The boom in children’s fiction took off in the early–20th century. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and L. Frank Baum dreamed up irresistible worlds of floating planets, talking cats, and battles between good and evil. Brilliant illustrators, from Arthur Rackham to Jessie Willcox Smith, brought these worlds to life in scintillating color. Such storytellers laid the groundwork for later writers who explored fantasy in their youth and then went on to adult fiction. One thinks of Gabriel García Márquez, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Jayne Anne Phillips. “Imagination,” Lewis Carroll once said, quoting Jules de Gaultier, “is the only weapon in the war against reality.” This exhibition—drawing from the Harry Ransom Center’s rich holdings in manuscripts, photography, film, and performing arts—asks what it means to read and write children’s books. —Elena Clavarino