When I began to research the history of American Jewish children's literature about 10 years ago - first for a few conference presentations and then for some articles and a book (Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens: A JPS Guide, 2010) - I found very little on which to base my own work. The most useful sources were those few editions of Jewish Book Annual that contained summaries of Jewish children's book publishing, Jonathan Sarna's history of the Jewish Publication Society tracing JPS's changing views of appropriate books for children as reflected in its (JPS's) publication record, the 1980 Spring-Summer issue of the journal Phaedrus that included an article by Naomi M. Patz and Philip E. Miller called "Jewish Religious Children's Literature in America: An Analytical Survey, the September 2003 issue of the journal The Lion and the Unicorn devoted to "the Jewish presence in children's literature," and Peggy Gold Schine 's book Making the Bible Modern: Children's Bibles and Jewish Education in Twentieth Century America. There were no research collections until Andrea Rapp established the Shavzin-Karsch collection at Wise Temple in Cincinnati in 2010. In the discussions on HaSafran about collecting historical Jewish children's books, a few AJL members said they wished they could start such a collection but no one actually came forth and said they had one. Now HaSafran readers are told that YIVO has a historic children's literature collection and that Brandeis in planning to establish one. Are there others out there, I wonder. The continuing dearth of research into the topic might be rectified if potential researchers were able to identify possible sources of information, which won't happen if those sources are not documented and publicized.
Linda R. Silver 3729 Meadowbrook Blvd. University Heights, OH 44118 [email protected]
__ Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) ================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [email protected] To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: [email protected] Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.service.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html Earlier Listserver: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org -- Hasafran mailing list [email protected] https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran
