About: History

SDSU was one of the first universities in the country to offer Children’s Literature as a course in an English Department when classes were taught in the late 1970s by Peter Neumeyer (a noted author of children’s books illustrated by Edward Gorey and of the acclaimed Annotated Charlotte’s Web; now retired, Professor Neumeyer is children’s book columnist for the Boston Globe). In 1980, Neumeyer was joined Jerry Griswold (author of several books, including the prizewinning The Classic American Children’s Story, he has published hundreds of essays and writes about children’s books for the New York Times Book Review and the Los Angeles Times). About the same time, they were joined Frances Foster Smith (one of America’s leading scholars and an editor of The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature; Professor Foster has since left to become the Director of the Women’s Studies Program at Emory University).

In the mid-1980s and in response to student demand for more courses in Children’s Literature, SDSU hired Lois Kuznets (a distinguished scholar, among other works, she is the author of Kenneth Grahame and When Toys Come Alive). When Professor Kuznets retired to Ann Arbor, the department then hired as her replacement Alida Allison (the author of books on the children’s works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Russell Hoban).

As the reputation of the university’s Children’s Literature Program began to spread and as enrollments doubled in the 1990s, the department added June Cummins (she is at work on a book about Sydney Taylor and Jewish Children’s Literature). Near the end of the decade, the group was also joined the former Dean of Undergraduate Studies at SDSU, Carole Scott (the author of scholarly monographs on Picturebooks and on Phillip Pullman). In 2005, these were joined by Phillip Serrato (a specialist in Latino/a Children’s Literature).

This list above of full-time specialists in Children’s Literature does not include numerous faculty who also teach courses in the field on an occasional basis–for example, Jerry Farber (a distinguished scholar in aesthetics and comparative literature, Dr. Farber occasionally offers courses on European Children’s Literature). We also host visiting scholars; for example, in residence for two years was Maria Nikolajeva (the noted Swedish scholar and the author of a score of book-length studies on Children’s Literature).

For additional historical information, please visit our Past News.