A review by ianbanks
Written for Children: An Outline of English-Language Children's Literature by John Rowe Townsend

5.0

Mr Townsend conducts a survey of children’s literature that is concise and broad and general and specific all at the same time. His knowledge is extraordinary and his erudition is worn quite thinly, disguised with a superb wit that had me reading a few passages to my wife who, alas, does not share my love of lit history. He limits himself, wisely I think, to the exemplars of the field and the qualities that make a classic. He is shrewd about what sort of book he thinks may last - several of his choices of potential classic have indeed come to become so - but doesn’t completely dismiss popular opinion or ignore the potential of technology to distract readers away from books.