Children's & Juvenile Literature Collection

The Children's & Juvenile Literature Collection in the Newton Gresham Library at Sam Houston State University serves various purposes:

• provide pre- and in-service educators with access to quality children's titles that coincide with the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) and Common Core Standards (CCS) for early childhood (approx. age 3) through grade 12 (e.g., EC-12) across all content and subject areas;
• ensure a high-quality and diverse collection through memorial and honorarium special collections;
• to support the literacy of children ages 0 through young adulthood in the SHSU and surrounding community; and 
• maintain titles reflective of the historical value of the collection for scholars of children's literature, transferring rare volumes to the special collections library for preservation as needed.

A small portion of the collection is available online, however, recognizing the need and preference for books in print by children and educators, the majority of the collection is in print.

** Note: It is the responsibility of the adult caregiver, family member, or teacher to select titles that are appropriate for the child(ren) that will be reading or interacting with items from the SHSU Children's Collection.  This is a diverse collection that represents a variety of viewpoints in historical and current representations.  

The Collection is approximately 25,000 titles, dating from 1870 to he present, in children's literature and includes board books, picture books, early readers, and movable/pop-up books in fiction and nonfiction titles. 

As of September 2023, the collection is balanced as follows:

• Fiction: 12,343 titles; average date: 1986.2 (2018 avg.: 1977.9)
• Non-Fiction: 12,353 titles; average date: 1986.0 (2018 avg.: 1975.3)

As of December 31, 2018, 30% of the collection was pre-1969; 35 titles pre-date 1900 and 89.1% of the Collection had circulated. More details are on subsequent tabs.