Children's Literature

At left are six calling cards from the Lee Walp Family Juvenile Book Collection, which was gifted to the Library in 2002. Russell Lee Walp (1906-2004) and his wife Esther "Sparkie" Walp (1906-1999) began collecting notable and award-winning children’s books in the early 1940s. In the process of building the collection, which began as a way to keep their daughters from reading comic books, Walp became an expert in children’s literature and developed relationships with a large number of authors and illustrators. The donation consisted of more than 6,000 books and over 1,000 items like the calling cards displayed here. Walp sent blank cards to admired illustrators with a request that they return the cards to him, with illustrations, which he would give to his daughters at Christmas. 

Also in the Children's Literature Collection is the William A. Gosling Pop-Up and Movable Books Collection. Lothar Meggendorfer was a German illustrator and cartoonist, known for unusually complex movable books, in which pulling a single tab animates multiple parts of the illustration. The volume on display here is one of the oldest in the collection.

William A. Gosling retired from the University in 2008, having served in a number of positions including University Librarian and Curator of the Children’s Literature Collection in the Special Collections Library. Over the course of his more than 20 years of service to the University, he secured a number of important collections for the Library. Bill continues to help us grow the Children’s Literature Collection through his steady and generous gifts of books.