Abby, First Edition, Jeannette Caines order (1973): With Original Sketch By the Illustrator

First printing of Caines's first picture book, about a Black child who loves hearing the story of her adoption – inscribed by the illustrator Steven Kellogg with an original drawing of a little kid's face.

Ma, where did I come from?
Manhattan.

In the 1960s, many picture books with African American protagonists focused on aspects of order characters' lives that reflected Black culture specifically, in line with the wider Black Arts Movement. The 1970s saw the mainstream development of “books that do not highlight or foreground African American culture or heritage, although they reflect the life experiences of many Black children, particularly middle-class Black children,” explains Rudine Sims Bishop. Caines's work is among the best known in this trend, expanding the depiction of Black characters from major presses away from a monolithic approach and embracing the richness and variety of Black lives. An ex-library copy, as common, but much less so with an original drawing.

First edition. New York: Harper & Row. 7.5'' x 8.25''. Original cream glossy cloth boards. In original unclipped ($4.95) color pictorial dust jacket with (1073) code. Illustrated by Kellogg in black and white throughout. 32 pages. Inscribed by Kellogg on frontispiece: “To my friend ___ [heart] from Steven Kellogg,” along with an ink sketch of a Black child's smiling face. Discreet stamp on lower corner of title page and neat pocket removal on rear fly leaf, thus ex library but an unusually clean one. Jacket with faint stain to head of spine and two closed tears to rear panel, the largest about 2''. Good plus in very good jacket.
Read more: Bishop, Free Within Ourselves: The Development of African American Children's Literature, 126-7.