I haven’t been able to read for a couple of months. I’m so close to a Cannonball, but I’m not sure I’ll make it with how scattered my concentration is. So I decided to pick a short, effervescent book: Kay Thompson’s Eloise.
Eloise is a mischievous, imaginative, busy little girl who lives in NYC’s Plaza Hotel with her nanny. There is no mention of her father, but her mother is rich and constantly traveling, leaving Eloise to run charmingly wild. The book is Eloise describing her busy busy busy daily schedule, as she puts it. Some of her activities are naughty, some undoubtedly maddening to the others at the hotel. There’s a funny description of her riding the elevator to different floors in the course of one trip, and the illustration that goes with it shows benign riders and what appears to be a very weary elevator operator.
Speaking of illustrations, Hilary Knight does all the drawings for the book, and they perfectly capture Eloise’s spirit and her adventures around the hotel. I had a book he illustrated when I was a child, and that was actually the book I tried to track down on Kindle, but I couldn’t remember the title. When I came across Eloise, it seemed the perfect substitute.
This is a short review, as I can’t seem to write much these days either, but I’m hoping Eloise has helped me break through my malaise so I can read the three more books I need to Cannonball. I did decide that if I didn’t cross the finish line, that would be okay. Sometimes we fall short, but I’ve had a wonderful time reading this year, which is the point. And thanks to this website, I’ve read almost 100 books over the last two years. That’s a miracle, given how far I had wandered from my beloved books over the years. And during my reading break I still read everyone’s terrific reviews, so I was still engaged. I hope I can now happily revisit my TBR pile and sally forth.