“I was taken out to lunch and offered, with great ceremony, the opportunity to be an editor in the adult department? The implication, of course, was that since I had learned to publish books for children with considerable success perhaps I was now ready to move along (or up) to the adult field. I almost pushed the luncheon table into the lap of the pompous gentleman opposite me and then explained kindly that publishing children’s book was what I did, that I couldn’t possibly be interested in books for dead dull finished adults, and thank you very much but I had to get back to my desk to publish some more good books for bad children.”–Ursula Nordstrom

Currently reading Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom by Leonard S. Marcus and loving it. Nordstrom worked closely with authors and illustrators like E.B. White, Maurice Sendak, and Shel Silverstein. Pretty awesome career, right? And I love her commitment to children’s literature as a whole, as indicated in the quote above.

(image via Charlotte Zolotow)