ANN ARBOR—Travel from Wonderland to the Hundred Acre Wood, Neverland or Hogwarts without a passport, no waiting in lines, no security checks, no e-tickets and never having to get out of your pajamas.

These are the imaginary places created by writers that inform, entertain and engage children of all ages. This is where animal worlds take on human proportions, humans and fascinating creatures interact and challenges abound in unreal settings.

A selection of these places is featured in “Imaginary Worlds: Created Places in Children’s Books,” an exhibit at the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Library.

The exhibit is drawn from the library’s relatively new and rapidly growing Children’s Literature Collection. The collection’s core includes copies of ” Gulliver’s Travels,” ” Robinson Crusoe,” and “Swiss Family Robinson” that fill more than 100 shelves comprising the Hubbard Imaginary Voyages Collection.

There are works by British illustrator Arthur Rackham in the Joann and Ned Chalat Arthur Rackham Collection. The library has more than 6,000 picture books from the 20th century in the Lee Walp Family Juvenile Collection, and a recent gift of more than 2,300 pop-up and moveable books. The purchase of the Janice Dohm Collection of chapter books adds extensive holdings of fairy tales and works by Beatrix Potter, especially her Peter Rabbit tales. Together these collections number more than 20,000 books, many of which describe the imaginary worlds that form a major part of children’s literature.

“The books, the manuscripts and the art work provide an opportunity for study of the creative process,” said William Gosling, curator of the library’s children’s literature collection. “And, when popular title has been reprinted, adapted or even rewritten over the years, a history of publishing and marketing is revealed. The collection is used by researchers and classes from a surprising number of disciplines. It also engages the interest of community members who enjoy learning more about favorite authors, illustrators and stories.”

The exhibit portrays several imaginary worlds. “While some writers invented their world in a single book, such as Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland,'” curator William Gosling said, many wrote series of books about that special place as in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia chronicles and L. Frank Baum’s Oz books.

Also on display is Nancy Willard’s dollhouse, a seven-foot model of William Blake’s Inn, created by Willard to assist her in writing the award-winning volume of poems, ” A Visit to William Blake’s Inn.”

“Imaginary Worlds: Created Places in Children’s Books” runs through Nov. 25 in the exhibit gallery on the 7th floor of the Hatcher Graduate Library on U-M’s Central Campus. The gallery is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays. Admission is free. For further information, contact the library at special.collections@umich.edu or 734-764-9377.

Related Link:

• Special Collections Library