Black and White by David Macaulay was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1990. We look back on this rule-breaking Caldecott Medalist as it celebrates its thirtieth anniversary.   By 1990, children’s literature professionals had come to expect the unexpected from David Macaulay. An innovative artist and illustration teacher, Macaulay knew...

Editor’s note: Cathryn M. Mercier, director of the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College and a judge on the 2012 New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books panel, generously took us up on a request to look at the picture books on this year’s list, in one bang-up, round-up...

Although I grew up in a household of women who read, my reading education is a bit unusual in the academic world. In the in-law apartment my dad built for her, my grandmother lined the custom-made bookshelves with thick volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. In these pages, I first...