cbr12bingo AdaptationOh, I just hate hate hate Eloise: A Book for Precocious Grown Ups, Kay Thompson. Please tell me WHY she has been so popular for over 60 years? Why have there been sequels, modern book updates/adaptations, toys and at least two movie adaptations? She is a spoiled brat, with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Rude, inconsiderate and not even remotely funny. I have to say in 1955 you had an odd idea of what people wanted to read. Or was that the point? This is what not to do? However, I never got that. I just saw the glorification of being bad.
And what about that art Hilary Knight? Okay, I understand that it was expensive to do color, therefore, color would not be the focus and the highlight of pink is edgy. However, is that to contrast how not “pink” Eloise it? Okay, I lied, if there is one redeeming quality about this character that is Eloise in her physical appearances she is not stereotypical. She is pudgy and has a hair style that is not in style. Again, is this to make the anti what a girl “should” be? I will be honest. I just don’t get it.
If you do not know the story of Eloise, it is simple: She is a little girl who runs around The Plaza Hotel because she has nothing else to do. She does not go to school (but is tutored at the Plaza by a young man who is not cut out to be a teacher to a child who is like Eloise). She gets underfoot, causes trouble, torments the staff and fools around on the elevator and stairways. She “Frankenstein’s” her dolls. Draws all over her walls and torments her Nanny. See the image I selected for the review.
Maybe it was never meant to be for the child reader; but over the years became so as it was a picture book and had a child in it. I guess I see why children like it: a child never punished and lives the high life. Who wouldn’t want that? I am just not sure why adults want to read about that, even in an era considered more innocent of a time as the mid-to-late 1950’s were.