The Real Hole 1960 Beverly Cleary ~ First Edition ~ Jimmy and Janet ~ twins

Title: The Real Hole

Author: Beverly Cleary
Illustrator: Mary Stevens

Description: First Edition. Boards in red cloth with black lettering on spine. Internally clean and crisp. Dust jacket has a closed tear in the upper-left corner of the panel (where the tree branch is); area along spine a bit faded; sticker ghost where the ''Morrow Library Edition'' label had been (though this is not ex-library); in an archival mylar sleeve. [32] pages. 7 x 10 inches.

The story Jimmy, a four-year-old who sets out to dig the world's largest hole, and his twin sister Janet, who has some imaginative ideas about how to put the hole to use. But her fanciful ideas only made him angry. Their father solves the problem by showing Jimmy that the hole is just right for a live spruce sapling. Written by Cleary at a time when her own twins were about this age.

Illustrated by Mary Stevens, with page-spreads alternating between color and black-and-white. Stevens also illustrated Cleary's 1961 book, Two Dog Bones, which also features Jimmy and Janet. The twins would later appear in two more books in 1987, The Growing-Up Feet and Janet's Thingamajigs.

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Jacket Condition: Very Good

Publisher: William Morrow and Company
Place: New York
Year: 1960

Keywords: children's, twins, boys, dirt, Jimmy and Janet,