Sunday, February 17, 2013
Monkey Books
"What are you doing, Monkey!?
Those are words heard at least once a day by Mabel Watson Payne. And I like to think she is partly called Monkey because of what seemed (at least to me) to be the first book that became a noticeable favorite book of Mabel's own choosing, early in her reading life. It was Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkin – (as illustrated immediately above) – first published in 1938.
Thinking about the monkeys in Caps for Sale led me (by a roundabout route) into looking for representations of monkeys on book covers. They are more numerous than I ever imagined. I am reproducing only a tiny sample here.
Labels:
1930s,
animals,
artists,
books,
children,
dust jackets,
families,
granddaughter,
lettering,
San Francisco,
trees,
vintage