Practicing For Print: The Hale Children's Manuscript Libraries

As a home amusement and a form of literary apprenticeship, two generations of children in the same elite Boston family created their own lending libraries of hand-made books. The institutional procedures the Hale children invented for their libraries, and the contents of the books they illustrated and wrote, offer astute commentary on adult literary practices, and provide a rare vantage onto children's own attitudes towards books and reading. The Hale libraries give evidence not only of how books socialize child readers, but also of the many ways in which print culture can be modified and re-imagined by children's play.