Rain Makes Applesauce

New York: Holiday House, 1964. Presumed First Edition/First Printing. Hardcover. Good/poor (in plastic sleeve). Marvin Bileck. Unpaginated (34 pages?). Inscription on front end paper signed by Julian Scheer. Color illustrations. DJ worn, torn, soiled, chipped, and missing spine section. Some discoloration at endpapers. "Rain Makes Applesauce" Words by Julian Scheer, Picture by Marvin Bileck The stars are made of lemon juice... ...and rain makes applesauce. Elbows grow on a tickle tree... ...and rain makes applesauce. Oh, you're just talking silly talk. This is a book of silly talk. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. And yet it is an extraordinary creation, in which author and artist speak to children in a very special way. The fanciful nonsense and marvelously intricate pictures are full of sly subtleties and happy surprises for both eye and ear. It is a book of absurd delights, of tiny, fey graphic details, of captivating scenes and lyrical phrases that stretch the imagination. Children will return to it again and again for new meanings, new images, new responses. Julian W. Scheer, whose deft handling of public relations helped foster America's fascination with the space program from the early orbits of Earth until the first Moon landing, was also an accomplished author.Working closely with James E. Webb, the second head of the agency but the most influential of NASA administrators, he built an information program that embraced the news media and fed their appetite for news about space. The result was a steady flow of generally positive public attention during the risky and expensive drive to land a man on the Moon, making public heroes of the early astronauts. After the lunar landing, Mr. Scheer was awarded NASA's highest recognition, the Distinguished Service Medal.Julian Weisel Scheer was born in 1926 in Richmond, Va. As a teenager, he was an apprentice for local news organizations; he joined the merchant marine at the age of 17 and later served in the Naval Reserve.He was a trustee of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and wrote five books, three for adults and two for children, including a well-received children's book, ''Rain Makes Applesauce'' (Holiday House, 1964).Marvin Bileck (Born March 2, 1920, Died April 29, 2005). He was a life-long educator. His career as a teacher began in 1960 at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts). In 1967 he began teaching in New York at Queens College, from where he retired Professor Emeritus in 1992.Marvin Bileck graduated in 1946 from Cooper Union School of Art and went on to further study at the London School of Architecture and Columbia University. He received a Fulbright Fellowship to France where he continued studies in the Cabinet des Dessins at the Louvre Museum while working in the printing ateliers of Lacouriere and Desjouibert.Bileck's prints and drawings are widely represented in galleries and museums including Landmark Gallery (New York City), Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), Maine Center for Contemporary Art (Rockport) and Islesford Artists Gallery (Maine). In addition, his work has been exhibited at museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Chicago Art Institute of Chicago, and Queens Museum. In addition to his work as an artist, Bileck enjoyed a distinguished career as a designer and illustrator of children's books. His exquisitely detailed drawings for Rain Makes Applesauce have helped to make it a children's classic and a Caldecott Honors book.