Juvenile Series Fiction

More than 3,400 boys' series books representing over 200 series titles are in the collection. Holdings include the works of Alger, Jacob, Abbott, and Harry Castlemon, as well as many topical series such as the Motor Boys, the Motorcycle Chums, and numerous World War I series. The David J. Anderson Memorial donation enhances the holdings of Boy Scout series books and other related scouting material.

Girls' series books number over 2,000 and include examples of over 100 different series titles. Those best represented from the period 1910 to 1940 are Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls, Cherry Ames, the Outdoor Girls, and Ruth Fielding. Nineteenth-century series titles include Abbott's Franconia series, the "Little Prudy" stories by Sophie May, the Five Little Peppers books by Margaret Sidney and many titles by "Pansy" (Isabella Alden).

Another collection is Sunday School Books and moral tales for children, with holdings of 1,500 books covering the nineteenth centry to the present. There are examples of tract society publications which played a pivotal role in the nineteenth-century Sunday School Movement. Twentieth-century religious publishing houses, including Moody and Zondervan, are well represented, featuring the works of such authors as Bernard Palmer, Ken Anderson, Bertha Moore, and Grace Livingston Hill.

The juvenile fiction collection contains rich holdings of magazines, especially from the early twentieth century, including The American Boy (1907-1940), The Open Road for Boys (1929-1935), and Calling All Girls (1943-1965). Sunday school story papers include The Classmate (1925-1938) and The Portal (1925-1933). The two best-known American children's periodicals, Youth's Companion and St. Nicholas, both dating from the nineteenth century and published well into the twentieth, are also held.