Vintage Children's Book: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Part One

All images via American Treasures of the Library of Congress

Today's vintage children's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, is a national treasure. These illustrations from first edition were done by William Wallace Denslow (1856-1915) and published in 1900.

Due to the large number of illustrations in this 308 page book, this will be a two part post. Hope you enjoy it!

Vintage Children's Book: Pinocchio illustrated by Lois Lenski, Silent Sunday

To read about Lois Lenske: children's literature network

Pinocchio

By C. Collodi

Adapted by Allen Chaffee

Illustrated by Lois Lenski

Random House, Inc., 1946

(Silent Sunday is when I post a book and don't talk/write about it...)

Vintage Children's Book: The Summer Noisy Book, Margaret Wise Brown and Leonard Weisgard

Today's vintage children's book, The Summer Noisy Book, is by the successful duo of Margaret Wise Brown and Leonard Weisgard. Brown and Weisgard collaborated on over 24 books together, putting their stamp on children's books that are still popular today.

Their first book together was The Noisy Book (1939), which started a series: The City Noisy Book, The Country Noisy Book, The Indoor Noisy Book, The Quite Noisy Book, The Seashore Noisy Book, The Summer Noisy Book and The Winter Noisy Book.

Love the dog in the back of the car!

I really like the way Weisgard illustrates birds.

To view some of my previous posts on books by Leonard Weisgard:

The Cozy Hour Storybook and The Important Book

The Little Island

What Makes A Bird A BIRD?

Hailstones and Halibut Bones

The Clean Pig

image via Writer of Song and Nonsense

Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952) whose nickname was Brownie, was a prolific writer and wrote under the names of Golden MacDonald, Juniper Sage, Kaintuck Brown and Timothy Hay as well as her own. She is best known for

her books Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny.

image via Brooklyn Museum

Standard Poodles and Kerry Blue Terriers were Margaret's dogs of choice and were the central characters in some of her stories. She was rarely seen without one of her dogs. 

image via Margaret Wise Brown Biography

Margaret Wise Brown had a flamboyant personality and accomplished much in a life that was cut short. One can only wonder what more she would have done if she hadn't died so young. In her will, Wise Brown specified that her ashes be scattered at sea near her beloved home in Maine. A simple stone marks the site with the inscription "Margaret Wise Brown, Writer of Songs and Nonsense."

There is a good biography of Margaret Wise Brown, that I encourage you to

read.

Leonard Weisgard, (1910-2000), illustrated over 200 books in his career. He illustrated his first book in 1937, called Suki The Siamese Pussy. An adaption of Cinderalla followed. Weisgard and Wise Brown's 1947 book, The Little Island, won a Caldecott for Weisgard. Margaret Wise penned this book under the name Golden MacDonald. I would also encourage you to go to the Leonard Weisgard

website, it is very good.

Also, there is also an article on Weisgard's site, written by Leonard Marcus who interviewed Weisgard about Margaret Wise Brown. Marcus is the author of Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened By The Moon.

The Summer Noisy Book

Written by Margaret Wise Brown

Illustrated by Leonard Weisgard

Harper Collins

I'm doing an extra long post today as I will be out of town for the rest of the week. Hope to be back with another post on Sunday  :>)