Sputnik crisis
The already vigorous growth in children's books became a boom in the 1950s, and children's publishing became big business. In 1952, American journalist E. B. White published "Charlotte's Web", which was described as "one of the very few books for young children that face, squarely, the subject of death". Maurice Sendak illustrated more than two dozen books during the decade, which established him as an innovator in book illustration. The Sputnik crisis that began in 1957, provided increased interest and government money for schools and libraries to buy science and math books and the non-fiction book market "seemed to materialize overnight".