de Grummond Children's Literature

The de Grummond Children's Literature Collection is one of North America's leading resesarch centers in the field of children's literature. Although the collection has many strengths, its main focus is on American and British children's literature, historical and contemporary items.

The Collection houses original manuscripts and illustrations, produced by more than 1,300 children's authors and illustrators, that document the entire creative process. The original materials are complemented by an ever expanding book collection of more than 160,000 volumes dating from 1530 to the present.

In addition to books, manuscripts, and illustrations, the collection also houses CD-ROMs, videos, audio cassettes, dolls, toys, and other realia.

Founded in 1966 by Dr. Lena Y. de Grummond, the Collection was established to preserve the primary literature of children and young adults and to make this literature accessible to scholars in a variety of disciplines, including library science, education, English, history, sociology, women's studies, popular culture, and American studies.

The collection contains examples of fables and folklore, fairy tales and nursery rhymes, primers and schoolbooks, children's Bibles and religious stories, series books, science fiction, fantasy, poetry, fiction, and children's magazines. Extensive holdings of reference works include biographies, subject bibliographies, critical works, and genre studies.