Picture Books: N if for Notable Numeroff (and Notoriety)

Laura Numeroff is the author of books If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Give a Moose a Muffin, etc. They are delightful books and somewhat reminiscent of a British series that came out years and year ago about the interconnectedness of things. 

What threw me the most, however, was discovering that If You Give a Mouse a Cookie was published initially in 1985. I was utterly confounded and felt impossibly old (and age is not something that usually bothers me) since I remembered the books as "new." I then realized that they were republished in 2010--that's when I first encountered them.

There is a lesson here about...fame, really. One of the insights of my A-Z lists is how many books were famous, as in prize winners, as in hugely popular, as in "let's make this into a movie!" but have now disappeared entirely. 

What lasts--what doesn't last. Cynics say what lasts is all about exposure and publishing. Romantics say it is all about the good writing. But there are books that I love that have mostly disappeared from the shelves, much to my consternation, and books that I loathe that are temporarily hugely popular. Of course, if I wait a few years...

In the end, I try to ignore all the voters on Amazon and simply give every book I encounter a try, at least as far as the "jacket" blurb is concerned. 

In the case of Numeroff, the books deserve their republishing 2010 date and their attendant popularity. They are delightful!