Do You Love Someone? was published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1971. The book continues Anglund’s exploration of love as a theme — following Love Is a Special Way of Feeling (1960) and anticipating What Color Is Love? (1966) — but frames it as a series of questions rather than declarations.
The interrogative structure engages the reader directly: “Do you love someone?” is not a statement about what love is but an invitation to recognize love in one’s own experience. Each subsequent page explores a different manifestation of love — sharing, comforting, waiting, forgiving, celebrating — transforming the abstract concept into recognizable daily actions.
Anglund’s illustrations show pairs and small groups of her characteristic figures in moments of connection: a child offering a flower, two figures walking together, a parent lifting a child, a person comforting a crying friend. The round, nearly featureless faces remain universal — the reader can place anyone they love into these images.
The book appeared in 1971, a moment when American culture was both celebrating love (the counterculture’s emphasis on love as social force) and questioning traditional forms of it (the feminist and sexual revolutions). Anglund’s version of love is neither revolutionary nor traditional — it is pre-ideological, located in the simple fact of caring about another person’s wellbeing.
Collecting Do You Love Someone?
First edition (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1971): Small hardcover, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$35
- Very good/very good: $5–$15