SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Fusenews
  • Reviews
  • Librarian Previews
  • Best Books
    • Top 100
    • Best Books of 2022
    • Best Books of 2021
    • Best Books of 2020
    • Best Books of 2019
    • Best Books of 2018
    • Best Books of 2017
    • Best Books of 2016
    • Best Books of 2015
    • Best Books of 2014
    • Best Books of 2013
  • Fuse 8 n’ Kate
  • Videos
  • Press Release Fun

May 21, 2012 by Betsy Bird

Top 100 Picture Books #76: Eloise by Kay Thompson

May 21, 2012 by Betsy Bird   3 comments

#76 Eloise by Kay Thompson (1955)
26 points

Oh my!  This I did not expect.  What can we extrapolate from a book that previously held the coveted #37 slot on our last Picture Book Poll, falling incredibly to a lowly #76?  It’s particularly strange when you consider the sheer plethora of Eloise marketing going on these days.  From easy books to television shows and movies she’s never been more ubiquitous.  Yet amongst the gatekeepers?  Maybe her grip is slipping.

I didn’t know Eloise as a child.  And when I say, “I didn’t know” I’m not talking about one of those cases where you are vaguely aware of a character, like Peter from The Snowy Day or Max from Where the Wild Things Are.  No, honestly, I’d never laid eyes on the character.  I was from Michigan!  We don’t have plazas in Kalamazoo.  There may be high tea, but heaven only knows where.  Somehow I managed to continue this ignorance well into adulthood, until one day I ran across a baffling New Yorker cartoon.  It was by Roz Chast and was called “Eloise Revisited”. If I’m not too much mistaken she’s sitting on the bed saying, “I am Eloise.  I am forty-six.  I still live in the Plaza.  I don’t give a damn who owns it.”  This came in 1995 during the height of the Plaza sale that was going on.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Baffling to the uninitiated, I can tell you.  Of course, once I became a children’s librarian I met Eloise right and proper.  The plot, I have since learned, is basically just a six-year-old girl living in the fancy dancy Plaza, wreaking havoc and being sweet.  Parents are absent and she is attended to by her nanny.

I’ve heard many an . . . interesting story about Eloise’s creator.  Say what you will about her, though, she knew how to take a picture.  Here she is posing the portrait of Eloise that hangs in the Plaza.

Thompson actually did write at least one children’s book other than Eloise.  It was called (deep breath) Kay Thompson’s Miss Pooky Peckinpaugh and Her Secret Private Boyfriends Complete with Telephone Numbers.  With a name like that, I’m actually a little disappointed that I’ve never seen it before.

Ursula Nordstrom had hoped to publish Eloise Takes a Bawth with Thompson but it never happened in her lifetime.  Thompson’s either, come to think of it.  That Hilary Knight has some kind of longevity.  In Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom there is a rather fun letter to Louise Fitzhugh from October 15, 1969 worth telling a bit of here.  Ursula writes to Louise, “I am told that another librarian turned to Kay Thompson (we are doing the next Eloise if it ever gets finished) and burbled, ‘Oh I love your Harriet books.’ Silence and the Titanic could crash and sink in seconds.  The librarian went on: ‘Your wonderful books about Harriet and the Plaza’.”  Marvelous.

Naturally Eloise has her own website.  Her own television shows, movies, and creepy 1950s merchandise as well.  She is more iconic now than ever.  I still want to read the book where she goes to Moscow too . . .


Filed under: Best Books, Top 100 Picture Books Poll

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
EloiseKay Thompson

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

August 2012

The Top 100 Lists Are Nigh. Nigh, I Say! Nigh!

by Betsy Bird

August 2012

Fusenews: Look for the Girl with the Caterpillar Tattoo and She's Gone

by Betsy Bird

July 2012

Top 100 Picture Books Poll Results

by Betsy Bird

July 2012

Top 100 Picture Books #1: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

by Betsy Bird

June 2012

Top 100 Picture Books #2: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

by Betsy Bird

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

One Star Review, Guess Who? (#184)

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Review of the Day – Trees: Haiku from Roots to Leaves by Sally M. Walker, ill. Angela McKay

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Review: Nat the Cat Takes a Nap

by Esther Keller

Heavy Medal

March suggestions: early Mock Newbery possibilities

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Here Be Monsters: On Horror, Catharsis, and Uneasy Truces with Yourself, a guest post by author Rebecca Mahoney

by Karen Jensen, MLS

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Newbery Medalist Amina Luqman-Dawson visits The Yarn

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

SLJ’s 2022 Best Books Are Live. Download a PDF of the Complete List.

Best Young Adult Books 2021 | SLJ Best Books

Best Chapter Books 2020 | SLJ Best Books

SLJ Announces Best Books 2020

SLJ Book Reviews Editors’ Favorite Quotes from 2020 Best Books

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Julie Hedlund says

    May 21, 2012 at 8:54 pm

    I’m also from Michigan (Gaylord), and Eloise was one of the few books I owned as a child. It was precisely because there was nothing remotely like the Plaza in Michigan that I loved it so much. The book might as well have been set in a foreign country. 🙂

    So loving this poll, btw!

  2. Sam Irvin says

    May 22, 2012 at 12:38 am

    Likewise, I am a little baffled why ELOISE has fallen on the charts — but this may be due to the fact that the publisher, Simon & Schuster, has not been actively promoting the original books or the recent spinoffs. Every few years, they come back with of blitz of reissues, so I guess we’re in one of those “in-between” lulls.

    Meanwhile, if you want to know the whole true story behind Kay Thompson and the creation of Eloise, don’t miss my book KAY THOMPSON: FROM FUNNY FACE TO ELOISE (Simon & Schuster). For more information, visit: http://www.KayThompsonWebsite.com

    On the home page, you will find a recent drawing of me reading my Kay Thompson book to Eloise, drawn by the incomparable Hilary Knight for VANITY FAIR.

    ELOISE FAN ALERT: Hilary Knight and I will be appearing together Saturday, August 11, 2012, at AUTHORS NIGHT 2012, founded by Alec Baldwin, at the East Hampton Library in East Hampton, New York. Hilary will be signing Eloise books and I will be signing my Kay Thompson book. Don’t miss it!

Trackbacks

  1. Kay Thompson’s Eloise | dream's cbooks says:
    September 11, 2013 at 9:39 pm

    […] Elizabeth. 2012. Top 100 Picture Books #77 Eloise by Kay Thompson. School Library Journal. https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/05/21/top-100-picture-books-76-eloise-by-kay-thompson/. Accessed September11, […]

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

  • External Links

    • A Fuse #8 Production Reviews
  • Follow This Blog

    Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    Primary Sidebar

    • News & Features
    • Reviews+
    • Technology
    • School Libraries
    • Public Libraries
    • Age Level
    • Ideas
    • Blogs
    • Classroom
    • Diversity
    • People
    • Job Zone

    Reviews+

    • Book Lists
    • Best Books
    • Media
    • Reference
    • Series Made Simple
    • Tech
    • Review for SLJ
    • Review Submissions

    SLJ Blog Network

    • 100 Scope Notes
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal
    • Neverending Search
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • The Yarn

    Resources

    • 2022 Youth Media Awards
    • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
    • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
    • Summer Reading 2021
    • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
    • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
    • Summer Programming Survey
    • Research
    • White Papers / Case Studies
    • School Librarian of the Year
    • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
    • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

    Events & PD

    • In-Person Events
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Events
    • Webcasts
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Media Inquiries
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Content Submissions
    • Data Privacy
    • Terms of Use
    • Terms of Sale
    • FAQs
    • Diversity Policy
    • Careers at MSI


    COPYRIGHT © 2023


    COPYRIGHT © 2023