This reference contains the addresses of US institutions, listed by collection and by subject, which presents children's literature holdings listed in various formats. A directory of international collections describing the holdings of 119 institutions in 40 countries is also included.

Within every library collection lie hidden treasures: temoprarily lost or simply unnoticed books and resources just waiting to be rediscovered. Building a Special Collection of Children's Literature in Your Library details how to unearth and share these valuable items with interested patrons.

The UBC Library houses several collections of old, rare, and significant children's books, now totalling some ten thousand items. Books That Shaped Our Minds is a fully annotated listing of three hundred and sixty-four treasures primarily from Britain and the United States. They were chosen and arranged to document the effect of particular works on the psyche and the sociology of the child from the late seventeenth century to the present. Independently, the books described are pieces of social history. Taken together, the notes in the catalogue constitute a narraive history of the books that have formed young minds for centuries. In conjunction with the same compilers' previously published Canadian Children's Books, 1799-1939, this catalogue permits a comprehensive and comparative view of the development of English-language books for children.