Meghan Cox Gurdon

‘Hanukkah Upside Down,’ ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ ‘How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney?’ and ‘Little Red.’

From the start, Ms. endorsed the erasure of differences between boys and girls. Alan Alda lamented ‘testosterone poisoning.'

At the close of the year, Meghan Cox Gurdon looks back on a flurry of books for children that take up a trendy cause.

A tale of bold knights and forest secrets, of fear and awe—along with cars and modern signage. The creator of ‘Calvin and Hobbes' returns.

When William Blake wrote of “dark Satanic mills,” he was referring in a metaphorical way to the industrial excrescences of early 19th-century England.

A graphic designer and magazine art director, Lionni discovered his talent as a storyteller for children almost by accident.

S.E. Hinton’s 1967 debut novel “The Outsiders” is often credited with (or blamed for) originating the entire genre of young adult literature, known as YA. The book, about rival gangs of Oklahoma teenagers, was slow to catch on initially but has since sold 15 million copies and been translated into 30 languages. For all the ways the world has changed in the last half-century, Hinton’s coming-of-age story never seems to lose its power; high-school teachers still assign it and readers still devour it. The book was adapted for a 1983 film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and a 1990 TV series. Now a stage musical of “The Outsiders” is set to open on Broadway on April 11.