SOURCE: "Howard Pyle's America," in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer, 1983, pp. 15-16, 34.

In the following essay, Vitz discusses Pyle's meticulous depiction of American history in his work.

The mere mention of Howard Pyle arouses visions of Robin Hood and Little John, of King Arthur locked in mortal combat with the Sable Knight, of a host of splendid pirates and adventurers. But we must not allow these childhood memories to obscure the depictions of historical characters that made up almost a third of Pyle's total work. How much richer our sense of history is today because of Pyle's imaginative rendering of Bunker Hill, with the British regulars resolutely marching toward the American lines, or of Lexington Common on that fateful April morning in 1775. Whether or not this is the way it was, it is surely the way it should have been.

Nothing captures Pyle's interest more than...