EENY MEENY MINEY MOLE Illustrated by Kathryn Brown Harcourt Brace 1992 ISBN # 0-15-225350-5 hardcover ISBN # 0-15-201007-6 Voyager paperback

Eeny and her sisters are moles, but the older two are conservative and nervous. Eeny is a young adventurer. Someone once described this book as "Beatrix Potter with a kink!" I'd tried writing this story in rhyme: "Once at the bottom of a deep, dark hole lived Eeny and Meeny and little Miney Mole." But it just didn't work. Then I wrote the first page and a half in prose, carrying it around with me for several years hoping inspiration would strike. It didn't. One day visiting the Harcourt Brace offices in San Diego, I commandeered a free office and suddenly the rest of the story came out in a rush. I showed it to one of the young editors, Allyn Johnston, who bought it on the spot. In her excitement, she leaped up from the desk and ripped a piece out of her leg. So she bought the book while bleeding profusely. I never sold another book in quite that way. I discovered illustrator Kathy Brown when she came to a monthly workshop I ran and when I became an editor, I published her first book. EENY won a Bookbuilders West Honor Award, and was published in Japanese. Kathy and I are working on a sequel, EENY UP ABOVE.

       Out of print.

What the reviewers say: “Jane Yolen is a master at creating stories which are both entertaining and thought-provoking. She has certainly done this in this lovely picture book in which a little mole ignores the fears of her older sisters. Instead she chooses to take matters into her own paws, overcoming her own fears and seeking the truth. What she finds is more splendid than she imagined and she returns home richer and wiser from her experiences. Yolen gives her readers a sense of how wonderful and beautiful our "Up Above" world is when see through the eyes of one who has never seen it.”-- Through the Looking Glass Book Review

"The pictures have drama and homey detail, with rich characterization and a mythical sweep."--Booklist

"In its celebration of the duality and complexity of nature, Yolen's inventive text abounds with wisdom and humor--her imagery and linguistic skills lift the tale far above the ordinary."--Publishers Weekly starred review

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