the most authentic founder of this traffic in minor literature, and he comments on Newbery's historical importance.

Darton states that the most significant point is that Newbery deliberately set out to provide amusement, and was not afraid to say so.

Newbery published many books for children, including Goody Two Shoes and The History of Tommy Playlove and Jackie Lovebook.

Newbery and his colleagues also published Battle Doors, which were heavy paper cards like this, which folded in 2 or 3 panels, obviously descended from the horn books, which had been used to play games of battle door and shuttlecock.

These cardboard battle doors often featured the alphabet, some animals, and occasionally prayers or moral lessons.

John Newbery is also remembered as the man who first connected the name Mother Goose with nursery rhymes, which had been sung and recited for centuries before being recorded in print.

His Mother Goose's Melody, or sonnets for the cradle was first published perhaps as early as 1760.

No copy of Newbery's edition still exists.

This title page is from an early American copy of the book, which was pirated from Newbery's edition.

Heavily influenced by Puritan thought, parents in the New World were deeply concerned about the education of their young.

The New England Primer was probably the most important of the early American books for children, principally a tool for religious indoctrination.

The New England Primer was published in many editions, not always with the same contents, although there was always a rhyming alphabet with verses based on biblical tales and usually the Lord's Prayer, along with several stories and a catechism.

All selected for the more easy attaining the true reading of English.

By the 19th century, children had taken their privileged place in society, and great literature was produced for young readers in many countries.

In Germany.

In 1812.

Jacob and Vilhelm Grimm began to publish the folk tales which they gathered and preserved.

After listening to oral tellings of the stories.

In 1846, a book of nonsense written by Edward Lear was first published in England.

His silly verses were immediately popular and led to the publication of a series of nonsense books, along with raising the limerick to a new art form, Lear also distinguished himself as one of the first great author illustrators, illuminating his rhymes with equally silly drawings.

In the 19th century, illustrations achieved new prominence.

Harvey notes that three 19th century artists were regarded in a special degree as benefactors of the young.

The three were Randolph Caldecott, who drew a humorous and energetic pictures of English country life to illustrate a series of picture books, many of which were based on nursery rhymes.

The second artist was Walter Crane, who illustrated, among other works, a volume of the Grimms Folk tales, and the third artist was Kate Greenaway, most famous for her delicate pictures of English gardens and the flowers and the children who inhabited them.

Writing about these three artists, Harvey Darton stated they made the modern picture book and the modern picture book for young children is our topic because will concentrate on picture books for children, from newborns to nine year olds, We may omit some children's classics, which are intended for a slightly older audience.

We aren't going to concentrate on books like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Wind in the Willows or Charlotte's Web, all of which are timeless and extraordinary works.

Instead, we're going to look at picture books like Beatrix Potter's classic The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Picture books are generally distinguished by the fact that the illustrations and the text together tell the story.

One without the other would not be as effective.

Beatrix Potter was especially adept at creating this complementary relationship between her story and her pictures.

Lillian H. Smith, in her book titled the Unreluctant Years, states that Beatrix Potter's illustrations are inseparable from her stories.

They are integrated to give a single and memorable experience.

There have been thousands of different picture books published in the 20th century.

Many remain popular with children long after their initial publication.

Often because of parental enthusiasm and often because some unpredictable element in the book has universal appeal for children.

Some of these time tested volumes offer examples of the qualities which make great picture books.

One the dogs classic Millions of Cats appeared first in 1928.

The simple pen and ink illustrations divide the pages and cleverly show how a very old man collects millions and billions and trillions of cats, eventually causing a catastrophe.

The simple story has survived with the power of a folk tale appealing to generation after generation of children, with its childlike innocence and simple, happy ending.

Watty Piper's book, The Little Engine the Could was first published in 1930.

It tells the story of this happy little train filled full of good things for girls and boys.

When the little engine breaks down, several large engines ignore the pleas for help until a little blue engine, who thinks he can, hauls the train over the mountain.

In 1937, Theodore S. Geisel, writing under the name Dr. Seuss, published his first book, And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

The interplay between reality and the boy's imagination on Mulberry Street seems to guarantee that some kids will always enjoy the silly and fantastic energy of the book.

There's a wonderful energy also in Virginia, Lee Burton's much admired tale of Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel.

Originally published in 1939, it's the oddly touching story of a steam shovel named Mary Ann, who digs herself into the foundation of a new building in Poplarville.

Part of the book's enduring appeal is the fact that the machine's predicament is solved by the resourceful thinking of a small boy who comes up with the solution when all the adults can't decide what to do.

Also in 1939, Ludwig Bemelmans created the story and pictures for Madeline, about 12 girls who live and play in Paris.

The smallest girl, Madeline, a nonconformist of sorts, attracts a lot of attention when she goes to the hospital with an attack of appendicitis.

Bemelman's book, Simple and Silly Yet Sophisticated, was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 1940.

The Caldecott Medal was created by Frederick G. Melcher, first awarded in 1938.

Named in honor of the classic illustrator Randolph Caldecott.

The medal is awarded every year to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children, published in the United States during the preceding year.

The Caldecott Awards Committee, made up of members of the Association for Library Services to Children, part of the American Library Association, selects the book which will receive the award, as well as those designated as honor books.

Winning this distinction usually ensures huge sales for the books so honored librarians, teachers, and parents recognize the award as an indicator of outstanding quality in picture books.

Robert McCloskey won the 1942 Caldecott for Make Way for ducklings.

His drawings, all from a duck's eye view, help to tell the story of the Mallard family of Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1963, the Caldecott Medal was awarded to Ezra Jack Keats for his simple story about a boy named Peter on a snowy day, illustrated with a collage of brightly colored papers, some paint, and some stamped patterns.

A Snowy Day presents images of the world, which are easily understood and appreciated by even very young children.

Children also have a special fondness for this book.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1964.

Although some adults were skeptical at first about a book for children full of scary monsters, Sendak's vision appealed to children immediately, and his hero Max has become a familiar figure in the mythology of American children.

Kids seem to have no problem identifying with Max and the monsters he imagines, but too often, children don't get to know all the wonderful books that have been created for them.

Children are at the mercy of adults, the giants in their lives, and those giants must lead them and show them the magic of books and reading.

And it's no trifling matter.

Bruno Bettelheim and Karen Zeeland, in their book on Learning to Read, make the point that a child's attitude toward reading is of such importance that more often than not, it determines his scholastic fate.

Moreover, his experiences in learning to read may decide how he will feel about learning in general and even about himself as a person.

So if reading is to be a pleasurable and important part of a child's life, that child will have to know good books at an early age.

And sharing books should never be dull.

As Lillian Smith once wrote, children's literature is not a pedantic or an academic study.

It is a joyous, fruitful and endlessly rewarding field.

In the collection of essays titled Celebrating Children's Books, Paula Fox points out that imagination is random and elusive.

It is the guardian spirit that we sense in great stories.

We feel its rustling.

Imagination can be stillborn.

It can be stifled, but it can be awakened.

When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life.

You are an awakener.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪