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Now, roughly four decades later, Baldwin’s relatives have resurrected the work, with a new edition from Duke University Press, and it could scarcely be more timely. It’s arriving at a moment when children’s book authors and publishers are more frequently placing black and brown children at the center of narratives about everyday life, often taking on charged social issues like mass shootings, addiction and police violence against African-American youth. They are finding an avid audience among young readers growing up in an increasingly diverse nation.

Agate Publishing bounced back in 2017, from a down year in 2016, to post a 7% gain over 2015. Besides a boom in sales of books and other educational content in its Agate Development unit (its digital content development service business), Agate founder Doug Seibold says last year’s improvement was spearheaded by Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, written by Derrick Barnes and illustrated by Gordon C. James. The children’s picture book, released as part of Agate’s new multicultural children’s book line, Denene Millner Books, was published in October 2017 to critical acclaim. The book was a runner-up for some of the most prestigious awards in U.S. children’s book publishing: it was named a Newbery Honor book for content, a Caldecott Honor book for illustrations, and a Coretta Scott King Honor book for both text and illustrations. Crown also appeared on several year-end best-of lists for 2017, and it is now in its fifth printing, bringing the number in print to 65,000 copies. It’s the fastest-selling book Agate has published since 2012, which was the first year Agate appeared on our fast-growing list.

Accountant by day, video games enthusiast by night.  Somewhere in between all of that, I’m a husband, dad, and generally a giant man-child, too.  If a game is all about action, there’s a safe bet I’m playing it.  I started laying waste to virtual worlds as a youngin’ on the ol’ Atari and haven’t stopped since.

But I see another problem. There are still so many titles never digitalised in certain categories, for example, historical, transportation. Rare printed books can cost several hundred dollars. I’d be happy to pay 20%-30% of that price for digital versions of some…

Before Wikipedia, there were encyclopedias. This one is the world’s first encyclopedias dedicated to natural history. Harry reads this to learn about growing mandrakes–a plant believed to possess magical healing powers. (The ancient Romans used it as an anesthetic.)

In an elegant eulogy, historian Jon Meacham, who wrote a definitive biography of Bush, described him as “America’s last great soldier-statesman” who “stood in the breach in Washington against unthinking partisanship.” He added: “An imperfect man, he left us a more perfect union.”

Children’s books have always been political, of course — that’s why they are fixtures on lists of banned or censored books. And the welfare of children has long been at the forefront for authors who write for them. But current children’s book creators are finding new outlets for their concerns, often banding together, with the support of social media, to increase their impact. If the old image of a writer for children was a wise-child genius in the mold of Maurice Sendak — one who spoke up for kids and when necessary challenged the political powers that be, but indirectly — these days, children’s authors might not only hold signs at protest marches, they may also volunteer to strategize for a State Assembly race, or even run for office.

Even the best reproductions of paintings face the same challenge as cheap copies: Their color accuracy sucks.

“I thought, They give you this money; they give you this contract; they basically tell you what the book is going to be,” the chef explains. Instead, he was surprised that the publisher gave him autonomy, which turned out to be both freeing and chaotic. “It was a much different process than I realized. I was the author, the publicist, the farmer, and the restaurateur all at the same time.” The demands on his time were so severe that he ended up having to stop cooking for an entire summer — his busiest time — just to promote the book.

This cover image released by Scholastic shows "The Wonky Donkey" by Craig Smith and illustrated by Katz Cowly.(Photo: AP)

Even Baldwin seemed unsure of his intended audience, referring to the book variously as “a children’s story,” “a child’s story for adults” and “a story of childhood.”

My family reads our wimmelbooks so much, we’re loving them out of their bindings. But they really sank their teemingness into me as I was reading Richard Sennett’s “The Foreigner: Two Essays on Exile,” in which he describes how the political revolutions of 1848 redefined nationalism from one based on monarchies or concocted geographic partitions to one based on ordinary rituals, everyday life and authentic selves.