My greatest book selling acknowledgement came when Mr. Alan Beechey, author of one of my most favorite books ever, bestowed a town the name Plumley in his second book starring Oliver Swithin. After selling my page flicking fingers to the bone and making his first book An Embarrassment of Corpses named ‘most collectible’ by a now defunct hypermodern book collecting newsletter, and sending the book into a second printing (yes, I believe I single handedly am responsible, ha ha), Mr. Beechey and I became good friends. I named a ferret after his hero, another ferret provided a photo-shoot at a signing, and I’ve enjoyed Mr. Beechey’s sterling wit ever since.
Rather than write my usual tedious and torturous (for me, I can barely remember what day it is, let alone plots) review of the title, I am reprinting my interview with the fresh faced Beechey, from a decade plus ago. It will provide the plot and hopefully a soupcon of humor.
Vera Stone (later Norman), one of the most prolific reader illustrators of all. From “Bob and Judy Reader”, 1936. Illustrated by Vera Stone Norman.
By Kathie McMillan
I did not set out to collect primers. It began quite by accident when I found Friends from the Children’s Own Readers series, which was illustrated by Marguerite Davis,an illustrator I had never heard of. I was rummaging around in an unlikely flea market here in my own small rural town with the vague notion of finding material suitable to post on flickr.com. I had stumbled upon a community of people who posted vintage images from the early twentieth century, a period that I had always been interested in. I was very smitten by several contributors. When I had collected a few images for use in crafting, I decided that the least I could do was give back by posting a few images of my own. After all, I had spent hours back in those very early days of the World Wide Web searching for fairy images from the early twentieth century; and here they were all grouped together, like a giant picture book on my coffee table! It did not seem right to take and not to give back.
Having explored all the children’s classics I haven’t read, I thought I’d delve into those old kids books long ago buried, most for very good reason. The ‘classics’ of my post title, is tongue in cheek, although there must be some books I have hanging around because of illustrations that are familiar to readers. Raise your hands if you’ve ever heard of : The Cuckoo Clock, The Enchanted Castle, The Cruise of the Little Dipper and other Fairy Tales, Granny’s Wonderful Chair, Princess Goldenhair and the Wonderful Flower, The Sleepy Song Book, Rag Doll Jane, Jackanapes, or the book I give the prize for the most bizarre illustrations
Gnomes from Milo Winter’s hand for Princess Goldenhair
and odd story, Come Unto These Yellow Sands. A few of the titles I began with high hopes, the stories looked intriguing, the illustrations thrilling, the chapters short. I fell asleep reading most–although The Sleepy Song Book can’t really count, obviously. What makes these books so classless? They ramble. Around. A lot. Granny’s Wonderful Chair essentially retells typical fairy tales and Mother Goose, but in a dull, only line drawings, way. I endured Princess Goldenhair through many chapters–something about having to travel great distances for something blah blah and gnomes are involved–so is a witch that hangs weird stuff on her wall. There’s a King Otto (I knew him!), a selfish prince trying to kill a little fawn, and the princess of the golden type hair. Milo Winter illustrated the book so my thoughts were it had to be half decent–why else would he do it?
For reasons that escape me, I’ve at least 3 editions of Gulliver’s Travels. I haven’t read it, have no plans to read it. Just like I have no plans to read Treasure Island, Little Women, or Men, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, Kidnapped, anything by Kipling, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Is the last even a children’s title? These are considered classics. My question–who determines such things? Who designates one book over another as a classic? How did The Swiss Family Robinson turn into a venerable read? Or Heidi? Sales? I doubt it. It had to be some dry critic of eons past who bestowed upon Heidi the crown of ‘classic.’ I’ve tried numerous times to read the book, but Shirley Temple keeps intruding her voice echoing, “Grandfather, Grandfather” over and over. That reminds me of two others I can’t seem to get past the first few chapters–The Little Princess, and The Secret Garden. Shirley’s half sobbing shouts, “Father, Father, don’t you know me? You MUST know me, I’m Sara, I’m your Sara!” as Queen Victoria wheels by makes drab the narrative of the original Princess. Naturally all ends well within the movies. I heard a rumor, however, that in the book, the father is really dead and never returns to poor Sara. No way will I crack open that book to be dashed in the end.
Mystery Writers of America have announced this years nominees for the fantastic Edgar A. Poe Award. I’m familiar with Lehane, Mosley, Atkins, and maybe a few more, but their recent books haven’t been read by me. There was a time, long long ago, when I had read everything nominated, and if I hadn’t, I would … Read more
I have an illustration that I slid off of an eBay auction about a billion years ago, when you could still do that. I loved it so much, I tried to make jewelry, print it, do various and sundry things, but as it goes, dpi is notoriously low on eBay and most of the world of eBay, because it doesn’t take much to render a picture pretty nice looking on your screen. A few other images were purloined that long ago day, but none of them did I remember to jot down title, author, illustrator, or publisher. I only remember I couldn’t afford the book with the super fairy tale picture, and that was that. Since then I’ve been sporadically perusing bookfinder, google, eBay, etsy, trying to locate the original source of the picture. The only clue I had were the artist’s initials and last name. F. S. Cooke. Not an individual I’d heard of, but then I have found through the years that there are far more golden age illustrators than just a few well publicized ones like Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, the Robinson brothers, Jessie Wilcox Smith etc. Children’s book illustrators in the teens, twenties and thirties seem to be numerous–from pictures for school book primers, to endless renditions of Mother Goose, to magazine covers. A magazine cover of an odd thing called Etude, confirmed that a F. S. Cooke did exist, and had created an ingenious piece of artwork for a magazine devoted to high falutin’ music. A little row of houses in the shape of musical instruments in candy colors certainly catches the eye, and his Deco sensibility is exactly what I love. I realized then that I had a couple Etude magazines with front covers with his artwork. Inside the magazine there is nothing–well, nothing that I care about, I suppose music lovers would disagree, ha. So what else did this man, I assumed it was a man because it usually is, what else did he do?
It was one of those finds in the LitCrit section of McKay’s Books that looked like a good cold weather read.Playing Joan is an anthology of interviews with actress who have played the Shavian heroine over the years. The book looked like it was nearly new and had never been read. At $1.50, it was a deal. Then I noticed there was a name written on the title page.
Before I get into that, I need to make an admission. I’m one of those people who loves finding old things in books. By old things, I don’t mean the dessicated corpses of insects or antique Fritos. I’m talking about postcards, invoices, ticket stubs, newspaper clippings and class schedules. They give me a clue about who read this book before it fell into my hands. I’m also a fan of old library book discards. It makes my shelves feel well-traveled.
After spending a nice day and night at a B&B in the Pocanos, we were perusing locations on the iphone where we could delve into more books, cooking pamphlets, postcards, etc like we’d bought for each other at antique malls as Christmas presents and we came across The Archive in Landsdale PA. We were
Necessary books, despite missing the half price sale.
lured by the promise of a huge attic sale of 1 dollar items, fill a bag for 5. Today we motored through Philly and hit the place if not running, at least walking quickly. And stopped in stride when we spotted a sign exclaiming a half price sale for all books–starting tomorrow. I cannot tell you how pissed I was over this new factor. Because we can’t be popping back and forth this distance and I wasn’t about to pay full price for something that would be drastically less expensive in 24 hours. Nonetheless I perused the children’s section, finding an Alice I didn’t own, a book about making dolls and dollhouses, and an obscure title illustrated by Maria Kirk. I did something I never do, I became pushy–I asked “could we pretend it’s tomorrow”? Naturally the answer was in the negative. I walked away.
My greatest book selling acknowledgement came when Mr. Alan Beechey, author of one of my most favorite books ever, bestowed a town the name Plumley in his second book starring Oliver Swithin. After selling my page flicking fingers to the bone and making his first book An Embarrassment of Corpses named ‘most collectible’ by a now defunct hypermodern book collecting newsletter, and sending the book into a second printing (yes, I believe I single handedly am responsible, ha ha), Mr. Beechey and I became good friends. I named a ferret after his hero, another ferret provided a photo-shoot at a signing, and I’ve enjoyed Mr. Beechey’s sterling wit ever since.
