So Big - Little Golden Book

Author: Esther Wilkin

Illustrator: Eloise Wilkin

Edition: (420)

Copyright: 1972

Condition: Very good - fine condition. Hard cover. Used. Name in nameplate. Some scuff marks on cover, minor damage to cover corners. Some damage to spine. Sticker residue on front cover. Tear on last page near spine.

Notes: Sydney Edition

About Eloise Wilkin

Eloise Wilkin (1904–1987) illustrated dozens of classic Golden Books in her long career. Famous for her instantly recognizable style, she provided the art for such books as Baby Dear, We Help Mommy, and the original Little Golden Book versions of Prayers for Children and My Little Golden Book About God.

Eloise Wilkin's career covered more than fifty years, involving illustration and writing, free-lance drawing, and doll design. After graduating from The Rochester Institute of Technology, Eloise Burns and her friend Joan Esley moved to New York City where they hoped to have a better chance at careers in illustration. In 1935, Eloise married Sydney Wilkin and soon began a family of four children. She illustrated over 20 books with her sister Esther, who also married a Wilkin. In 1943, she was offered a contract with Simon & Schuster and worked almost exclusively for Little Golden Books until 1961.

Wilkin won several awards for her writings and illustrations including the Ewald Eisenhardt Memorial Merit Award for excellence in printmaking for her lithograph "Lilybet." Two books which she illustrated, The Boy With a Drum (1971) by David L. Harrison and I Hear: Sounds In a Child's World (1971) by Lucille Ogle and Tina Thoburn, were each named children's book of the year by the Child Study Association of America. She also received honorable mention in l940 from the New York Times Book Review for her illustrations for A Good House for a Mouse written by Irmengarde Eberle, 1940, and in 1950 for The Tune is in the Tree written by Maud Hart Lovelace.

Eloise Wilkin was also known for designing dolls and doll houses. In the 1960s she successfully marketed a new-born infant doll called "Baby Dear." Reportedly, former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev returned home with several of the dolls after a trip to a toy store in New York City.

While studying art at Mechanics Institute (now Rochester Institute of Technology), Wilkin met Joan Esley, best known as an illustrator of several books for adolescents. They formed a lifelong friendship that included collaboration on The Visit. Eloise Wilkin died October 4, 1987 in Rochester, New York.

Eloise was a women that stood up for her beliefs, whether it was refusing to paint pants on a woman or marching with Martin Luther King or assisting a college student in the burning of his draft card.

On October 4, 1987, Eloise died of cancer, at Genesee Hospital in Brighton, New York. At the time of her death at 84, she was working on a new doll and was still illustrating.

With around 100 books illustrated, she will be remembered as one of the top children's illustrators of the 20th century.

About Little Golden Books

Little Golden Books is a popular series of children's books. The first 12 titles were published October 1, 1942:

1. Three Little Kittens
2. Bedtime Stories
3. Mother Goose
4. Prayers for Children
5. The Little Red Hen
6. Nursery Songs
7. The Alphabet from A to Z
8. The Poky Little Puppy
9. The Golden Book of Fairy Tales
10. Baby's Book of Objects
11. The Animals of Farmer Jones
12. This Little Piggy and Other Counting Rhymes

As of 2005, 15 million copies of The Poky Little Puppy have been sold, including copies in various languages.

The Little Golden Books, which initially sold for 25¢, were published by Simon and Schuster in cooperation with the Artist and Writers Guild, Inc. headed by Georges Duplaix. Duplaix had initially thought up the idea for the Little Golden Book series and fleshed it out in conversations with officials at Simon and Schuster. Dr. Mary Reed a professor at the Teachers College of Columbia University served as initial editor of the series.

Western Printing and Lithographing Company in Racine, Wisconsin, was Simon and Schuster's partner in the Little Golden Books venture. Western handled the actual printing. In 1958, Simon and Schuster sold its interest in Little Golden Books to Western.

Ownership and control of the series has changed several times since. In 2001, Random House acquired Golden Books for about 85 million dollars.

Although the Little Golden Books have remained the backbone of the product line, the enterprise that produced the Little Golden Books has created a variety of children's books in various formats including records, tapes, videos, and even toys and games (the fourth and fifth as "Golden & Design"). Some titles have appeared in several different formats (including but not limited to "A Golden Book").

Many popular authors and illustrators have worked on Little Golden Books and related products including:

* Mary Blair
* Margaret Wise Brown
* Tibor Gergely
* Corinne Malvern
* Jim McDermott
* Alice Provensen and Martin Provensen
* Bob Staake
* Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky
* Patricia Scarry and Richard Scarry
* Gustaf Tenggren
* Jane Werner Watson
* Eloise Wilkin
* Garth Williams
* Herbert Zim

Although the details have changed over the years, the Little Golden Books have maintained a distinctive appearance. A copy of The Poky Little Puppy bought today is essentially the same as one printed in 1942. Both are readily recognizable as Little Golden Books. At the time of the golden anniversary, Golden Books claimed that a billion and a half Little Golden Books had been sold.

Some Little Golden Books and related products have featured popular children's icons from other media, eg. Sesame Street, the Muppets, Disney, Barbie, Power Rangers, etc. Television and movie tie-ins have been particularly popular. Over the years Hopalong Cassidy, Cheyenne, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Captain Kangaroo, Mister Rogers, and even Donny and Marie have appeared in Little Golden Books.

Many have dealt with nature and science, Bible stories, nursery rhyme, and fairy tales. Christmas titles are popular every year. The fact that many old titles remain in print shows the strong nostalgia appeal of Little Golden Books.

The official Random House website contains an interesting timeline for Little Golden Books.

In the year 2000, Encore Software produced a series of "Little Golden Books" titles for CD Rom, including the Poky Little Puppy, Mother Goose, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Velveteen Rabbit, Tootle, and The Saggy Baggy Elephant. These 6 individual titles were some of the first major software releases to be produced entirely in Macromedia Flash. They appeared in Time Magazine as part of an article entitled How to Raise a Superkid.

So Big - Little Golden Book