Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Our stories:
Ever wonder what books were available for children 200 years ago? Keen to try your hand at some eighteenth and nineteenth century board games?
Trace the development of children’s reading, learning and play with the Children’s Literature and Culture database.
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Our stories:
Farewell to Shirley Hughes, English author and illustrator of beloved children’s books Dogger and the Alfie series.
![Detail of Blinky Bill and Mrs Koala, Dorothy Wall, [between 1933 and 1940?]; H2015.180/28](https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/is009117-120x120.jpg)
Collection Care, Conservation:
Blinky Bill has been a favourite amongst Australian children since he first made an appearance in the 1933 book Blinky Bill: The Quaint Little Australian. A collection of drawings by author and illustrator Dorothy Wall (1894–1942) were recently acquired by the Library – several of which have come to the Conservation Lab for assessment and treatment.
Arts & literature, Our stories:
In the early twentieth century, author Leslie Brooke developed new techniques that were to influence many in what became the Golden Age of Children’s books.
John Marsden has received the 2018 Dromkeen medal for his enduring passion for and contribution to Australian children’s literature and children’s education. Find out which books were important to him as a child.
Willy Pogany (born Vilmos Andras Pogany) was a prolific contributor during the Golden Age of children’s book illustration, whose career broadened from children’s book illustration to portraiture and set designs for opera and ballet.
Arts & literature, Our stories:
Kay Nielsen’s delicate illustrations combined the exquisite motifs of the Art Nouveau movement with oriental influences. The elaborate, decorative artworks bring brilliant colour tinged with a hint of eeriness to the pages of children’s fairy tales.
Arts & literature, Our stories:
Pop-up books enthral readers for many reasons: their ingenuity, their beauty, and because they challenge the two-dimensional nature of printed books. Explore the range of paper engineering mechanisms that have been used in books for more than 700 years.
Edmund Dulac published in the first decades of the twentieth century, at a time now recognised as a golden age of children’s book illustration.
Arthur Rackham’s haunting images in children’s fairy tales evoke a sense of mystery, even nightmare. They made him the leading decorative illustrator of the Edwardian era.
