✨🌼Fairytale Friday!🌼✨
Love in Bloom
Today's story plucks at the petals of the heart 💐
In She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not, written by Robert Keeshan and illustrated by the ever-enchanting Maurice Sendak, we follow a tender tale of young love...hopeful, wistful, and full of wonder. Published in New York by Harper and Row in 1963, our copy comes as a gift of Megan Holbrook and Eric Vogel.
It's a simple story, really: a boy and a daisy, a question and a heart. "She loves me..." "She loves me not..." But in Sendak's hands, even a single daisy becomes a little bit magical.
American television producer and actor, Robert James Keeshan (1927-2004), remembered fondly as the gentle and reassuring Captain Kangaroo, created some of the most enduring children's programming of the mid 20th century. Before his long running role on Captain Kangaroo (1955-1984), Keeshan first appeared as the original Clarabell the Clown on The Howdy Doody Show. His dedication to children's education and entertainment extended beyond television, he also authored several children's books.
Maurice Bernard Sendak (1928-2012), the American illustrator and writer whose career reshaped children's literature, was already gaining recognition by 1963. By then, he had illustrated dozens of books for authors such as Else Holmelund Minarik's Little Bear. She Love Me, She Loves Me Not was published in the same year as his groundbreaking work Where the Wild Things Are, which would establish him as one of the most important figures in modern picture books. His drawings here offer a glimpse of the artistry that would soon transform the field.
Until next time, may the petals always fall in your favor...
View more posts with illustrations by Maurice Sendak.
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--Melissa (no plucks given), Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
