Special Books & Childhood Memories

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The early 20th Century saw the first of what can be considered the modern children’s picture book. The books were short, the words relatively few, and the illustrations advanced the story instead of merely illustrating the text. Whether it was Peter Rabbit squeezing himself under Mr. McGregor’s fence or poor Pooh being thumped on the stairs by Christopher Robin, the best of these books also reflected a change of viewpoint: the change from the vantage point of an adult to more of a child’s eye view of the world.

While it’s fairly easy to identify and value the children’s classics like Peter Rabbit or Winnie the Pooh and the ALA website is a good resource for Caldecott Award and Caldecott Honor Books, there are a large number of modern children’s illustrated books which are widely sought that can’t be quantified in terms of edition or merits of the art and text. These books are not usually being sought by traditional book collectors, they are being sought by non collectors looking to revisit, and usually pass on, a specific childhood moment. The one thing that is almost impossible to predict with children’s books is which books will resonate enough in a persons childhood to make it sought, sometimes frantically, when that person becomes and adult.

These books are in such demand, that even after 15 years as a children’s bookseller, I rarely, if ever, have handled any copies. The advent of the internet has made tracking down these books somewhat easier but that fact is usually offset by the large number of non traditional collectors looking for these titles. Two examples of books that I’ve had multiple requests for over that years, and that I’ve never had a copy of are: The Boy Who Ate Flowers by Nancy Sherman and illustrated by Nancy Carroll, and The Christmas Cookie Sprinkle Snitcher written by Robert Krauss and Illustrated by VIP.

And the conversation which is most dreaded by all out of print children’s booksellers everywhere usually starts with; “I’m looking for this book I had when I was little, I don’t remember the title or the author…..”

I wrote the following on my rants and rambles blog after an especially difficult day of hunting for unnamed books, (and probably after one too many glasses of wine).
A compendium:
“I remember a book I had when I was 4 or 5 or maybe 6
It was blue or green or maybe yellow
And had a picture of a duck or frog or puppy dog
The duck was lost but found his way home
The frog was bad but her family loved her anyway
And the puppy was hardly ever afraid of the dark or being alone
It’s gone now, lost when we moved
or in the basement flood of ’78
or the garage sale the year I left for college…

That’s the book I want to buy, do you have it?”

Posted By Dana Richardson of Windy Hill Books

5 thoughts on “Special Books & Childhood Memories”

  1. Hi Dana,

    I’m a children’s librarian and about a year ago I started to frequent primarily library book sales and began to collect a lot of books, usually the older and unique. I just stumbled upon “The Boy Who Ate Flowers” and was shocked to see two ABAA listing for it at $150 & $250 and then found this blog. What is so special about this book? The author and illustrator don’t ring a bell and Platt & Munk are exactly known for there stand alone picture books. What gives?

    Cheers,

    Michael

  2. I still own my copy of this book from when I was a little girl. It just a great story about a boy who decides not to eat his oatmeal and accidently stumbles upon his Mom’s flowers. He tries one and likes it. The parents get a french cook who makes up all these fantastic recipes with flowers. Finally the boy gets sick of eating flowers and goes back to oatmeal. The drawings are great and it is just a very appealing story. I loved it as a kid.

  3. Michael,

    One of my collector’s is sending me a copy of THE BOY WHO ATE FLOWERS so I will finally get to see this book that so many people are so fond of. Ellen’s comment sums up not only the story but also the emotional reaction to it; it’s seems to be a book that tickled a child’s sense of humor… and I’m guessing, helped many a parent with a finicky eater.

    Dana

  4. OK — I’m finding these posts a couple years after the last commenter, so maybe no one will read this. But — I was searching for The Boy Who Ate Flowers on the internet and found this discussion. Thought I would try to answer why this book was so appealing. As a kid, all I wanted to read was books about horses and received this book as a birthday gift. I loved it and spent many, many hours matching the flowers on the end cover illustrations and others throughout multiple illustrations to the pages that specifically mentoned those flowers. It was like a game. And 40 years later, I can still recite many of the rhymes. Don’t ask me why. Had someone asked me, as a child, what my favorite book was I wouldn’t have named this one. But decades later, it’s the one I remember the best.

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