Filed Under: "children’s books"

Tempera illustration from Sherwood Walks Home (1966), part of the James Flora Papers in the Kerlan children’s literature collection at the University of Minnesota. A chapter in our forthcoming Flora book will be devoted to images from the collection (the above is not included) and a profile of Dr. Irvin Kerlan, patron saint of tot-lit. We’ve previously posted several drafts and sketches discovered in the Kerlan vaults.

Dummy page, Columbia’s Children’s Album Sets, demo booklet, 1941, part of a series of homemade samples prepared by Flora for the Columbia Records art department. Flora was living in Cincinnati at the time, an Art Academy grad, newly married, barely making ends meet as a freelance commercial illustrator, and sidelining on Little Man Press projects with Robert Lowry. Within a year, Columbia art director Alex Steinweiss offered Flora a job. Within two years, Flora had…

Not the artist’s title, but a descriptive one nevertheless:Detail from The Fabulous Firework Family (1955) first draft, a hand-drawn image from the Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota. Oddly, these two critters had nothing to do with the story, and do not figure in the published edition. (Rumor has it they were dropped from the FFF project after a pay dispute.) They appear to be wearing costumes fashioned from tablecloth scraps.

Detail, Grandpa’s Ghost Stories (Atheneum Books, 1978). Yes, this little mise en scène is from a lighthearted book for young readers. Fun for the whole family! Bone apetit!

Detail, The Day the Cow Sneezed, tempera draft, 1957, courtesy the Dr. Irvin Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota. A gallery of early Flora roughs and overlays from the Kerlan collection will be included in our next Fantagraphics book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora (target publication date September 2009).

“I’m making a list of things not to do!” Charlie was writing on paper. “It will help me stay out of trouble. Whenever I think of something I want to do, I’ll just look and see if it is on this list. If it is, I won’t do it.” “Things Not To Do,” detail, My Friend Charlie (1964, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.)

Detail: undated, untitled, and unidentified commercial illustrationca. late 1960s/early 1970s

“Next [Amelia and Pepito] went to the puppet show, and then they watched the acrobats. Best of all they liked the toy vendor. Pepito finally decided to buy a jumping jack. Amelia bought a rag doll and named it after her best friend Rosita because both of them had red cheeks.” Draft illustration, The Fabulous Firework Family, Flora’s first published children’s book (1955). Image from the James Flora Papers, Archives & Special Collections at the…

Draft overlay, The Day the Cow Sneezed, 1957, found amid the James Flora Papers in the Dr. Irvin J. Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota. Who was Dr. Kerlan?

Illustration, “When the Night Wind Howls,” by W.S. Gilbert, anthologized in A Red Skel(e)ton In Your Closet: Ghost Stories—Gay and Grim, selected and edited by actor/comic Red Skelton. The cover of this 1965 children’s book was illustrated by the great Al Hirschfeld. The dozen-plus interior illustrations are unsigned and uncredited, but they reflect the unmistakable mischief of Mr. Flora.

We’ve finally collected an online gallery of Flora’s 20 children’s books (17 of which he authored). They’re up for viewing at JimFloraArt.com, the Flora family website. While you’re there, the site has had a makeover and includes three pages of original Flora art from the 1990s that’s being offered for sale.

Farm scene draft for The Day the Cow Sneezed (1957), Flora’s second children’s book. The landscape image is one of 80 scans Barbara and I recently acquired from the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota. We plan to reproduce a number of these early work pages in our third book of Floriana, currently being compiled and written. Among the artifacts — donated to the University by the artist — was an eye-popping version of…