Back to the Future: A Review of the ‘Childcraft’ Books

Back to the Future: A Review of the ‘Childcraft’ Books
A set of "Childcraft" books. First published in 1934, the volumes once brought a whole library for children into the home. The children's library of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal, Canada, in 1943. PD-US
Jeff Minick
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The small North Carolina town in which I lived from ages 5 to 12 had no public library. A book mobile did visit our street, at least during the summers, and the arrival of that van brought moms and kids streaming from their houses and yards, excited to board this library on wheels and take home a few books.

The town’s drugstore carried a variety of comic books and magazines, and there too I managed to find refreshment that slaked my thirst for the printed word. Here were “Archie,” the character Sgt. Rock, and other comics, but my favorites were “Classics Illustrated,” what today might be called graphic books. The “Classics Illustrated” series introduced me to such masterpieces as “Romeo and Juliet,” “Call of the Wild,” and “The Red Badge of Courage.”

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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