viz.

Slate has posted a slideshow on the history of the illustration of American children’s books. The slides are based on Timothy G. Young’s book, Drawn To Enchant, which explains how images for children went from orderly scenes of proper behavior, like this one by Justin H. Howard for Doings of the Alphabet (excluding, of course, the bratty mischief-makers in the background):

to the madcap drawings of Maurice Sendak:

The book is clearly a must-have for anyone studying children’s literature and visual rhetoric, while the slideshow should be interesting to students and instructors who want to see how our ideas about children and what’s good for them have evolved.

Incidentally, my new favorite name is Hatesope Goop.