ABSTRACT
What story to tell of Anne Carroll Moore, the great star in the sky over the landscapes of children’s libraries? Legends abound of her power over the national publishing scene, her children’s literature empire on 42nd Street, and her eccentricities and alter egos. I will tell one anecdote that illustrates the imagistic talents of Anne Carroll Moore. When New York Public librarian Anne Carroll Moore was offered the rare opportunity to write her own children’s book page in 1924 in the New York Herald Tribune, the first full-page spread on children’s books in the American press, she chose the title, “The Three Owls,” inspired by a library weathervane and symbolizing the equal powers of author, artist, and critic in the making of children’s books. The author is easy to figure; the artist is the illustrator, but who exactly is the critic in the early 1920s? Who but the children’s librarian in her prime, hooting in the dark?
