Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children’s Literature

Jonathan Cott’s reflections and conversations with six celebrated children’s authors-now in a new edition

Pipers at the Gates of Dawn is a unique ensemble bringing together Jonathan Cott’s encounters and conversations with some of the most celebrated children’s authors of the twentieth century. Children’s literature, he states, brings us back to experiencing our earliest and deepest feelings and truths. It is our link to the past and a path to the future. And in it we find ourselves. Cott’s firm belief is that children’s literature can impart wisdom and delight to everyone, and he believes that the masterpieces of children’s literature are simply masterpieces of literature in miniature, conveyors of wisdom and wonder.

Pipers at the Gates of Dawn consists of Cott’s essay-interviews with Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Astrid Lindgren, Chinua Achebe, P. L.Travers, and with Iona and Peter Opie, the great scholars of the lore, games, and language of schoolchildren. He explores with the authors themselves the lives of their created characters and the character of their own lives. All share with Cott an impassioned sense of the richness and complexity of childhood, and of the enduring importance of children’s literature in the lives of all of us.