I've recently discovered an amazing series of 42 books published by Doubleday between 1957 and 1961 called "Best In Children's Books." According to Dee Jones of the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection,"Each volume contained a mix of classics, new stories, and non fiction. Included were numerous folk and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm; Mother Goose rhymes; retellings" etc.
She continues in her introduction to an incredible 50 page index of the authors and illustrators of the series:
"For a researcher in children's literature, perhaps the most intriguing part of the series is the illustrators. Their names are not given on the table of contents page, but are found only on the title page of the individual story. Because of this lack of credit, most of the illustrations done in this series are not mentioned in bibliographies of the artists' work."
It's amazing how many now-famous illustrators (and plenty of my personal favorites) have their earliest work included in these books: Ezra Jack Keats, Barbara Cooney, Feodor Rojankovsky, Richard Scarry, the D'Aulaires, the Petershams, Marjorie Flack, and on and on.
One person's work that I was not familiar with is illustrator Charlotte Steiner. She has a number of stories in many of the volumes about a little girl named 'Kiki" and I just love her simple line and 50s/60s style.
Gotta get 'em all!
4 comments:
Where did you come across this series? I picture you deciding to go up in your attic and start sifting through the zillions of boxed picture books and discovering them there, hidden all this time. But I know that's not true. I see that many of them (all?) are for sale on Ebay for cheap.
I found a few volumes at my local library sale this past summer, and have since found some on ebay. Not in the attic -- although there are plenty of treasures tucked away up there!
Thanks Leo. I’ll be on the lookout for these.
Glad I saw this! We had this set of books when I was growing up. Somehow my sister ended up with the whole set. I wonder if she even knows she has them. Wait a minute, this just isn’t right! I'm the picture book author/illustrator, I should have them! Well, now look what you started. :)
gail
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