Morning Is a Little Child was published by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. The book is a collection of original poems by Anglund, accompanied by her illustrations — a departure from her typical prose meditations toward more formally structured verse.
The poems are brief and musical, written for reading aloud to young children. Their subjects are the everyday experiences of childhood: waking up, playing outside, observing animals, watching the weather, going to sleep. The language is simple but not condescending — Anglund achieves genuine lyric effects through rhythm, repetition, and precise sensory detail.
The title poem personifies morning as a child — fresh, curious, full of possibility — and this strategy of personification runs through the collection. Seasons, times of day, and natural phenomena are given personality and agency, transforming the natural world into a community of companions for the child reader.
Anglund’s illustrations complement the poems without simply illustrating them: they extend the mood, add visual details that the text leaves implicit, and create a consistent aesthetic world of soft colors, rounded forms, and gentle gestures. The book functions both as a read-aloud poetry collection for young children and as a gift book for adults who appreciate its aesthetic.
Collecting Morning Is a Little Child
First edition (Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1969): Hardcover, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$40
- Very good/very good: $5–$15