Gaston and Josephine
1949
Illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky (1891–1970)

Gaston and Josephine chronicles the escapades of two French pigs who run away from their homeland and sail to America. The story mimics the life of illustrator Feodor Rojankovsky—a Russian émigré who fled Europe in 1937 to escape increasing political unrest and found a home in the growing children’s literature market in New York. Rojankovsky’s human-like animals bridge the old world fairy-tale style of European illustration and the more realistic perspective of later Little Golden Books.