Opens Saturday Sep 27, 2008 (10:30am)
Sep 27, 2008 – Jan 17, 2009
Mondays (8:15am–5:30pm)
Tuesdays–Thursdays (8:15am–7:30pm)
Fridays–Saturdays (8:15am–5:30pm)
The Newberry Library's celebrated collection boasts copies of Shakespeare's first folio and the Popol Vuh, but a new exhibition showcases a lesser-known facet of the library's many-splendored holdings: children's literature. The four-month-long Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children's Books invites viewers to examine the development of children's books over the last seven centuries. Over 65 rare, gorgeous kiddie-centric works (in dozens of languages) are on display, including the first illustrated edition of Aesop's Fables (1485), a first-run copy of Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Chicago artist Florence Notter's whimsical Sailor Tommy (1918). Everyone Poops is conspicuously absent.
– Suzanne Niemoth