Cathryn M. Mercier
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Between Fiction and Reality: The Playground of Metafiction
In 2024, Mercier guest curated "Pictures at Play: Metafiction in Art" at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It featured picture-book images that "illustrate how artists experiment with styles, typography, and page design to disrupt the rules of how books usually work." The following article is inspired by...
Horn Book Reminiscences: Horn Book Editors I've Known and Loved Before
As Simmons University celebrates its quasquicentennial, the Horn Book its first hundred years, and the Simmons graduate program in children’s literature its golden fiftieth birthday, I welcome this moment to thank all the Horn Book editors who have been teachers, mentors, and friends. The Horn Book has had only eight...
They Call Me Teach
Teach learns to read alongside his master’s son and transfers this knowledge through forbidden tutorials to enslaved men, women, and children. Lesa Cline-Ransome’s free verse narrative in Teach’s hushed voice opens on Monday and closes with lifted voices at Sunday School. As the congregation reads the biblical lines “Let My...
A Walk in the Woods
Caldecott decision-makers face the unwritten guideline to evaluate the accomplishments of each picture book throughout the year with an open mind. Each committee member needs to figure out how to engage with each book on its terms rather than on the reader’s preference for a style or visual aesthetic. They...
Lift
I tried to resist Lift, written by Minh Lê and illustrated by Dan Santat — a story of sibling rivalry in which young protagonist Iris feels usurped by her younger brother until she presses a magical elevator button that lets her escape into fantastic adventures. I saw it when it was...
Happy Anniversary: Black and White and Read All Over Again
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...
"Judged purely on artistic merit": The 2016 New York Times Best Illustrated Books
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...
Becoming a Book Detective
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...
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