FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Lerer’s Olympian survey … swells and ebbs like a symphony.”
Washington Post Book World

“Lerer has accomplished something magical. Unlike the many handbooks to children’s literature that synopsize, evaluate, or otherwise guide adults in the selection of materials for children, this work presents a true critical history of the genre.… Scholarly, erudite, and all but exhaustive, it is also entertaining and accessible. Lerer takes his subject seriously without making it dull.”
Library Journal, starred review

Children’s Literature
A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter

Seth Lerer

In Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, Seth Lerer tells us the bedtime story of Western culture’s obsession with books for the young. He traces the transformative power of literature across centuries, from the moralizing allegories of antiquity to the swashbuckling epics of the nineteenth century and the acerbic self-awareness of Judy Blume and Weetzie Bat.

Written with the panoramic scope of a distinguished scholar and the affection of a parent and avid reader, Children’s Literature reminds us of the sublime power of books in an era when videogames, MySpace, and text messaging compete for the free time of our youth.

Seth Lerer is the Avalon Foundation Professor in Humanities and professor of English and comparative literature at Stanford University.

 

Seth Lerer is available for interviews. For more information, please contact Lindsay Dawson at (773) 702-1964 or ldawson@press.uchicago.edu