ELOISE by Kay Thompson

Kay Thompson created the six year old character of Eloise during a night club act where she was performing.  She teamed up with the illustrator, Hilary Knight, and together they created the fabulous children's book, Eloise.  In 2003, a movie was created based on the Eloise character.

Eloise has remained on the Top 100 Picture Books list for School Library Journal over the years.  In 2012, it moved down to #76 on the list.  

The book is about a very mischievous, prankster girl, Eloise, with absent parents being raised by a nanny and other servants at the Plaza hotel.  While reading the book, you can 'hear' the six year old talking as you go through each page.  It is written just as a six year old would talk. While the absence of punctuation bothered me a bit, it added to the fun of the book and made it appear as though the six-year old was actually writing this story down.  

The plot, while unbelievable and exaggerated, is humorous and can be enjoyed by children and adults.  The setting, the Plaza Hotel, may be alien to many children, however it creates a fantasy world for children that have never experienced a fancy setting.  Children that do not often see their parents can make a connection to Eloise, as her parents are absent throughout the book.  

The illustrations are essential to the story and add small, yet important, details that the words alone do not allow the reader to perceive.  The character, Eloise, is shown as a messy-haired, six-year old girl who has a vivid imagination.  The illustrations are not-modern, but keep with the tone of the book, being mostly black and white, with only red being shown in the colors.  Even Eloise's underpants are pink, which children will find delightfully hilarious. Eloise has a red bow, the Plaza's carpet runners are red, and the servants bow ties are often red.  The illustrator, Hillary Knight, uses her illustrations to demonstrate Eloise's many imaginations and pretend play.  When Eloise is pretending, the illustrations are outlined with dotted lines and not colored in, depicting a distinct difference in what is real and what is in Eloise's imagination. In the illustration of Eloise's room, Knight uses great detail to show how messy Eloise truly is, including a calendar on the wall depicting which days the room was messy or clean.  Every day on the calendar is marked messy.  

"While the kids are giggling over her antics and the hilarious illustrations, parents will like the sly parody of the adult world."

- Common Sense Media Review

Thompson, Kay. 1955. Eloise. Illustrated by Hillary Knight. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. ISBN 067122350X

Author information retrieved from http://www.eloisewebsite.com/kay_thompson.ht