I have an uncle who, before he retired, was the Editor of Highlights for Children Magazine. He was one of those people in my life who had a foundational impact on my knowledge of children’s literature and was a quiet influence in my decision to become a librarian.
One of the things he would say when discussing children’s literature was: No one remembers who won the Newbery Award in 1953, but everyone remembers that it wasn’t Charlotte’s Web.
While that may sound like a not very profound statement to you — probably in part because, before this moment, you’ve never stopped to think about what year Charlotte’s Web was published or what awards it won or didn’t win at the time of its release — there is a lot to unpack in that sentence. And for me, it’s always been a profound concept and one that, as I get older, I appreciate more and more.
Because here’s the thing:
- You probably know that EB White’s Charlotte’s Web is a beloved classic of children’s literature.
- You may know that it has one of those super-effective first lines that is oft quoted: “Where is papa going with that ax?” We did a post on great first lines lo these many years ago!
- You may know that the Newbery is the biggest children’s literature award of the year.
- You may or may not have noticed that when you see the cover of Charlotte’s Web, it often has a SILVER medal on the cover indicating that it did, indeed win a Newbery Honor (the equivalent of a runner-up.)
- You definitely know that if it was a runner-up, it didn’t actually win the award!
- …
- BUT ALSO: What the heck did win the Newbery in 1953? What was, at the time, considered the best book for children published that year? It must have been something amazing to beat such an enduring classic.
- NOPE: It’s a book called Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark. It was considered the best children’s novel of its publishing year but has not proved itself to be an enduring classic.
What I love about this is how different time feels when you are in the present than it does while reflecting on the past.
It may seem obvious – based on our chronology vantage point – that Charlotte’s Web is an enduring children’s classic. But it’s less obvious what those titles will be the moment they are published.
Which makes me think about the recent article from Goodreads that shows the most popular (or significantly popular) title that was published annually from 1925-2024. It’s fascinating, in part, because it’s a lovely blur of what is popular now (the titles of the last few decades) and the enduring classics that have become well established over the years. It’s more of an interesting snapshot in time than a survey of literature because:
- Goodreads has only existed since 2007
- Not everyone uses Goodreads
- It does not appear that anything about this survey considered anything other than the English language versions of these titles. In fact, one title on the list, 1994’s Memory Police, was only translated into English in 2019, and its recency may have actually made it MORE popular in the rankings than it would have been otherwise.
- There is also a trend where books that have been made into movies relatively recently were also lifted to the top of their publishing year. So many, in fact, that it almost begs to be a blog post of its own!
At any rate, looking at books over time in this way is inherently fascinating for bookish people, the sorts of people who read (and write) library blogs, which got me thinking about the nature of classics more broadly.
JCLS staff keep themselves up to date on all things literary by chatting about bookish things. While that may sound like us just goofing around, it helps us to be prepared to help you when you come to us looking for book recommendations. It’s definitely a perk for a group of book-loving people like those of us who work here! Recently we had a conversation about what children’s titles had risen to the level of enduring classics. When I started writing, I thought I was going spend time writing about what causes a children’s title to become an enduring classic. Why do we still read Charlotte’s Web today, but not Secret of the Andes?
As so often happens with my blog posts, the prelude to the piece I’m meaning to write turns out to be a blog post of its own, and I think we are at that point with this one. Classics and what becomes a classic is not always obvious from the present tense. Things that we think of as obvious classics from earlier centuries were once just popular novels, vying with other popular novels for readers’ attention. I’ll get to the children’s classics list NEXT TIME!
In the meantime, we’ve created a list of the Goodreads “100 Years of Popular Books” titles for you to browse. Take a look and see what stands out to you? What titles have you read and forgotten? What titles are surprises to you? What books do you want to revisit? AND 100 years from now, which of these books do you think future readers will STILL be talking about?