I grew up on a healthy dose of Golden Books. As the third of four children, I inherited at least 200 Golden Books from my sister and brother— it would seem my mother bought a Golden Book to occupy the attention of my older siblings on each supermarket visit. I loved my Golden Book collection and remember organizing the books according to my favorite illustrators—Tibor Gergely, Gustaf Tenggren, Mary Blair, JP Miller, Garth Williams, Richard Scarry—but my absolute favorite illustrators were Eloise Wilkin and Sharon Kane. As a lover of dolls, reading their books as a kid was like watching my daughter pore over today’s American Girl Doll catalogs. Their books exuded warmth and created a fantasy of sorts; I wanted to live inside the cozy dollhouse worlds they rendered, with the rosy-cheeked, sweater-clad children in bucolic 1940s and 50s suburban homes, complete with hooked rugs and built in china cupboards. The book I treasured most was Sharon Kane’s Little Mommy. I kept my copy all these years and when my children were around four and five years old, I shared the book with them. They loved it too—even my boys.

About four years ago, I thought it was high time to try to purchase a piece of art from this beloved book that was now love-worn after two generations of readers. An internet search turned up Sharon Kane’s website and I was excited to get in touch with her. Much to my dismay, I learned that most of the art from Little Mommy was never returned from Golden Books—that was a different era in publishing and practices were not as they are today. While this news was disappointing, I was delighted to discover that Sharon was still working; most recently she has been creating portraits of children. I jumped at the chance to have her paint my daughter’s portrait. It was a wonderful experience to be in touch with an author/artist whose work had inspired me as a child and most likely had something to do with my pursuing a career in publishing books for children. I told Sharon to let me know if she wanted to write and illustrate her own books again. Soon after our exchange over the portrait of my daughter (which is beautiful) I received a book dummy for Kitty & Me. This was a special full-circle moment for me—to have the opportunity to work with an artist who was one of my earliest influences. The really wonderful news is that the artwork for Kitty & Me just delivered and the book is slated for our fall 14 list. The image here alongside Little Mommy is from Kitty & Me. As you can see, Sharon’s art is still as charming as it was when Little Mommy was published back in the 1960s. It’s so great to have Sharon back making books for kids.