Luckily for Tasha- and us- her second round with the book met with success, with Eunice Blake of Oxford University Press accepting the book. She felt that they were unable to understand the diminutive book she envisioned, so she sewed the booklet together with calico cloth, and thus her series of ‘calico books’ came to be. According to Tasha, the manuscript was rejected by every publishing house in New York City. In a very Beatrix Potter-like twist, Tasha decided that the book initially made as a private project for a child might be enjoyed by a larger audience and sought to publish it. (if you’d like to go down an interesting rabbit hole, that house was put on the market a few years back and you can see photos from the listing on THIS blog) McCready’s 5 year old niece Sylvie Ann came to visit from Scotland, and Tasha came up with the idea of giving her a unique present- she would write a storybook about a little girl called Sylvie Ann visiting Connecticut. McCready, Jr and together they began their new life living in her mother’s old home in Redding, CT. The story of how Pumpkin Moonshine came to be is in itself and interesting story. As Tasha continued to work, publishing books and collections of Christmas cards, she came more into her own style and in less than a decade would have made enough money to purchase her own farm in New Hampshire. I am impressed that all the illustrations are printed in color, as that wasn’t always the case in picture books of the time.

Published in 1938, the illustrations are stylistically like a lot of storybooks of that era, and they are quite small. The artwork is done in pen and ink with a bit of a watercolor wash. What I find so interesting about this little book is that while the theme and setting of the story is iconic Tasha Tudor, the illustrations are not what we think of as “Tasha Tudor” at first glance.

Pumpkin moonshine by tasha tudor