The Valley of Color Days by Helen B. Sandwell. Illustrated by Alice Bolam Preston. Published by Little, Brown, and Co., 1924.

Alice Bolam Preston, 1888–1958, was an American artist and children's book illustrator. Preston was an illustrator, designer, and craftsperson who lived in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. She was especially known for children's book illustration and worked primarily for Houghton Mifflin in the teens and twenties—at the end of what is often considered the “golden age” of illustration. Among the books she illustrated were Adventures in Mother Goose Land (1920), Peggy in Her Blue Frock (1921), The Little Man with One Shoe (1921), Humpty Dumpty House (1921), The Valley of Color Days (1924), and Whistle for Good Fortune (1940). Her work reflects a strong interest in fairies and resonates with some of the premier British artists working at the time, including Henry Ford, Harry Clarke, Charles Robinson, and Jessie Marion King; closer to home, she worked in the orbit of Jessie Willcox Smith. Preston also did occasional magazine cover illustration for House Beautiful between 1925 and 1958.