The era of the close collaboration of writer and artist began.

But certain writers were not content with traditional methods of storytelling. The 1920s were fruitful years for children’s literature, yet they were devoted to the publication of the “inheritance of great literature,” fairy tales, folk tales, adventure stories, and stories of the fabulous and unreal. Breaking with older narrative forms, experimental writers began to focus directly on the experiences of children and to explore the realm of a child’s senses—colors, sounds, smells. Children’s emotions and concerns, such as being alone and shy, being lost and being found, became new subjects for writers.

I remember well some of these years of explosive creativity, for they led me into the world of children’s books and entirely changed my life. I arrived in New York in the early 1930s and soon became a member of the Writer’s Laboratory at the Bank Street College of Education. Under the witty and provocative guidance of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the Writer’s Laboratory consisted of a group of aspiring writers of books for young children. Attending Bank Street College, I became involved not only in the experiments taking place in education and writing but also in many facets of the publishing world. One of the firms most interesting to me was a newly established publishing house called Young Scott Books.

Young Scott Books was founded in 1938 by William R. Scott, his wife Ethel McCullough Scott, and her brother John McCullough. The three founders were young, intelligent, and creative; fortunately they also had sufficient financial backing to allow them to follow their impulses, a freedom not granted in a business where the bottom line often takes precedence over experimentation. Working out of an office in Greenwich Village and a barn at the Scotts’ summer home in North Bennington, Vermont, Young Scott Books began publishing books that were bold in their child-oriented point of view and unusual in their choice of illustrators and authors.

It was The Little Fireman by Margaret Wise Brown, published in 1938, that immediately established Young Scott Books as a leader in this world of “new” books for children and demonstrated most clearly the direction it would follow. Margaret Wise Brown was already beginning to be recognized as a most original writer for young children, and the Scotts soon asked her to join their editorial staff.

At that time I saw a great deal of Margaret, as she was without a doubt the most talented member of the Writer’s Laboratory. The meetings when “Brownie” read a new story were delightful, often hilarious, occasions for the rest of us. We may also have experienced some private despair at her prodigious output. When she died in France in 1952 at the age of forty-two she had published at least one hundred books, some of which are in print today. The Runaway Bunny (1942) and Goodnight Moon (1947), published by Harper & Row and illustrated by Clement Hurd, steadily sell more copies each year.

Working with the Scotts was often an unorthodox affair. I remember being invited to their house in North Bennington, Vermont, to spend the night; the next morning sitting under the tall elm trees, the Scotts, John McCullough, and I worked long hours “rewriting” my first book, Hurry, Hurry, A story of calamity and woe, about a babysitter who was always in too much of a hurry. Into this stimulating atmosphere Margaret Brown put forth an interesting question: Couldn’t certain carefully selected adult authors also write books for children? Mightn’t they be asked for manuscripts? The Scott editorial board pondered this suggestion and decided it was worth trying. Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Gertrude Stein were selected, and John McCullough wrote letters soliciting stories.

Hemingway and Steinbeck declined because of commitments to their own editors, but an enthusiastic Gertrude Stein wrote that not only would she accept Scott Books’ offer, but that she had already nearly completed a book entitled The World Is Round.

It is not surprising that Gertrude Stein accepted John McCullough’s invitation so readily. She was nearly sixty-five years old when she wrote The World Is Round and was as close to public acceptance of her works as she would ever come, but still, she had great difficulty in finding publishers. In the 1920s her reputation among the avant-garde was based mainly on her contributions to “little” magazines, the primary outlet for her work. Only three books of hers came out during the decade, one of which was issued at her own expense. The Making of Americans, the book she finished in 1911 and considered her masterpiece, was not brought out until 1925. In 1930 she was celebrated and interviewed but seldom saw her books in print.

Having been told again and again “There is a public for you but no publisher,” she brooded about her unpublished work. Certainly there was no publisher daring enough to publish her output steadily. Of her many offers, most came to nothing, and she had to suffer the rebukes of editorial staffs who thought her endless repetitions unnecessary and boring. She decided to bring out her books under her own imprint, Plain Edition, and financed the venture by selling one of her Picasso paintings. Alice Toklas was put in charge, and in the early 1930s they issued four books. Then came a breakthrough: Harcourt Brace accepted The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1933, and it became an immediate best seller.