Sendak's Butterflies

To Maurice Sendak

September 28, 1959.

Dear Maurice:

I may have to leave, to go to the dentist, God help me, before you come by with the Krauss-Sendak drawings.*


So if I don't see you this is a hasty note to say we all (including Elsa [sic]) want to make the Minarik title Little Bear's Friend.** Hope this doesn't throw off any design you have worked out for the jacket. I really think it is more colorful and warmer than Little Bear and Emily and will help sell the book and that will be nice for everyone concerned. Yes?

Ruth is coming in with "stuff lightly pasted down" this afternoon. (This could mean me, come to think of it.........)
Ever thine,
[Ursula Nordstrom]

*Open House for Butterflies, by Ruth Krauss, ill. by Sendak (1960).


**Little Bear's Friend by Else Holmelund Minarik, ill. by Sendak (1960).

-from Dear Genius: the Letters of Ursula Nordstom collected and edited by Leonard S. Marcus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998) p. 121-22.