This week’s review is going to take a vintage turn. We love vintage books around here. Last week, while wandering our bookshops with a visiting friend; I happened upon this book and was completely fascinated. A crazy simple story about illness with some vibrantly unique illustrations! I was initially intrigued by the subject as a picture book about mumps is not the usual fare. But when I started flipping through it, the illustrations were just so eye-catching, I had to take it home. Since it is a vintage book, and a bit harder to come by, I’ll be sharing more of it than the usual review. Let’s take a look at Mumps! by Vivian Ostrovsky, illustrated by Rose Ostrovsky, 1976.
Starting off with the front endpapers. I’m going to guess that these illustrations are created in acrylic, given the vibrancy and the thick, opaque texture. I just adore this endpaper with the lined up houses and the bright colors and the snow speckling the scene.
I was immediately curious about the setting of this book. The author and illustrator share a last name, that appears to be Eastern European, so I was surprised to find this book was originally published in Brazil. Sidenote: turns out that the author and illustrator are sisters and while the author Vivian, was born in NYC, she spent most of her childhood in Rio de Janeiro. Not sure where illustrator Rose was born, but can reasonably assume a similar background. I’m not quite sure where to place the style influence of the houses. Maybe Brazilian, though snow in Rio de Janeiro is rare. Definite tangent, but there is a unique style to the illustrations that I find hard to place.
The story begins with snow falling, winter birds chirping, and a child named Booboo waking up complaining about her head. She exclaims that she feels sick. Her mother is distraught by her hot forehead and swollen red cheeks, so she calls for Dr. Krank—while burning the toast, overcooking the eggs, and scolding the younger son to not rock his chair.
Dr. Krank came—in the most balletic way. He checks Booboo’s pulse, chest, and mouth. An immediate diagnosis of mumps is given. Booboo’s mother races to the Drugstore for pills.
For several days, Booboo still has a high fever. “Her forehead was hot but her feet were cold.” The text tells us.
This illustration makes me laugh every time. Poor Booboo in her wrapped-up-head surrounded by nearly 10 cushions. The teapot and cup with lemon and the bottle of pills all look so nice and perfect on the table on her bed. And the cat looking so cheeky in the most hilarious pose possible with its tail just lightly touching Booboo’s foot which is slipping out from the covers. The energy of these illustrations are just such fun!
The story continues with Booboo just sleeping and dreaming, dreaming and sleeping. I love the composition of this illustration with the clock just off-center, reminding us of time passing. Booboo’s brother Alex is cheekily flying planes on the floor next to Booboo’s bed, the father is standing in the doorway with some hot plate of something and you might almost miss the mother sneaking out the door behind him. It’s just her skirt, legs, and shoes. So much happening while Booboo continues to sleep and dream.
We’re told that it is two weeks later when Booboo is much better. What a two weeks that must have been! The text tells us that Booboo is sick of staying in bed. And we see her leaping into the air from her bed wearing a lovely dress and bow in her hair. She really does look better. “Tomorrow is my birthday!” Booboo yells. She demands that they call up all her friends. “So Mrs Fitzleberry did.” Once again, I have to relay the energy of this illustration. Booboo leaping from the bed, her brother holding the door and looking quite nonchalantly at her, the cat sprawled on the floor but with one eye open at the commotion, and the mother leaning back in a rocking chair on the phone looking how just about every mother would after two weeks of an ill child. I know that look. It means she has been so worried about the ill child, but the contrast of a suddenly better and energetic child is almost more than she asked for. I do notice that she is wearing the same pattern dress from the previous two weeks ago illustration, except this time she is barefoot. It has been a long two weeks.
The next day was apparently Sunday, and the big day. Mr and Mrs Fitzleberry are relegated to the kitchen making “hot chocolate, lemon chiffon pies, blueberry cupcakes and other goodies” while all the friends arrive. Booboo is said to be asking “Where’s my present? What did you bring me?” The illustration is interesting. I don’t think Booboo or any of the Fitzleberrys are in the scene. It appears to be all friends, including a random extra cat, while Booboo’s cat is slinking behind some man’s leg. Two of the men are smoking, indoors I should add. And one little girl is dancing towards the sweets table which already has a few items on it. Quite the crowd arriving and impressive that they all found presents on such short notice. Or maybe it is a few days later, the text is not clear. Either way, Booboo is getting the party she demanded apparently.
This next illustration is the most unique and curious of them all in my opinion. The text tells us that Booboo declares she doesn’t feel sick anymore. (A good relief considering all the guests!) Booboo “caught gifts with one hand, unwrapped them with the other, ran upstairs, downstairs, backwards and forwards.” I find the illustration hard to decipher. It looks like Booboo is hanging from the light while a gift floats in the air, as well as her cat and a butterfly! Several people sit around a table with a giant birthday cake, and there are an odd assortment of extra animals that came from who knows where. A strange man sits on one of the staircases holding up a green box that a lady is half coming out of and pointing at Booboo. The father (?) is wearing an apron and chef hat while cutting the cake. And one or two people are in a back room looking quite active.
And where is the mother? I think she is leaning on the railing of the other staircase, looking distraught and attempting to catch a piece of cake before it drops. So odd. The text says “Mother was so happy at Booboo’s recovery she could have danced the mambo if only she weren’t feeling s-o-o-o tired.” We get it Mother. Oh, we get it.
This scene is so perplexing and I cannot stop coming back to it. Partly because it is so strange, and partly because the staircase and layout of the house reminds me so much of a famous Charlie Chaplin short film called One AM. (It’s a funny one and worth the watch.)
The next page: the text speaks for itself on this one:
“Monday came and the house was strangely quiet – except for Booboo tiptoeing into the kitchen all set for school.
Suddenly a shout rocked the house.
Mother and Father and Alex all groaned together, ‘And what present have YOU brought us, Booboo?’ ‘MUMPS!’
“Hello, Dr Krank? This is Booboo Fitzleberry…”
That’s the end of the text. What a hoot! Booboo is in all green, apparently ready to walk out the door. A cat tail is seen going out the door. The array of pots and tins hanging on the kitchen wall are so iconicly 70s.
The last scene is a wordless spread. It is a long room with 3 beds. Booboo is leaping into the room wearing a nurse outfit. Somehow she is wielding a teapot that is pouring 3 cups of tea while flying through the air. There is a dog on the floor. The father lays in the first bed with his head wrapped. The mother is laying on her stomach in the second bed. And Alex is possibly sleep-dreaming a sword fight as his eyes are closed in the third bed but he is flailing about and wielding two different swords. He also has a hat on his head and one sword has knocked over a side table and lamp. The cat that we have seen the most throughout is laying on the floor, also with its head in a mumps wrap! And on the foot of each bed is a pinned up paper with some kind of medical graph on it. On the far left of the room, the door is ajar and a sign is pinned to it that reads “Mumps Room Only those with or having had MUMPS may enter Dr. O. Krank.”
Oh this book! Every time I look at it, I notice another illustrated detail. It is wild. The funny thing is, I wouldn’t say the illustrations are particularly great in skill. But they are so great in so many ways. The colors, the details, the movement. I just love them. And Booboo? What a name!
There you have it. A great, hilarious, memorable 70s picture book originally made in Brazil by two sisters from NYC. I still cannot believe a book like this was made. Mumps is something that is thankfully quite gone from Western culture. All of my references to it would be from a singular Little Bear episode where Little Bear (and then Emily) has the Mumps and is wearing the cloth tied around his head. I looked it up the first time I saw it with our daughter as she had SO many questions (and so did I). I guess Mumps used to be so ubiquitous that books and television episodes about it would have made sense. And having to stay in bed for at least two weeks would have given much time for enjoying books about others in your same plight. How fascinating.
I hope you enjoyed this vintage find as much as I did. I am feeling oddly inspired by the illustrations – we’ll see what comes from that. Thanks for reading along!
Three Books a Night 