trend was felt by children’s publishers as well. For ex-
ample, Random House—a publisher of children’s
classics likeThe Cat in the Hat(1957), by Dr. Seuss—
was purchased by Newhouse Publications, a large
newspaper chain. In another example, Macmillan
Publishing Company bought Atheneum and other
publishing houses. Eventually, the Macmillan chil-
dren’s book division grew to include eleven im-
prints. Simon & Schuster then bought Macmillan.
Paramount bought Simon & Schuster. Soon Via-
com, the cable television giant, snapped up Para-
mount, aquiring the eleven children’s literature im-
prints along with all of its other holdings.
Meanwhile, many respected names in publishing
ceased to exist altogether. For example, Dial Press,
publisher of well-known authors and illustrators
such as Steven Kellogg and Mercer Mayer, was dis-
banded by parent company Doubleday in the fall of
- That same year, twelve publishing firms, all
parts of large corporations with interests both inside
and outside of publishing, accounted for 45 percent
of the $9.4 billion in book sales for the year.
Concern was expressed throughout the industry
that these mergers and acquisitions would cause a
shift away from publishing books of quality but with
limited appeal. Instead, publishers would choose
only those titles that seemed most likely to sell many
copies. Indeed, fewer books about diverse cultures
or minorities were published during the 1980’s than
had been published in the previous decade; mean-
while, however, a record number of children’s books
were published. Clearly, a market for children’s
books existed, but not every book could be a block-
buster.
Meanwhile, bookselling power was becoming
increasingly concentrated among four large book-
selling chains: Waldenbooks, B. Dalton Bookseller,
Barnes and Noble, and Crown Books. These chains
emphasized turnover of new works and, increas-
ingly, the discounting of certain titles. Old-guard
publishers and booksellers expressed concern for
the traditional backlist, previously published works
with slow but steady sales. Such classics asThe Wind
in the Willows(1908), by Kenneth Grahame, and
Winnie-the-Pooh(1926), by A. A. Milne, had sales too
small to justify taking up shelf space in chain book-
stores for most of the year: They tended to be
stocked in quantity only around holidays, when par-
ents bought gifts for their children.
Fortunately for children’s book authors and illus-
trators, reading instruction in U.S. elementary and
high schools was shifting from the basal reader to a
literature-based curriculum. According to propo-
nents of literature-based reading, involving children
aesthetically as well as intellectually in books de-
signed to entertain would instill a joy of reading in a
way that the limited vocabulary books that taught
reading through phonetics and repetition did not.
This joy in reading, the reasoning went, would en-
sure that children read more, and more effectively.
Literature-based reading programs required that
schools purchase more trade books, rather than
textbooks, to be used in the classroom. School sys-
tems allotted a percentage of their textbook budgets
for the purchase of these trade books. This trend
may have helped counteract the threat posed to
some children’s titles by the consolidation of pub-
lishing houses and retail outlets: It increased the de-
mand for a variety of children’s books, meaning that
any individual title was more likely to sell enough
copies to justify its publication in the eyes of large
publishers. Those publishers found themselves able
to sell more children’s books in several categories,
including nonfiction or informational books, pic-
ture books, beginning readers, and poetry.Children’s Nonfiction The 1980’s saw an increase
in both the quality and the quantity of children’s in-
formational books. Cataloged as nonfiction, these
books had been the mainstay of school libraries,
which purchased them of necessity so students could
research assigned reports. Better writing and more
colorful and interesting illustrations, however, in-
creased the appeal of informational books. With a
range of subject matter from the seriousHow It Feels
When Parents Divorce(1984), by Jill Krementz, to the
more playfulMagic School Busseries (pb. beginning
1986), by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen, quality
nonfiction found a home in libraries, classrooms,
and bookstores in the 1980’s. In the past, informa-
tional books had rarely been honored with Newbery
or Caldecott Medals, which are awarded to chil-
dren’s books by the American Library Association
(ALA), but they began to be recognized more fre-
quently.Ox-Cart Man(1979), by Donald Hall;When
I Was Young in the Mountains(1982), by Cynthia
Rylant;Lincoln: A Photobiography(1987), by Russell
Freedman, andThe Glorious Flight: Across the Channel
with Louis Bleriot(1983) all won awards from the ALA
during the 1980’s.The Eighties in America Children’s literature 203