I love this book! Children are captivated by the simple familiar characters so clearly described. The story line is sweet and well written, NOT “dumbed down”. There are lots of words on most pages and it takes more than a minute to read which is so helpful in developing attention span. My three year old was taken in completely! ( Not to mention my seven year old!)

My mother read this story to me when I was little, in the late fifties. She gave the book away to a young mother in need, but I never forgot it. When I became pregnant, I was so happy to find Marshmallow in the local library that I actually (talk about hormones!)took it out to read to my baby in utero. Many borrowings later, I bought the edition offered by Scholastic books, but was unhappy with the tinting of the illustrations. That copy went to the second-hand store when my daughter’s father helped her clean her room last year. Now I am determined to find a hard-cover copy FOR MYSELF. I will share it with the kids in Sunday school, though. I think the message is truly appropriate for our times.

“Marshmallow” is a classic. It was written in 1942 and it’s still one of the best picture books ever put out for the first reader. I was absolutely enchanted by it when I read it a few years ago. Anyone who’s ever had a cat and a rabbit in the same house will recognize the annoyed attitude of the feline as the bunny INSISTS on being the cat’s friend (or the cat’s baby!). I got it for one of my nieces; she loved it. The illustrations are simple and beautifully drawn, so they never became “dated”, the way some old picture books did. If you have a little one anywhere from 4 to 6, this picture book is ideal for them, to read themselves or to be read to.

Last year when my daughter was in kindergarten, she would check out an old, worn out copy of this book over and over again from the library at her school. I was surprised that with all the new, fancy, colorful books availabe, she kept going back to this one. Now she is in first grade and lo and behold, she’s bringing it home again. On a whim I thought I’d check Amazon and see if it’s available to buy, not thinking it would still be in print. I am so excited that it’s for sale! I bought it and can’t wait to present my little girl with her very own NEW Marshmallow book!

I have been looking for this book since my children were in elementary school, but it has been out of print. It is a perfect elementary “picture book”, that makes you and the child cuddle and read it over and over.

In an interview my mother explained, “Every word about Oliver and Marshmallow is true, even to the drawing of them wrapped up in each other’s paws. I know people find this hard to believe, but the bunny was so little and was so convinced that Oliver was his mother, what else could Oliver do? Anyway, we disproved the ancient belief that felines are always at sword’s points with rodents, because this cat and bunny were the best of friends.”

Adult readers who had MARSHMALLOW as children may be pleased to know that Smithmark used my mother’s original cover artwork (which survived for 56 years, 30 in my closets) for this reissue. And my thanks to the many warm emails of those same grownups anxiously awaiting this new publication of MARSHMALLOW. Felicia Noelle Trujillo

My daughters have nearly worn out the school library’s only copy over the years, and finding it out of print, we had actually given up hope of ever finding our own copy. To hear that it is now being republished is like rediscovering a joyful, precious memento from your childhood once again.. the illustrations bring the text to life. We have a number of our own “Marshmallows” now, and I am convinced that part of my daughters’ attachment to their pets is attributable to the love and compassion with which Clare Turlay Newberry wrote about them. It has certainly been our family’s favorite book over the years, and continues to bring smiles, no matter how old we think we are.