For those of you who just arrived via the fabulous boingboing, basically, I write a vintage kids' book review every day. On Mondays, I give a vintage kids' book away. And I used to sell all kinds of vintage children's books on Etsy but now only sell books printed between '85 and '89 because of this insane law that was just passed making children's books published before 1985 illegal. Go figure.That said, I got an e-mail from one reader asking for a top ten favorite list. This is by no means definitive, but these were the out-of-print titles that came to mind. I thought I'd share them here for anyone else interested... in no particular order.
Grandpa's Farm ~ James Flora (any book by Flora really)
Switch on the Night ~ Ray Bradbury and Madeleine Gekiere
The Man Who Lost His Head ~ Claire H Bishop and Robert McCloskey
Why I Built the Boogle House ~ Helen Palmer and Lynn Fayman
Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor ~ Mervyn Peake
The Crows of Pearblossom ~ Aldous Huxley and Barbara Cooney
The Tyger Voyage ~ Richard Adams and Nicola Bayley
Space Witch ~ Don Freeman
The Dead Bird ~ Margaret Wise Brown and Remy Charlip
One Monster After Another ~ Mercer Mayer
Anywho, thanks for stopping by, and to see my book-loving kid speaking in tongues, click here.
The Crows of Pearblossom is also a favorite in our household...I didn't even know what I was getting when I found it at the thrift store. I was able to find another copy on eBay for my sister and mailed it off to her so she could also enjoy it with her kids.
ReplyDeleteJames Flora has been haunting me for over 30 years. I remembered the pictures vividly, but could never remember the his name! Thanks you so much, I'll be hunting for these at Goodwill. I still have all the Mercer Mayer monster books in hard cover!
ReplyDeleteHit the library sales for Flora... I've found in the last year or so, they've really been going out of circulation... just that age I guess!
ReplyDeletesame thing happened with me and this book... i found it and fell in love. i did find one other copy, but sold that a while back... spreading the love.
ReplyDeleteI remember The Man Who Lost His Head!
ReplyDeleteI remember trying to explain it to someone at some point in college maybe-and they were creeped out by it!
THe Man Who Lost His Head is incredible! I am so thankful to have my uncle's old copy. The turnip head haunts me...
ReplyDeleteAmen! Grandpa's Farm was the greatest children's book ever. I need to check immediately whether my Mother has kept that one!
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