García Márquez Juvenalia, Magic Lantern 'Alice', and Le Petit Prince at Harry Ransom Center

An interdisciplinary exhibition examining the history, artistry, and impact of children’s literature has opened at The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Words and Wonder: Rediscovering Children’s Literature, running through August 17, celebrates the creation and lasting impact of children’s explores the storytelling process through the perspectives of children as readers, writers, and performers, and the contributions of early 20th century illustrators and artists who envisioned fantastical worlds for young audiences. 

The exhibition also looks at early modern education and literacy practices, featuring rare 17th century hornbooks and marginalia that reveal how children interacted with the texts.

Highlights include:

• early examples of juvenalia by Gabriel García Márquez, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jayne Anne Phillips, and J. M. Coetzee, shedding light on thei formative creative processes
• artifacts from early 20th century children’s theatre, including a costume hat worn by famous child actress Elsie Leslie in the 1890 Broadway production of The Prince and the Pauper
• magic lantern slides illustrating Aesop’s Fables and Alice in Wonderland, alongside original animation cels from Walt Disney’s 1951 production of Alice in Wonderland
• illustrations from The House at Pooh Corner by Ernest Howard Shepard, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Arthur Rackham’s imaginative reinterpretations of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination for younger audiences

“This exhibition aims to turn back the hands of the clock and reawaken childhood wonder in exhibition visitors of all ages,” said Stephen Enniss, Director of the Harry Ransom Center. “It is a reminder of that capacity for wonder that is still within our grasp if we listen for the child within each one of us.”