Mary Cadogan – iterary historian, broadcaster and writer with a fascination for children’s literature – has died aged 86

Cadogan’s literary career was triggered by a chance meeting in the mid-70s with the Belfast-born writer Patricia Craig, with whom she shared an interest in the school-story genre. This resulted, in 1976, in their collaborating on You’re a Brick, Angela!, a review of girls’ books between 1839 and 1985, spanning a wide spectrum of writings from the moral and improving tales of the Victorians, via school adventures and comic papers to the novels of Joan Aiken, Nina Bawden and others. Thoroughly researched, filled with sharp observations and, above all, wittily written, the book garnered wide critical praise and swiftly became (and has remained) a standard text.

Women With Wings: Female Flyers in Fact and Fiction, 1992, by Mary Cadogan
The book’s success led to two more collaborations with Craig, Women and Children First: The Fiction of Two World Wars (1978) and The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction (1986), volumes which, like their forerunner, offered a new perspective on the often overlooked role of women in popular fiction and the contributions of female writers.

Cadogan had found her metier and her personal reputation was secured with biographies of two authors responsible for much-loved characters from children’s fiction: Richmal Crompton: The Woman Behind William (1986) and Frank Richards: The Chap Behind the Chums (1988).

via Mary Cadogan obituary | Books | theguardian.com.

See also the obituary in The Indpependent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/mary-cadogan-author-critic-and-anthologist-whose-own-early-reading-inspired-her-to-champion-the-study-of-childrens-literature-9778418.html

Poet and travelogue writer Alastair Reid has died in Mahattan aged 88. He also wrote children’s books.

He wrote children’s books, including “Ounce Dice Trice,” an introduction to and celebration of odd-sounding words, with illustrations by Ben Shahn, and “Supposing …,” a salute to the powers of imagination.

via Alastair Reid, a Restless Poet and Essayist, Is Dead at 88 – NYTimes.com.