Elizabite: The Story of the Book - Part III

McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

            In June 1941, Hans Rey was finishing the illustrations for Margaret Wise Brown’s The Polite Penguin, his first contract for Harper and Brothers. Anxious to retain Rey on her list, Ursula Nordstrom, director of the Department of Books for Boys and Girls at Harper, proposed the following in a letter dated July 16, 1941: “Now about the picture book to be written and illustrated by you. I am so enthusiastic over your work that we are eager to give you a contract even though the story for us is yet unwritten.”

            Rey responded the next day: “I am giving it some thought

McCain Library and Archives
University of Southern Mississippi

and some of my night's sleep, and I hope I can put something before you soon." Significant changes were made to the 1938 version of The Carnivorous Plant to transform it into the manuscript Rey showed Nordstrom on July 29, 1941. First, text was added. The British Bobbies were redrawn as New York City policemen, and the main character was given a name, although readers had to wait until the very last page to discover it was "Elizabite," which was printed on the sign affixed to her zoo enclosure. 

            “Elizabite: The Story of the Book” is based on “From Elizabite to Spotty: The Reys, Race and Consciousness Raising,” an essay published in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 35, #4, Winter 2012.