An Eskimo Birthday, Illustrator Glo Coalson

Today's vintage children's book is An Eskimo Birthday, written by Tom D. Robinson and illustrated by Glo Coalson and is from 1975.

Glo Coalson is an artist, illustrator and a sculptor from Abilene, Texas. After graduating from college, Coalson moved to Alaska where her brother and his wife lived. Her sketches from her time there provided the inspiration and material to illustrate children's books with Eskimo characters.

I did a post on another book by Glo (love that name) awhile back, and unfortunately my scanner went out after just three pages. I need to find that book and repost it, as there is a limited number of images and info on the web

about Glo Coalson and her work. 

In my previous post the link for her website is no longer active as she seems to have moved on to other work.  Click here for a short paragraph about Glo Coalson and her current work.

I'm not sure what medium Coalson used for this book (charcoal and ink?),

but I like her style and obvious skills.

An Eskimo Birthday

By Tom D. Robinson

Pictures by Glo Coalson

Dodd, Mead, 1975

Fish Head, Ilustrated by Marc Simont

Today's vintage children's book, Fish Head, has been on my list of books to find for some time. I was pleased to come upon it at a recent estate sale. At this particular sale, there were books and bookshelves all over the home and even a small library. There was a nice selection and I happily bought many books for only $2 each.

I always find it touching at estate sales to come upon children's books that the home owners had saved for so many years.

I do believe this is my first post on Simont, who is a very well known illustrator. After looking at his bio, I found he was the illustrator for the numerous Nate the Great books, which my son enjoyed when he was young. Besides knowing his way around a line, Marc Simont illustrated close to 100 children's books, in addition to being a cartoonist. In 1956 he won a Caldecott for A Tree is Nice, written by Janice May Udry. Simont was also the recipient of two Caldecott Honors for The Happy Day (Ruth Krauss) and The Stray Dog (Reiko Sassa). 

To read about Marc Simont, click here, to see images of other work by Simont, click here.

Fish Head

By Jean Fritz

Illustrated by Marc Simont

Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc.

1972 Edition