Life and career
Born in Logansport, Indiana, he earned a degree in Library Science from Columbia University in 1964 and a degree in journalism from Northwestern University. From 1964 to 1967 he served in the United States Army. From 1976 to 1991, he was the director of the Beverly Hills Public Library. Among other accomplishments, he was the first director of the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s and Young Adult Literature at Callifornia State University, Fresno. Through the center, he established the Michael Cart Research Fellowship at CSU Fresno in 2019 to support studies on children's literature.
Cart was also a teacher at Texas Women's University and University of California, Los Angeles.
Cart received the Grolier Award in 2000 and was the inaugural recipient of the YALSA/ Greenwood Publishing Group Service to Young Adults Award in 2008. In 2026, he was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame.
Cart died in Indiana on February 13, 2025, at the age of 83. He donated thousands of books and materials to the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature and significantly expanded their collection, especially their collection of LGBTQ+ literature.
