Childish Pursuits

While helping a little girl find princess books this morning I happened across what used to be one of my favorite books at her age – Hillary Knight’s Cinderella. I haven’t seen or thought of this book for ages, but one look and I remembered how I used to pore over the drawings.

This lead me on a quest to find some more forgotten books that I used to love as a child. I’ve collected/kept many of my favorites (Maurice Sendak, Mercer Meyer), but there are a few I’d love to find again, including…

I loved the kitten faces in this version of Three Little Kittens. I know the library has this as it crossed my desk a few weeks ago by accident.

ATTENTION! READERS’ CHALLENGE! There’s a book I’d love to identify and/or find – I remember it was about a princess (or just a girl?) and a unicorn, and that the borders of the book were elaborately decorated with jewels and fancy looking bits and the pictures were akin to tapestries.

Yet another book I loved as a child was Rootie Kazootie: Baseball Star. It was a Golden Book, and I (almost) read it to pieces. It was my mother’s before it was mine. Rootie Kazootie had a friend named Polka Dottie, and their arch nemesis was named Poison Zanzaboo, which has to be the best villain name, ever.

Looking around for Golden Books led me to the following, which I find very entertaining:
My Little Golden Book About Zogg

This is especially great because Patricia M. Scarry (the illustrator of the original “My Little Golden Book About God”) also illustrated my favorite book when I was really little, called My Teddy Bear. She has such a great, drippy sweet illustration style.