cover image Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Retrospective Celebrating 85 Years of Storybook Friends [With Exclusive Collector's Print]

Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Retrospective Celebrating 85 Years of Storybook Friends [With Exclusive Collector's Print]

Patricia Hall. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $17 (48pp) ISBN 978-0-689-84336-5

Johnny Gruelle found an ordinary rag doll in his parents' attic that sparked his creative juices, later becoming the inspiration for many stories to cheer his ailing daughter. In Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Retrospective Celebrating 85 Years of Storybook Friends by Patricia Hall, photographs, full-color illustrations and artifacts such as the tiny cardboard heart sewn inside the earliest dolls chronicle the evolution of Gruelle's enduring characters. A foreword by granddaughter Joni Gruelle Wannamaker opens the volume. (S&S, $17 40p all ages ISBN 0-689-84336-4; Oct.)