In addition to these Newbery and Caldecott hon-
ors for nonfiction, the National Council of Teachers
of English (NCTE) established the Orbis Pictus
Award in 1989 to honor each year’s best children’s
nonfiction. The award was named after the book
Orbis Pictus: The World in Pictures, written and illus-
trated by Johann Amos Comenius in 1657 and con-
sidered to be the first book actually planned for
children. Criteria for winning the award included
accuracy, organization, design, writing style, and
usefulness in classroom teaching. The first award
was presented in 1990 toThe Great Little Madison
(1989), by Jean Fritz. The council also honored
The News About Dinosaurs(1989), by Patricia Lauber,
andThe Great American Gold Rush(1989), by Rhoda
Blumberg.
Picture Books Picture books are defined by their
format rather than by their content, so they may be
poetic or prosaic, fictional or informational. Such
books’ illustrations may be done in a wide range of
media to achieve the effect that best complements
the running text. The typical picture book is thirty-
two pages in length. Its trim size is larger than that of
the average novel, to enable both text and illustra-
tion to fit comfortably on each double-page spread.
In a picture book, art and text combine to achieve ef-
fects that neither could achieve alone.
In the 1980’s, the literature-based reading curric-
ula adopted in U.S. schools increased the demand
for beautifully illustrated books with compelling
texts. Moreover, newer picture books could be more
colorful if not more inventive than their predeces-
sors, thanks to increasingly sophisticated color-
reproduction technologies that allowed reproduced
artwork to resemble more closely its original form.
Publishers’ willingness to pay a premium for good il-
lustrations increased along with the increased de-
mand. For example, Chris Van Allsburg, the illustra-
tor ofThe Polar Express(1985), received an $800,000
advance for his illustrations ofSwan Lake(1989), an
adaptation of a famous ballet by Peter Ilich Tchai-
kovsky. The growing potential for high payment con-
vinced a greater number of highly talented artists to
illustrate children’s books. As a result, the field of
children’s book illustration gained more prestige,
drawing interest from even more artists.
Beginning-Reader Picture Books Beginning-
reader picture books also experienced a surge in
numbers during the 1980’s. Beginning readers are
books that children can read independently in or-
der to practice their emerging reading skills. Some
books fall into the category of beginning readers be-
cause of their predictable format. For example,
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom(1989), written by Bill Mar-
tin, Jr., and John Archambault and illustrated by Lois
Ehlert, uses song-like repetition to teach the letters
of the alphabet. Other books are classified as begin-
ning readers because of their controlled vocabulary.
James Edward Marshall’sFox and His Friends(1982)
employs such a controlled vocabulary. Serializing a
popular character or even a theme was a strategy
commonly employed with this type of book.
Children’s Poetry Poetry for children includes a
wide variety of forms, such as anonymous nursery
rhymes, transcriptions of folk and other songs, lyric
or expressive poems, nonsense and other humorous
verse, and narrative poems. Poetry has appeal for
children because of its concise and memorable use
of language, its intensity of feeling, and its quality of
rhythm and sound. For these reasons, including po-
etry as part of a literature-based curriculum was nat-
ural. The 1980’s surge in sales of such books was a
boon for poetry collections, such as the extensive
and cleverly illustratedRandom House Book of Poetr y
for Children(1983). It also entailed increased sales
for picture books featuring single poems or songs,
such asSong of Hiawatha(1983), an abridgment of
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s longer poem that
was lavishly illustrated by Susan Jeffers.
The NCTE Award for Poetry was awarded three
times in the 1980’s before shifting from an annual to
a triennial schedule. Even with this switch, more of
these awards were given out during the 1980’s than
in any decade before or since. Children’s poetry was
also awarded the Newbery Medal twice during the
1980’s: In 1982, the award went toA Visit to William
Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers
(1981), by Nancy Willard, and in 1989, it honored
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices(1988), by Paul
Fleischman.
Censorship Efforts to censor books tripled in the
conservative 1980’s.Adventures of Huckleberr y Finn
(1884), for example, was among books banned in
New York State in the 1980’s. Maurice Sendak’s pic-
ture bookIn the Night Kitchen(1970) continued to be
the subject of controversy as well, not because of its
subject matter but because of the nudity of its pro-
tagonist, a small boy, in one of the book’s illustra-204 Children’s literature The Eighties in America