When Anne Carroll Moore, the powerful and opinionated superintendent of children’s work at the New York Public Library, asked Harper & Brothers editor Ursula Nordstrom why she felt qualified to produce children’s books, Nordstrom said only this: “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” More
In early 1945, Ursula Nordstrom, head of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls was awaiting completion of E. B. White’s manuscript for a children’s story about a talking mouse, titled Stuart Little. More
Born in 1898 in Belfast, Clive Staples Lewis lost his faith in Christianity at a young age after his mother died and he was sent away to boarding school. More
Harper & Brothers releases a series of 12 Bubble Books, the first-ever book and phonograph record “bundle,” featuring nursery rhymes like “Jack and Jill” and “Simple Simon.” More
Illustrator Syd Hoff sent these sketches to Ursula Nordstrom, head of the U.S. Harper Children’s division, as suggestions for the now-classic Danny and the Dinosaur.More
As the younger sister of an adored (sometimes overly perfect) sister, discovering Ramona and Beezus and the gang on Klikitat Street was a life-changer for me. More
Virginia Kirkus, inaugural department editor of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls, launches Laura Ingalls Wilder with the publication of Little House in the Big Woods.More
I write because of readers like Diana Moreno, who handed me a letter recently telling me that, as the firstborn daughter of immigrants, she felt lonely and shy when she arrived here in 2004 . . . until she found my books. More
James Harper went to Europe in 1835 to compile a set of fairy tales for publication, and Harper & Brothers enlisted Joseph A. Adams to make 81 detailed wood-cut engravings for the collection. More