Children & Pets

Winner of the American Book Award

When Alice Rumphius was a little girl, she vowed that when she grew up she would travel the world and live in a house by the sea. “There is a third thing you must do,” her grandfather told her. “You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”
Miss Rumphius fulfilled her dreams. She saw the world and returned home to live by the sea in Maine. But she wondered what she could do that would make the world more beautiful.
For the thirtieth anniversary of two-time Caldecott-winner Barbara Cooney’s best-loved book, Viking has reoriginated the illustrations from the exquisite original art, which can be seen in the Bowdoin College  Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine.

Miss Rumphius is written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney, Though most of Cooney’s life was spent “away” but spent her final years  in the place she loved best, Maine. She was twice awarded the Caldecott Medal. Cooney’s Maine books, which include Miss Rumphius, Hattie and the Wild Waves, and Island Boy are, she said, the closest to an autobiography that she would ever write. She illustrated over one hundred books in her distinguished career.