You want a bit of the Disney magic without, you know, the Disney part? ASIFA-Hollywood, The International Animated Film Society's animation art archive added some more scans of children's books by longtime Disney artist Mary Blair.
Looking around for a Small World photo yesterday, I found ASIFA's scans of Baby's House, a long out-of-print Golden Book by--Namewatch alert!--Gelolo McHugh.
ASIFA just archives the art, not the page, so there's no text, and when the kid and I scrolled through this, I kept toggling back and forth between "Look, he--" and "Look, she--." Now that I see, "A Child's First Book About His House," on the cover, Blair's images of the kid with his doll, the kid dressing up in his mom's clothes, the kid with his pink ruffled high chair, have me applauding her secret revolution against media-driven gender coding for little kids.
Blair's stuff is beautiful, and achingly cutesy-sweet. But if it's vintage, that's OK, right? If you want the words, prices on Abebooks range from $15-$350. [Suckah!! It's not even the best-sounding copy.] Meanwhile, there's a Blair-illo Golden Book of Little Verses on eBay right now for $29, shipped.
Media: Mary Blair's Baby's House [animationarchive.org]
Previously: Mary Blair Golden Book Scans
Related: Retrokid photo pool on flickr
Unrelated? Prof. Gelolo McHugh's 1954 study of what Americans need to learn about sex [historymatters.org]
Greg, as always, you rock. Mary Blair's I Can Fly is one of our favorites around here, and one of the very very few books we have with a girl protagonist doing ungendered things. We've been dying to make t-shirts from that book, but haven't found any scans and have been lazy about trying our own.
A book about a boy dressing up women's clothes? Look out, here comes the anti gay penguin brigade. :)
There is a 1950's TV commercial designed by Mary Blair in the style of her "I Can Fly" book posted on my web blog. It is a commercial for Meadow Gold ice cream. Go to:
www.fredcline.blogspot.com