Rebecca Sutton

In a country where art history is, at the earliest, taught in the high school AP level (and even then, rarely), this book series will prove invaluable for getting children excited about art.

The children’s book Loretta Mason Potts glosses over the emotional and logistical implications of its circumstances for a fantasy story where the impact of events become a very distant second to the events themselves.

Baum created what was essentially the first American fairytale, not just written by an American author, but firmly rooted on U.S. soil. Although there had been a few fantasy stories published in this country, none were so defiantly American.

A lifelong devotee of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous book believes it was written as a means of catharsis, a format for working through the author’s angst and examining repressed memories. But perhaps it was also simply a means of escaping the horrors of man and instead immersing himself in the gentler, more innocent, world of children.

Two new children’s books show us what most adults already know: that kids handle adolescence differently, and that growing up is by turns confusing, hilarious, and yes, sometimes scary. But in just the right light, and often only in retrospect, it is nothing short of an adventure.