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Where the Wild Things Came FromHow children's books evolved from morals to madcap fun.

By Emily Bazelon and Erica S. PerlPosted Friday, Nov. 23, 2007, at 8:31 AM ET

During the 18^th century and for much of the 19^th, there wasn't a whole lot of American literature for children. And when children's books did get published, they weren't designed for pleasure. Books were for schooling or for teaching religious and moral lessons—with properly serious illustrations chaperoning the text.

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This somber mode continued through the Civil War. And then it went poof, dispelled by artists who became children's illustrators by happenstance. By the end of the 19^th century, the art in kids' books had become madcap and zany and irreverent. From the postwar period, one can trace the imagery and style that are familiar from the classics of one's own childhood.

Click here for a slide show on the history of children's book illustration in the United States, based on Timothy G. Young's new book, Drawn To Enchant.

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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and an editor of DoubleX. Erica S. Perl is the author of Ninety-Three in My Family and Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early. She has also written two novels for young people that are forthcoming, and she contributes to Pajamazon, the children's book column at Offsprung.com.

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