Buy Two, She's Small
Oct. 2nd, 2005 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyIf you come across a children's book that you think is special, consider buying two: one for her now, and one for her when she grows up. (Or he, as the case may be.) If you're right, and it is special, then the book will be very well worn by the time she's an adult, possibly in tatters.
When I was very young, my mother and I would sit down together and read Hilary Knight's ABC. It was a Big Golden Book, and on every double page spread, there was a title that began something like, "A is for acrobatic alligators in airplanes" The pages would be a picture of what they call "whimsical animals" doing interesting things and objects, many of them beginning with the letter being illustrated. A has aviator jackets and apples and an accordion and an aeroplane named Agnes, and other things which I'm sure I'm not seeing in the picture just at the moment. The pictures are fun and complicated. I was particularly fond of "L is for leaping ladies and leopards" because my name begins with L. Ladies in lavender and lace ride leopards on leashes which leap over fences while lambs look on. One lady has a lily in her hat while another wears leather gloves. There are lilacs in the background. This I how I learned the word lorgnette. My mother pointed it out to me. I had no idea such a thing existed, and the word caught my fancy. I suspect I was the only five year old within a hundred miles who knew what a lorgnette was -- though I'm cheating a little, since this was sparsely populated farming country, and the actual number of five-year olds was rather small.
My copy is in terrible shape. The spine is just about gone, and while the pages are still very bright, as a book it's a very nice set of pages. Ah ha! thought I. I have been buying pop-up books on eBay, lately. (There is a paper engineering artist, Robert Sabuda, that you wouldn't believe! Really, lay your hands on Encyclopaedia Historica or America the Beautiful or Alice in Wonderland...but don't let anyone under the age of 18 near them. They're intricate and delicate...but where was I? Oh, yes, eBay.) So, I went a looking on eBay for a copy of Hilary Knight's ABC. No joy. Several hits, but all of them refer to the book as the one that launched his career. He is much better known for his Eloise books. I'm pretty sure I had several, but none left an impression like the ABC did. I did the next logical thing, I went out on the net. After some moderate amount of searching, I found four. Priced between $95 and $100.
So, if you see a book that seems really special that you want to give to a small child, consider buying two. One for the child, and one for the adult she will become.
When I was very young, my mother and I would sit down together and read Hilary Knight's ABC. It was a Big Golden Book, and on every double page spread, there was a title that began something like, "A is for acrobatic alligators in airplanes" The pages would be a picture of what they call "whimsical animals" doing interesting things and objects, many of them beginning with the letter being illustrated. A has aviator jackets and apples and an accordion and an aeroplane named Agnes, and other things which I'm sure I'm not seeing in the picture just at the moment. The pictures are fun and complicated. I was particularly fond of "L is for leaping ladies and leopards" because my name begins with L. Ladies in lavender and lace ride leopards on leashes which leap over fences while lambs look on. One lady has a lily in her hat while another wears leather gloves. There are lilacs in the background. This I how I learned the word lorgnette. My mother pointed it out to me. I had no idea such a thing existed, and the word caught my fancy. I suspect I was the only five year old within a hundred miles who knew what a lorgnette was -- though I'm cheating a little, since this was sparsely populated farming country, and the actual number of five-year olds was rather small.
My copy is in terrible shape. The spine is just about gone, and while the pages are still very bright, as a book it's a very nice set of pages. Ah ha! thought I. I have been buying pop-up books on eBay, lately. (There is a paper engineering artist, Robert Sabuda, that you wouldn't believe! Really, lay your hands on Encyclopaedia Historica or America the Beautiful or Alice in Wonderland...but don't let anyone under the age of 18 near them. They're intricate and delicate...but where was I? Oh, yes, eBay.) So, I went a looking on eBay for a copy of Hilary Knight's ABC. No joy. Several hits, but all of them refer to the book as the one that launched his career. He is much better known for his Eloise books. I'm pretty sure I had several, but none left an impression like the ABC did. I did the next logical thing, I went out on the net. After some moderate amount of searching, I found four. Priced between $95 and $100.
So, if you see a book that seems really special that you want to give to a small child, consider buying two. One for the child, and one for the adult she will become.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-02 11:28 am (UTC)Also, I have spent the last several years looking for childhood favorites for myself and other people. I am strongly with you here. I think it's a particular problem for people with siblings, because the odds are decent that the parental types didn't hide away all the picture books with Spawn 2.0, saying, "No, no, that one belongs to Spawn 1.0! We will buy you all new picture books!" So even if they survived in decent shape, someone gets the family copy and someone else doesn't.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-02 05:02 pm (UTC)I also have a copy of Sabuda's "Wizard of Oz," which as you know is magnificent.
K.
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Date: 2005-10-04 12:15 am (UTC)Where's Wallace sounds like the sort of thing that Knight would do particularly well.
All the Eloise books appear to have gone to one of my siblilngs. They weren't real special to me, so that's just fine.
The other children's book that I really regret is Little Black Sambo. Perhaps it's a bad thing to expose children to, but I'm pretty sure that I could enjoy it as an adult without ingesting any dangerous stereotypes. My favorite pictures were of the tiger turning himself into butter. I think it might have been another Big Golden Book. Do you remember the Little Big Golden Books? They were about half-size a normal book, very thick, and I thought that made them extra cool.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-04 12:24 am (UTC)I have three sibs. My family didn't have lots of money, so it would never have occurred to them to buy extra copies of children's books, not even to replace the ones that had become extremely tatttered. And then you grow up...if you're close to your sibs, then you try to figure out who loved the book most, which may leave you disappointed, but not too bitter. If you're not close, other things happen. In my case, Mom just went through the contents of the attic and arbitrarily assigned items to me. I think that the rest of it she let my sisters pick over and choose. I was out of touch at the time, several years of not speaking to anyone, so I can only kick so hard, you know? But I do miss the Babar books. They are how I learned to read cursive writing.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-04 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-04 02:13 am (UTC)(I already bought my first book for
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Date: 2005-10-06 01:59 pm (UTC)Becky
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Date: 2005-10-11 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 10:36 am (UTC)Becky
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Date: 2005-10-12 05:07 am (UTC)The things you learn being a mom, huh? I assume I got busted by the light shining through the covers. I always wondered how they knew to come and look, though. The bedroom door was usually closed. I probably made noises, too.
Great work
Date: 2007-10-06 08:20 am (UTC)