Suzuki Beane.

SCOPPETTONE, Sandra; Drawings by Louise Fitzhugh.

$2,500.00

Item Number: 144579

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1961.

First edition of this classic children’s book. Quarto, original illustrated boards, illustrated endpapers, drawings by Louise Fitzhugh. Lengthily signed by the author on the title page “My name is Suzuki Beane Sandra Scoppettone.” Near fine in a very good dust jacket. First editions are rare, signed examples exceptionally so.

The story, sometimes described as "the Eloise of Greenwich Village", is told from the viewpoint of a young child of Bleecker Street beatniks. Little Suzuki encounters a different lifestyle when she becomes friends with Henry Martin, a rich kid from the Upper East Side. The two learn about life, love and how to deal with prejudice in the early 1960s. The pair finally decide to "run away from home and start a village where a Square can be a square and a swinging cat can swing in peace."