Box of delight

To bring back memories of your schooldays, there's nothing quite like the sight of your old exercise books. This holds true whether you went to school in Ghana in the 2010s, Italy in the 90s, France in the 80s, China in the 70s, Japan in the 60s, or India in the 50s. All of these examples and many more have come available to view at the Exercise Book Archive, an "ever-growing, participatory archive of old exercise books that allows everyone to discover the history, education, and daily life of children and youth of the past." All of the entries include the relevant book's front cover — already a Proustian viewing experience for any who had them growing up — and some feature scans of the interior pages, student writing and all.

Children’s books are big business. And the market has never been more competitive. Bestselling, character-driven series spawn their own TV shows. Candy-colored readers feature kids’ favorite comic and cartoon characters. But kids’ books can also be fine art—a venue for well-written, finely-illustrated literature. And they are a serious subject of scholarship, offering insights into the histories of book publishing, education, and the social roles children were taught to play throughout modern history.