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In the first 2, Hosoe uses carefully staged and moody images to illustrate Lifton’s culturally rich stories that explore the Japanese countryside and Tokyo through the eyes of dogs. So, it comes as a surprise to many that he collaborated on 4 children’s books with American author Betty Jean Lifton from 1967-1985. Rather, as a founding member of the influential Vivo photography agency in 1959, Hosoe is best known for his surreal and haunting images of Yukio Mishima, and jarring formal compositions of black and white nudes in Man and Woman / Otoko to Onna (1961).

When one mentions the work of Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe, few think of children’s books. What follows is a highly personal selection of children’s books in the ICP Library collection by Eikoh Hosoe and writer Betty Jean Lifton Dare Wright and Alec, Carmen and Gus Soth. On a shelf, just before the glass enclosed rare book section, sits a nice selection of children’s books by well-known photographers that include Albert Lamorisse’s classic The Red Balloon (1956), Ylla’s animal themed books (1940s-50s), Jill Krementz’s A Very Young Dancer (1976) and photojournalist David Douglas Duncan’s Yo-Yo Kidnapped in Provence (2011).

Turns out, they also indulged in children’s books, especially those with a photography focus. Recently, upon learning of a reprint of Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe and Betty Jean Lifton’s 1967 children’s book Taka-chan and I, I quietly let slip my interest in children’s books to the staff at the International Center of Photography Library. Finally, a few years later, with my own children in tow, I could freely enter the children’s section at my local bookstore without any fear of my true motives being discovered. I guess, deep down, I had internalized that official New York City playground rule that prohibits adults except in the company of children.

The idea was to give the appearance that I was somehow connected to someone else’s unsuspecting child and therefore “vetted” as a children’s book browser.

Before I had kids, I used to position myself close to other people’s children in bookstores as I indulged my picture book habit. As an adult, I have always loved children’s books.