Junior Library Guild, formerly the Junior Literary Guild, is a commercial book club devoted to juvenile literature. It was created in 1929 as one of the enterprises of the Literary Guild, an adult book club created in 1927 by Samuel W. Craig and Harold K. Guinzburg. [1] Book clubs often marketed books to libraries as well, and by the 1950s the majority of the Junior Literary Guild's sales were to libraries. In 1988, the name was changed to the Junior Library Guild to reflect this change in the company's business. [2] [3]
The Junior Library Guild is operated by Media Source Inc., which is based in Plain City, Ohio. [4] [ unreliable source ] The editorial department is in New York City. [5] [6]
Selection of a children's book by the editors of the Junior Literary Guild (or latterly the Junior Library Guild) is a distinction used for publicity by publishers and authors of children's books. At present, 492 books are selected each year.
The position of editor-in-chief of the Junior Literary Guild has been held by only a few individuals over the years. Carl Van Doren was the first editor. He was followed by Helen Ferris, who served from August 1929 until 1960. Ferris was a close associate of Eleanor Roosevelt, who served on the editorial board of the Junior Literary Guild [7] from 1929 through her death in 1962. Roosevelt's involvement in the Guild was fairly active; for example, in a My Day column from 1938 she wrote, "One of the stories I thought interesting about these books was the fact related by the postmaster in a mining town — that two miners' families had often gone without food, but had never cancelled their subscriptions to the Junior Literary Guild books". [8] Ann Durell served until 1962, Thérèse Doumenjou served until 1970, and Marjorie Jones served until 1994, which included the transition from the Junior Literary Guild to the Junior Library Guild. [2] [9] Susan Marston is the current editorial director. [5] [6]
In 2004 the Junior Library Guild posted a webpage indicating four classics of children's literature that had been Junior Literary Guild selections. [2] They were:
Another book published by the Guild was All Aboard We Are Off , Nura (1944).
The Junior Literary Guild published a monthly magazine, Young Wings, from 1929 through 1955. [1] [2]
Media Source Inc. purchased The Horn Book Magazine in 2009, and Library Journal and School Library Journal in 2010.
William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Halsted was an American writer who worked as a newspaper editor and in public relations. Halsted also wrote two children's books published in the 1930s. She was the eldest child and only daughter of the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt and assisted him as his advisor during World War II.
Redbook is an American women's magazine that is published by the Hearst magazine division. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines. It ceased print publication after January 2019 and now operates exclusively online.
School Library Journal (SLJ) is an American monthly magazine containing reviews and other articles for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with a focus on technology, multimedia, and other information resources that are likely to interest young learners. Reviews are classified by the target audience of the publications: preschool; schoolchildren to 4th grade, grades 5 and up, and teens; and professional librarians themselves. Fiction, non-fiction, and reference books books are reviewed, as are graphic novels, multimedia, and digital resources.
The Literary Guild of America is a mail order book club selling low-cost editions of selected current books to its members. Established in 1927 to compete with the Book of the Month Club, it is currently owned by Bookspan. It was a way to encourage reading among the American public through curated and affordable selections.
Deborah Hopkinson is an American writer of over seventy children's books, primarily historical fiction, nonfiction and picture books.
The Horn Book Magazine, founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietors of the country's first bookstore for children, The Bookshop for Boys and Girls. Opened in 1916 in Boston as a project of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, the bookshop closed in 1936, but The Horn Book Magazine continues in its mission to "blow the horn for fine books for boys and girls" as Mahony wrote in her first editorial.
Ted and Nina Go to the Grocery Store is a 1935 children's story book written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli. Although de Angeli had previously illustrated books and stories for other authors, this was her first work as both author and illustrator. That she should compose such a book had been suggested by editor Helen Ferris of the Junior Literary Guild: "I have been getting letters asking for books suitable for very young readers - something they can read to themselves in the first grade. Why don't you write one?. .. Take a subject familiar to most children, say, a trip to the grocery store or some other everyday adventure."
The Good Master (1935) is a children's novel written and illustrated by Kate Seredy. It was named a Newbery Honor book in 1936. The Good Master is set in the Hungarian countryside before World War I and tells the story of wild young Kate, who goes to live with her Uncle's family when her father can't control her and at the end she goes back to her father. At Uncle Marton's suggestion, Kate and her father move back to the country to live, to be near Marton and his wife and son. Like his brother Marton, Kate's father Sandor is a countryman and misses rural life. And he sees what a wonderful effect country life has had on Kate.
Fanny Butcher was a long time writer and literary critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper.
Eleanor Henrietta Hull also known as Eibhlín Ní Choill was a writer, journalist and scholar of Old Irish.
Margaret Elizabeth Sangster was an American poet, author, and editor. Her poetry was inspired by family and church themes, and included hymns and sacred texts. She worked in several fields including book reviewing, story writing, and verse making. For a quarter of a century, Sangster was known by the public as a writer, beginning as a writer of verse, and combining later the practical work of a critic and journalist. Much of her writing did not include her name.
Matt Davies is a British-American Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, and author and illustrator of children's books.
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Amy Sarig King is an American writer of short fiction and young adult fiction. She is the recipient of the 2022 Margaret Edwards Award for her "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature."
Candace Groth Fleming is an American writer of children's books, both fiction and non-fiction. She is the author of more than twenty books for children and young adults, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize-honored The Family Romanov and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award-winning biography, The Lincolns, among others.
Marjorie Elliott Wilkins Campbell was a Canadian writer of history and historical fiction. She won two Governor General's Literary Awards for the best works of the year, one of the two 1950 non-fiction awards for The Saskatchewan and the Governor General's Award for Juvenile Fiction in 1954 for The Nor'Westers.
Rose Emmet Young was an American fiction and editorial writer, and an advocate for the suffrage movement.
Helen Josephine Ferris was an American writer and editor in the field of juvenile literature. She served as editor-in-chief of the Junior Literary Guild for 30 years, from 1929–1959.
Its success either eliminated or absorbed most of the other children's clubs then in existence. Following the already established adult format, children joined as members and received membership pins and a monthly magazine, Young Wings.