Children's Books

In addition to materials directly supporting the Lawrence curriculum, the library’s collections include many children's picture books, fairy tales, and children's and young adult novels.  Our children’s literature collection supports the work of our education department, as well as the many faculty, staff, and students who enjoy the wealth of knowledge, joy, and wisdom that come from children's literature.
Most of our children's literature is located on the  third floor, in the PZ and oversized PZ section.

To find award-winning and honor books in the Mudd Library, first look for the book title in one of the following lists, then search by title or author in the library catalog:

• List of Newbery Medal Honor Books, 1922-Present: given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."
• List of Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938-Present: recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children."
• Coretta Scott King Book Award: given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.
• Rainbow Book List: presents an annual bibliography of quality books with significant and authentic GLBTQ content, which are recommended for people from birth through eighteen years of age.
• Printz Award for Young Adult Literature: an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.
• Other awards from the American Library Association and affiliated associations

The award names may also be searched as keywords in the library catalog (e.g. "Caldecott medal" or "Newbery medal"). This type of search will also display books about these awards or their namesakes that may be helpful for those studying education, illustration, literature, etc.

In addition to contemporary children's literature, our main collection and Milwaukee-Downer collection contain many historical children's books for those interested in the history of publishing for children. For access to materials from the Milwaukee-Downer collection, please see our use of special collections page. Selections from a small sampling of our Milwaukee-Downer collection, some of which are children's books, are viewable in Lux, Lawrence University's institutional repository.