More Animals

More Animals
Oliver Herford ~ Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901

Though my edition is a '66 Dover reprint, it always amazing me that people were really this funny back then. Sometimes you see old photographs and dress style, and it is easy to assume things about the generations that came before... when they were as snarky and sassy as the rest of us. As such, this ticklish book of humorous poems about animals is a gem. It was the followup to the wonderful Child's Primer of Natural History ~ the full text and pictures of which can be seen here. With an animal nut in my house, these orange and black images please every time.

The Mouse
Consider now the Humble Mouse.
He is an Outlaw in the House.
He makes his Hiding in the Wall.
And lives upon the Crumbs that fall.
And yet, my Child, although we deem
A Mouse a Pest, he stands Supreme,
The Wonder of Creation's Plan,
The only Subject known to Man
Concerning which we're safe to find
No Woman ever Changed her Mind.

The book covers 23 animals and even includes four varying views and poems on the dachshund. (As if it ~ over all the other animals in the kingdom ~ deserves special attention to detail. Ha!)

Ahhhh... takes me back to my youth... those days when I did have a dachshund and Dover books really were just a dollar.