This parodic folksong is representative of the "culture"—texts, toys, uses of technology, social practices, and shared meanings—young people create when they selectively incorporate commercial products into their peer activities. Borrowing from… [more]

This short story by fiction writer, S.L. Wisenberg, sheds light on the influence of Anne Frank on the imagination and identity of Jewish girls growing up in postwar America. Written from a child's point of view and in the language of children,… [more]

First launched in 1928, My Weekly Reader sought to make the national news accessible to elementary school children. By the early 1970s grade-specific versions were available for students from preschool to the sixth grade. My Weekly Reader was the… [more]

In 1928, Martha Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa, an anthropological work based on field work she had conducted on female adolescents in Samoa. In Mead's book that became a best seller and unleashed a storm of controversy, she argued that it was… [more]

Published in 1858, Der Struwwelpeter (Shaggy Peter) is a German children's book first published anonymously under a different title in 1845 by Heinrich Hoffman. Hoffman, a Frankfurt physician and father, wrote the book after realizing that there were… [more]

Many children, young people, and adults (especially Americans) are likely to be familiar with this story about the babysitter menaced by the maniac that has gripped the popular imagination for the last half century. First appearing in the early… [more]

Kenge Kobayashi is a Nisei (second generation) Japanese American born in 1926 in Imperial Valley, California. With his family, he was incarcerated at Tulare Assembly Center, California, and then at the Gila River, Arizona, and Tule Lake, California,… [more]

Mits Koshiyama is a Nisei (second generation) Japanese American born in 1924 in Mountain View, California. He grew up in the Santa Clara Valley, working on his family's leased strawberry farm. In June 1942, he was removed to Santa Anita Assembly… [more]

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga is a Nisei (second generation) Japanese American born in 1925 in Los Angeles. She was incarcerated at Manzanar, California, and later Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas. In the 1980s, working as the primary archival researcher for the… [more]

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga is a Nisei (2nd generation) Japanese American born in 1925 in Los Angeles. She was incarcerated at Manzanar, California, and later Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas. In the 1980s, working as the primary archival researcher for the… [more]