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“... Amerindian and White Negro’. It is all a bit too much, but at least Mellers takes care, unlike Jonathan Cott in his expensive, over-reverential tome: one more coffee-table book. It may seem a bit Dylanesque (i.e. slightly cruel) but I finished Cott’s book without being able to remember what it had been ...”

“... Beatrix Potter and her darker allegories (‘Squirrel Nutkin ... external menace ... paranoia’). Jonathan Cott would have done well to take to heart the warning communicated here. Pipers at the Gates of Dawn consists of interviews with six children’s authors and illustrators, and one pair of folklorists (the Opies). ...”

“... better analogues of the fantasies of children than the manipulative tales of the child-improvers. Jonathan Cott, who makes more extravagant claims for good children’s books than most, also sees more danger in bad ones. What kind of world is it, he asks, in which a boy’s alternative to television might be ‘a “young adult” novel like Dinky Hocker ...”