New eBay loot

9 June 2011 by · 1 Comment

I just received some lovely new-to-me Golden Books of eBay. ABC Rhymes I’ve seen before, but I’d never come across Play Street or The Little Golden Book of Mother Goose.

When I saw the cover of Play Street, I was immediately reminded of the illustrations of Eloise Wilkin – author and illustrator of many Little Golden Books, including A Child’s Garden of Verses, We Like Kindergarten and Prayers for Children. Jane Werner Watson, who edited and wrote hundreds of Golden Books, called Eloise Wilkin “the soul of Little Golden Books”.

But Play Street was written by Esther Wilkin and illustrated by Joan Esley. A little research into these two revealed some interesting collaboration. Esther Wilkin was the sister of Eloise, who were born Eloise and Esther Burns, and they married two brothers Wilkins. Eloise was friends with Joan Esley and they opened a studio together and later moved to New York city together. I love the thought of the shared careers of these three, working together, helping each other in an era when few women were working, let along making names for themselves as leaders in their careers.

This is a gorgeous story, if you don’t already know it – how’s this for a classic 50s opener?

It was all very quiet on on Butternut Lane. The mothers were busy with their housework and the babies were taking their mid-morning naps. Bobby was riding his tricycle.

Against a backdrop of a classic US streetscape, is a tale of make believe – each of the littlies of Butternut Lane rides his or her trike imaging they are driving a vehicle. Until the roving policeman stops them as they are starting to make so much noise!

The Little Golden Mother Goose collects 75 Mother Goose rhymes – I’m amazed that I’ve heard of most of them but lovely to read a few new ones too.

I’m a very happy e-Bayer…

Filed Under: Age 2+, Classics, Vintage

Borrowed and Thrifted – and Gifted!

11 February 2011 by · 2 Comments

A little while ago I was gifted a divine little book by my aunt. She’d found it while having a clean up and it had originally been at my grandma’s house. The little book is ‘A Pixie Book’ called Happy Days that was published in 1954.

The ‘Pixie Series’ was printed in Great Britain by Collins – “Publishers For The Children”. There is a sweet little bit of text on the inside jacket that reads – “The Pixie Book Series. Ask your bookseller to show them to you, and build up your own Pixie Library”.

Some of the other titles in the series sound interesting, for example Kittie-Poosies?

The illustrator is simply listed as Eulalie and with a bit of searching I have found that it is Eulalie Banks a prolific and beautiful UK artist. She published her first book when she was 18 and worked extensively from the 1920′s through to the 1970′s. She was highly respected in the publishing world it seems, and was highly sought after for pieces of her art including painting a nursery mural for Charlie Chaplin’s house.

And the thing that thrilled me the most is that she did the original illustrations for Helen Bannerman’s Little Black Sambo.

In Happy Days the story is very sweet and simple. The characters are Jack and Jill and their dog Jippy. The story, in rhyme, follows their day from waking up to going to bed.

‘The Bluebirds sing “Wake up and play.

Tweet tweet it is a lovely day.”

“Good morning Bluebirds we are ready,”

Say Jack and Jill and sleepy Teddy.’

Jack and Jill are positively cherubic, their little cheeks glow pink and their hair falls in little waves around their faces. The colours are incredible and it constantly amazes me how these gorgeous old books are seemingly still as vibrant today and they were when first published.

Eulalie Banks died in 1999 but has left behind a legacy of beautiful children’s books. There is a great bio of her here and also some beautiful flickr albums with more examples of  Eulalie’s work here and more examples from the Pixie Book Series here.

Filed Under: Borrowed and thrifted, Illustrators, Picture books, Vintage