Digging around...

I was digging around my bookshelf, looking for a novel this evening and rather than finding a novel, I found one of my favorite picture books of all time--Eloise in Paris, by Kay Thompson.  I have to say, I love Eloise.  I love her energy, her imagination, her personality.   Ooooooh, I absolutely love Eloise.  

I like to think of Eloise as the female counterpart to Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbs comics.  Either can think up every bad idea and not understand why adults are screaming their heads off.  Everyday situations turn into great games of imagination.  All they need is themselves and their respective companion, Hobbs for Calvin, and Weenie the dog and Skipperdee the turtle for Eloise, and they are off in a world of their own.
Amid pouring champagne down mail chutes and what not, Eloise is quite affectionate.  She adores her Nanny, and almost every other person she meets. The freshness of Eloise is not that she is so unlike a child, but that she is the ultimate child;, she knows no fear, she knows no strangers, and her imagination knows no bounds.