Northeast Children's Literature Collection

The Northeast Children’s Literature Collection acquires, preserves, and makes accessible works of historical and artistic significance in the field of children’s literature. The NCLC includes books, manuscripts, illustrations, correspondence, artifacts, and other related materials. Currently (2009) consisting of approximately 42,000-catalogued children’s books and serials, and the manuscript archives of 110 authors and illustrators, the collection is supported by reference works in Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the Homer Babbidge Library.

The story of the Northeast Children's Literature Collection begins in the 1960s with the acquisition of some 600 volumes of 19th and 20th century children's books from author/illustrator Nonny Hogrogian. During the 1970s the library engaged in the selective addition of the best historical and contemporary children's books and manuscripts, focusing on prize-winners and works by New England authors and illustrators. In 1983, Ms. Billie M. Levy placed on deposit 8,500 volumes from her private collection. A tireless and perspicacious collector, Ms. Levy was the first to convince such notables in the field as James Marshall to leave his materials to the University of Connecticut for research use. Ms. Levy has to date donated over 10,000 volumes.

Children's literature was a hot topic on campus in the 1970s and 1980s, with the leaders of the field like the late Dr. Francelia Butler, teaching, publishing, leading conferences and later the Peace Games; in effect helping to bring the study of children's literature into the mainstream of scholarship. The NCLC holds the papers of Dr. Butler and the large number of audiovisual materials created in her classroom. Many of the greatest names in children's literature, including Maurice Sendak and Big Bird, visited the popular Butler “kiddie lit” classes.

Other major donations include the Phyllis Hirsch Boyson Collection. This collection, donated in memory of Mrs. Boyson by her husband Bert contains over 6,300 children’s books. In addition, the Bridgeport Public Library in Bridgeport, Connecticut, recently donated its collection of historical children’s books, including many important children’s works in series, consisting of almost 3,300 books.

Included within the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection are several smaller sets of materials. One such is the Black Beauty collection, consisting of approximately 450 discrete editions produced in Great Britain and the United States. It contains nearly every edition published from the late 1870s to the mid-1980s, and offers insight into the effects of the times on text and illustration. Anna Sewell died in 1878, too soon to know how universal her story would become.

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