I recently acquired a copy of a 1958 children’s etiquette book called What Do You Say Dear by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Maurice Sendak (who did Where the Wild Things Are, if you didn’t know). And it is GREAT!

It gives really fun situations as examples to children of what polite thing to say:

You are flying around in your airplane and you remember that the Duchess said, “Do drop in for tea sometime.”

So you do, only it makes a rather large hole in her roof.

What do you say dear?

“I’m sorry”

And of course the illustrations are great:

Apparently it was part of a series of similar books about etiquette for kids, which is lovely. I feel like these kinds of lessons in a fun book really stick with kids and it’s a shame they are out of print. But I thought it would be fun to show everyone and then you can all track it down for your own kids if you want!