An Introduction to the Beloved Books of P.D. Eastman

A Fish Out of Water, by Helen Palmer and P.D. Eastman
This funny story captures a quintessential childhood experience—acquiring a first pet, and learning, through trial and error, how to care for it. Helen Palmer Geisel wrote the story based on her husband Theodor Geisel’s childhood pet experience. Dr. Seuss published his own version in Redbook in 1950, and Palmer reimagined it for this story in 1961. It wouldn’t stick so indelibly in the imaginations of all the generations of kids who encountered it without P.D. Eastman’s vivid drawings, colored in shades of orange, green, black and brown. The pet store owner cautions the boy never to feed his fish “more than a spot” of food. But the boy decides his fish Otto looks hungry, and before you know it, not even a bathtub can accommodate Otto’s fins, the police and the fire department have to get involved, and only the magic of the pet salesman can help.

Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman
This 1960 book is one of Eastman’s enduring classics, based on the phenomenon of baby birds imprinting on whoever or whatever is there when they first hatch. In Eastman’s story, a baby bird hatches while his mom is away, trying to find food. The determined baby bird tumbles out of his nest and embarks on a quest to find his mother, asking everyone he encounters—from a kitten, to a hen, to a steam shovel—if they are his mother before finally finding the way back home to his nest.

Flap Your Wings, by P.D. Eastman
More bird-based shenanigans ensue in this 1969 Beginner Book in which a boy, trying to be helpful, places an egg that he finds on a path up in an empty nest belonging to a bird couple. The path where the boy found the egg abuts a lagoon inhabited by alligators, flamingos, and turtles, so the reader will delight in finding out what animal is inside, and then in watching Mr. and Mrs. Bird puzzle over why this creature eats so much and doesn’t have any wings to flap.

Go, Dog. Go!, by P.D. Eastman
Raise your hand if the first book you remember reading from beginning to end was this 1961 classic by P.D. Eastman. Okay, you can put your hand down now. Come for the dog on the cover in the jaunty motoring goggles and hat, his scarf whipping back in the wind, and stay for the yellow dog’s sick burn of the pink poodle (“Hello!”/”Hello!”/”Do you like my hat?/”I do not.”).

Big Dog…Little Dog, by P.D. Eastman
Just as Eastman loved to draw birds, he also loved to draw dogs in all their myriad variation, as he did in this favorite from 1973, featuring big dog Fred and little dog Ted. They each have different preferences, for vegetables, musical instruments, driving speeds, and winter sports, but they get along so well that after they each pass a sleepless night, they decide to swap beds.

Snow, by P.D. Eastman and Roy McKie
Roy McKie is best known for his collaborations with Dr. Seuss (such as Ten Apples Up on Top) and P.D. Eastman, in the charming book Snow. In words simple enough for the youngest readers, Eastman and McKie capture the joy of a snow day. (“I do like snow./Do you like it in your face?/ Yes! I like it any place.”)