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Celebrate Mother Goose Day and tell us your favorite fairy tale!

Oxford Companion to Children's Literature: Second Edition by Daniel Hahn

This book has over 3,500 authoritative and accessible entries on every aspect of children's literature, covering authors, illustrators, works, characters, genres, and much more. From Mark Haddon to Harry Potter, Raymond Briggs to Maurice Sendak, and Douglas Adams to The Gruffalo. It features entries on English-language authors, works, and illustrators from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, as well as the UK and Ireland. It also covers non-English-language authors, whose works exist in English translation, including Timothee de Fombelle, Cornelia Funke, and Astrid Lindgren. There are even useful lists of children's literature prizes and prizewinners.

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Come celebrate Mother Goose Day with us! On this holiday, which originated in the year 1987, we honor Mother Goose, the fictional author of a number of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Even though she’s an imaginary character, her societal impact is not. Through her fantastical stories, she’s reminded us of the moral implications of our actions and taught the fundamental importance of reading development in preschool. Today, May 1st, we will take pleasure in reading and re-reading fairy tales and nursery rhymes from our youth and sharing them with our loved ones.

Now, we’re asking for you to share your favorite stories!


Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Carroll, Robinson – S001 – Cover by Carroll, Lewis and Robinson, Charles. Public domain via   Wikimedia Commons.

Anne of Green Gables – frontispiece by L.M. Montgomery, M.A. & W.A.J. Claus. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Tom Sawyer 1876 frontispiece by the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

SwissFamilyRobinson1 by Johann David Wyss Illustrated by IBM . Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Free stock photo of animal, children fairytale, crown. CC0 by via Pixaby.

Featured image: The Jessie Willcox Smith Mother Goose by  Jessie Willcox Smith – 1914. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Berit Henrickson is a Marketing Assistant for academic literature, classic, and archaeology books at Oxford University Press. Information for this post was sourced from the National Mother Goose Day entry by National Day Calendar as well as the Mother Goose Day entry by Days of the Year.   

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