Charlie Yup's cast of characters

Hand-drawn two-page spread of figure studies for Flora's third book for young readers, Charlie Yup and His Snip-Snap Boys (1959). The pages, which do not appear in the published edition, were scanned from the Dr. Irvin C. Kerlan children's literature collection at the U of Minnesota.

On the mock title page at right, the author refers to the book as "An Old Fashioned Scissor and Paper Adventure." Although the characters above were drawn in pencil and painted in tempera, a few draft pages (later donated by Flora to Dr. Kerlan), including an early version of the title page, feature hand-cut figures glued to the paper.

The explanatory note atop the left page was intended for Margaret McElderry, the legendary children's book editor who in the mid-1950s encouraged Flora to embark on a secondary career that yielded 17 titles (all edited by McElderry) in 27 years. Charlie Yup is the hardest-to-find of the vintage Flora books, rarely turning up at auction or in the listings of antiquarian booksellers.

McElderry passed away in February at the age of 98.

fiesta time

Black ink on vellum overlay of illustration from Flora's first children's book, The Fabulous Firework Family (1955). One of numerous such artifacts donated by Flora to the Dr. Irvin C. Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Overlays were used to indicate colors for printing. Flora's books were published over a 27-year span, during which printing processes underwent a number of developments. However, all Flora's books pre-date digital printing techniques.

cow chaos

Tempera overlay, The Day the Cow Sneezed, 1957, courtesy the Dr. Irvin Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota Children's Literature Research Center.

no fight in this dog

Postman bites dog! Or at least appears to be attempting to turn the tables. Tempera draft from The Day The Cow Sneezed, courtesy the Dr. Irvin Kerlan children's literature collection. Although the book was published in 1957, archival correspondence between Flora and his Harcourt editor Margaret McElderry indicates the book was being developed as early as 1955, the same year Flora's first children's book, The Fabulous Firework Family, was published.

Sherwood's forest

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.

The Tortoise and the Pissed-Off Hare

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.

exuberance or chaos?

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).