Jean Nathan is the author of The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll, a biography of the children’s author Dare Wright. Here, Nathan names her first- and still best-loved books.
Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt (Golden Books, $10). The premise is a bit weak—“Here are Paul and Judy. They can do lots of things.…” But Dorothy Kunhardt’s brilliance was in not shutting the littlest ones out of the game. This interactive book performs a noble task: providing a baby with his or her first taste of literary life—even if it is licking the pages.
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