McElligot's Pool

McElligot's Pool
Dr. Seuss ~ Random House, 1947

My son and I attended story time at our local independent children's bookshop this morning, and it just so happened they were celebrating the birthday of one Mr. Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka, Dr. Seuss. Born May 2, 1904, the master would have just turned 104 if he was still kicking around today. The store storyteller tipped her Cat-in-the-HAT to the master by reading Green Eggs and Ham and two shorts from the book I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories. So when we got home, I figured we'd continue the tribute with my son's all time favorite Dr. Seuss, McElligot's Pool.

My mom once met a man in rural South Carolina who had a small hole in his backyard from which he could catch trout and all kinds of other river fish. Though it was probably just an underground river, the man and his friends called it a "glory hole" and thanked the heavens daily for its existence. McElligot's Pool imagines nearly the very same thing. A boy fishes in a small pool even though the local farmer warns him away.

"The pool is too small.
And, you might as well know it,
When people have junk
Here's the place that they throw it."

Not to be deterred, but our boy Marco fashions a story of a pool with a bottomless bottom. Why, he might catch a thin fish.... he might catch a stout fish... he might catch a short or a long, long drawn-out fish. Dog fish... cat fish.. a fish with a kangaroo's pouch... the kind that likes flowers... some circus fish... or even a THING-A-MA-JIGGER. This one is an absolute joy to read aloud, and more than a hoot with its wild variations of aquatic vertebrates. The guy knew what he was doing. He's like the John, Paul, George and Ringo of children's books, and even after all these years, no one still comes close. Happy birthday man!

Also by:
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
The Lorax
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck
The Sneetches
I Can Write! A Book By Me Myself!
Hooper Humperdink?... Not Him!

Roy McKie: The Later Years

... continued from here...

Leo Lionni created a bit for the Ladies' Home Journal called Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman that ran monthly as an advertisement in The New Yorker. One simple yet humorous illustration that conveyed a little something about the perceived female psyche. Leo had been at it for a decade when he passed the mantel to Roy...

"I would think up an idea and take it to the folks at Ladies' Home Journal for approval. I remember for Christmas one year, I did a sketch of a fireplace in a house. No words. Hanging over the fireplace was a man's sock and a woman's nylon stocking. They were really clever. But it was hard being clever for 14 years."

Working under legendary ad man Charles Coiner, in addition to his Ladies' Home Journal work, he continued to illustrate for other N.W. Ayers accounts like the Army and Navy. Leo had gone to New York to act as art director for Time Life, and during the start of the 60s, Roy began to freelance up north more. Eventually giving up his life in Philadelphia to move to New York, he even spent a winter in London, but couldn't make enough money to stay permanently. During this time, Roy went through a painful divorce, and eventually went on to marry a woman named June Reynard, an illustrator who did work for Christian Dior and other fashion houses...

"I was doing all sorts of freelance work for Time Life, posters and such, when one day I got a call from Bennett Cerf [founder of Random House], saying he'd seen some of my work, asking me if I wanted to meet Ted Geisel [aka Dr. Seuss]... to come for the weekend."

Bennett Cerf's wife Phyllis Fraser had recently co-founded Random House's children's book imprint with Ted and his wife Helen Palmer and was anxious to see if Roy might fit in.

"I went up to the house and Geisel was there and he and I struck it off. We were sketching. He was looking to see what I could and couldn't do. From there, I started doing books for Random House."

Under the Beginner Books imprint, starting first with Bennett Cerf's Book of Riddles in 1960 and then on to the wildly successful Seuss-penned 10 Apples Up on Top a year later, a book illustrator was born.

"My favorite is Snow, which I illustrated for my one-time neighbor P.D. Eastman. I think the reason that book has been so successful is that I have an old fashioned way of approaching things. Softer, not so vulgar as a lot of what you see for children today."

Roy has illustrated more than 100 books for many different publishers, mainly drawing for other people's words, but it's his work with Dr. Seuss and the Beginner Books imprint that's had the longest shelf-life....

"You can make a children's book that was well received in its day, and that's great. But there are a few that stick around... Each generation, they want to give their children what they had and it keeps going and going. I was very fortunate to have been with Geisel and Random House. He was such a kind man and a talent and he and Phylis earned such loyalty from the people around them. In advertising, I was used to getting paid page by page, but with Phylis and Geisel I was able to get royalties. I'm just so thankful."

Though Roy hasn't illustrated a children's book in years, a handful of his titles remain in print. A few from the Beginner Books series (The Pop-Up Mice of Mr. Brice, 10 Apples Up on Top, Summer, Snow, My Book About Me, Would You Rather Be a Bullfrog?...) and a number of humor books he illustrated for Henry Beard and Workman Publishing (Sailing, Cooking, Golfing, Skiing, Fishing...)

At 89 years old, Roy says he's still in pretty good shape...

"This past year, I did some illustrations for a horse museum in Louisville, so I'm keeping busy. I don't wanna get old. Hell, I don't wanna be old. I've done very well, so happy to have been given the chance to do all this. I came from nothing. I'm still very frugal, but June and I were able to travel all over the world. We've been married since 1964 and had a great time together. We were more like flower children than anything. So, I can't complain. I've made some mistakes in life. I loved my parent's deeply, but I'd have liked to have been closer to my own children."

Repeatedly in our conversation, Roy would use the work "kind" to describe someone...

"In life, you have a choice to deal with people who are kind or unkind. I've been very lucky."

In closing, Roy and I talked about a lot of things, many of which don't belong to this blog, but rather to an old dreamer and his memories. June chimed in at various moments in the conversation... as Roy described her, "my second brain". It's obvious that even after almost 50 years of marriage, they are still madly in love.

I might not have gotten all the facts here perfectly, but I've tried to convey a short history of an artist I admire so that his legacy can live on a bit longer. However, what I will set in stone about the man is this. Life is short. It's a beautiful thing to have used this life to create something that will live on longer than you. Something that brings joy to other people. We all make mistakes. We all make choices that lead us in one direction or another. But if nothing else, know and remember that Roy McKie was, and is, a kind man.

There is no way that someone could so beautifully visualize a world full of happy children and smiling dogs and be anything but.

Thank you Mr. McKie.

Photo at top by Jill Krementz, taken of Roy with Ted Geisel in 1984 at a party celebrating - ahem - Dr. Seuss' 80th birthday.

—————

Read along on Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and Etsy!

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
Dr. Seuss ~ Random House, 1973

I know, I know... another Dr. Seuss. But I am posting on this one for a number of reasons. The first being that I am leaving for Mexico in about 2.3 hours, and my son is napping and all his books are in his room (except this one) and I can't afford to wake him up at this point. The second being that this is my son's birthday, and he loves this story. The third being that as today is my son's birthday, this particular copy of Did I Ever Tell You was one I received from my mother on my 7th birthday and it is inscribed...

To XXXXXXX
Happy Birthday
Love, Mommy
July 19,1979

Simple but timeless. That said, this is the only Seuss book I remember coveting as a child. So much so that I took it to college with me, and to NYC when I moved into my first grownup place, and now, here it sits on my desk in Texas. I always liked the dedication which reads...

This Book,
With Love
is for
Phyllis
the Jackson

At the time, I thought it was such a funny and cool sentiment, now I know it to be a tip of the hat to the Dr's longtime agent.

Anywho, for those not in the know...

When I was quite young and quite small for my size,
I met an old man in the Desert of Drize.
And he sang me a song I will never forget.
At least, well, I haven't forgotten it yet.

The book chronicles all the places and people you're lucky you're not. Pictured here is my favorite ditty.

And suppose that you lived in that forest in France,
where the average young person just hasn't a chance
to escape from the perilous pants-eating-plants!
But your pants are safe! You're a fortunate guy.
And you ought to be shouting, "How lucky am I!"

Also by:
McElligot's Pool
The Lorax
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Great Monday Give: Hatful of Seuss

What a great weekend! On Friday, the incomparable Alison Morris (the children's book buyer at Wellesley Booksmith in Massachusetts) gave me a shout out on her Publisher's Weekly blog, Shelftalker. On Saturday, I threw a fabulous Halloween party for my son and his friends. And yesterday, I found a hummingbird nest. Doesn't get much better than that! Or does it?

Last week, I scored this in a junk shop for $1.99... and it was such a great deal that I couldn't pass it up... except we have all the books in here already... so there is only one thing to do with it, and that's give it away! This week's Great Monday Give is a practically perfect hard copy of A Hatful of Seuss, a collection of the great Doctor's work including the classics If I Ran the Zoo, Sneetches and Other Stories, Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, Horton Hears a Who! and Bartholomew and the Oobleck. A wonderful collection... Bartholomew and the Oobleck is one of my all time favorite Seuss books... and it can be yours (maybe) if you comment on this post between now and midnight Sunday, November 8. A winner will be selected at random and announced the following morning.

In case you were wondering who the winner of last week's give is... that delightful wee copy of Golden Guide: Birds? Skye from right down the road in Austin. Congrats sister and send me your info as soon as you can to webe(at)soon(dot)com.

Stay turned for a review later in the morning and all you Dr. Goat fans... know that I have a very very very special treat coming up later this week. That's it for now kids!

A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes

A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes
Robert Lopshire ~ Harper & Row, 1967

Now that my son is of a certain age, I'm beginning to dig back in the archives of our collection and pull out books I bought years ago expressly for this era of his childhood. In the digging, I uncovered this little jewel and thought I'd use it as an opportunity to give props to Mr. Lopshire, who passed away in 2002 and was best known for his book Put Me in the Zoo. A while back, I was looking for information on him and 10 Engines was kind enough to send some back story along, including this quote...

Thirteen years after the it's publication, Lopshire explained how the book (Put Me in the Zoo) came about: "I came to write my first book because, at the time, I was employed as creative art director on the 'Beginner Book' project at Random House, the first of the truly planned assaults on young minds."

Later, he explained, "Ted Geisel (Dr. Suess) said that the old 'Dick, Jane and Spot' concept was horrible, and that no one could ever do anything more with the three--he bet me on this. . . . Put Me in the Zoo uses Dick, Jane and Spot and I won the bet."

More recently, I found Robert's obituary from the Herald Tribune.

Lopshire, 75, a resident of Gainesville, died May 4, 2002, of emphysema and congestive heart failure in the North Florida Regional Hospital there.He was born April 14, 1927, in Sarasota and graduated from Sarasota High School in 1944.

"The nurses brought in Bob's books for him to autograph during his last days at the hospital," his wife, Selma, said. "They said they had memorized many of them as young children and were now reading them to their own children."

Lopshire had his pilot's license by the age of 15 and after graduating from Sarasota High School, served aboard assault landing ships in the Pacific Theatre. After the war ended a year later, he worked as an illustrator in studios in Boston and Philadelphia, and was a member of the Illustrators Group in New York.

When Lopshire was creative art director during the earlier stages of the Beginner Books series at Random House, his illustrations for Ann Can Fly, published in 1959, caught the eye of Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss of the famous Dr. Seuss Beginner Books series, also at Random House.

Lopshire created other favorites for young children such as New Tricks I Can Do! and It's Magic! all for prominent publishing houses. Lopshire loved airplanes and amused himself and crowds before baseball games at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia with synchronized take-offs and landings of radio-controlled Snoopy and the Red Baron model planes. In addition to illustrating and drawing blueprints for building models, he also wrote Radio Controlled Miniature Aircraft for Macmillan, and A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes for Harper. He also contributed a section on model airplanes for the World Book Encyclopedia.

"He never retired," his wife said. "Bob had a massive imagination. Right up until the end, he had intricate model airplanes on one table and was working on another book at his desk."

Now, this is one man I'd have loved to interview. The dust jacket of this book mentions that Robert was a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics and a combat photographer during WW II. My son adores the illustrations he did for the Big Max books and thrives on How to Make Flibbers projects, so I'm hoping he takes to the wings so we can get some play out of this comprehensive volume.

The book is so lovingly constructed, diagrammed, researched and explained, that it's hard not to get swept up in the romance of the hobby. I can only imagine how many wee aviators were inspired by Robert's infectious joy of the sky.

Dedicated up front to: Wilbur and Orville Wright for having started something wonderful. One could say the same about good 'ole Bob.

RIP, amazing fly guy.

Also by:
How to Make Flibbers
Ann Can Fly

—————

Read along on Instagram, Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and Etsy.

Dr. Seuss has a new book out ya'll!

In this week's edition of who talks faster than a librarian, here I am talking about the new Dr. Seuss, What Pet Should I Get?

The Lorax

The Lorax
Dr. Seuss ~ Random House, 1971

I know all you hardcore collectors out there are gonna scream OBVIOUS, but seeing as today is Earth Day and this book is THE kid's book on the subject, I had to tip my hat. Not only that, but The Lorax is my all time favorite Dr. Seuss story. Way back when, I saw the animated version on TV, and it terrified me so deeply, that I never looked at a tree the same way again.

This story of the watchful Lorax, the destruction of a forest, and a regretful old Once-ler who brought about its demise is so important and poignant and touching... the mere thought of it gives me goosebumps all over and makes me want to cry with the hopelessness of it all.

"Mister!" he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
"I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I'm asking you sir, at the top of my lungs" --
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed --
"What's this THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"

The old Once-ler does not heed the warnings of the wee Lorax, and instead cuts down the Truffula forest tree by tree to make his Thneeds (which everyone needs) until there is nothing left. It is a fitting and stunning metaphor for the devastation of the natural world which surrounds us.

The Lorax said nothing. Just gave me a glance...
just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance...
as he lifted himself by the seat of his pants.
And I'll never forget the grim look on his face
when he heisted himself and took leave of this place,
through a hole in the smog, without leaving a trace.

This is a must-have for your child's library, as hopefully the message will get through and break your child's heart the way it did mine all those years ago.

And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks, with the one word...
"UNLESS."

Happy Earth Day everyone.

Epilogue: Design Mom posted on The Lorax today too and mentioned a groovy new GREEN edition.

Also by:
McElligot's Pool
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Bartholomew and the Oobleck
by Dr. Seuss/ published 1949 by Random House

How did it take 30 years for me to reunite with the oobleck!?! When I was really, really little -- even before I could read -- I would pull this one off the shelf at the bookstore and freak myself out. I never actually read the book, but the pictures totally scared the crap out of me.

I finally purchased it at a used book store a few days go and read it to my son for the first time yesterday. Man, did he dig it. I've never seen him more riveted by a book and jacked up. And frankly, I was pretty jacked too. This story is awesome on so many different levels that I could write a thesis about its awesomeness. Really, this just might be my favorite Dr. Seuss story EVER.

So there's the king see... and he gets tired of always looking at the rain, the sun, the snow and the fog that come down from the sky... and he wants something to come down in his kingdom that no other kingdom has... so he calls his evil magicians together, and urges them to create something the world has never seen...

For a moment they stood thinking, blinking their creaky eyes.
Then they spoke a word...one word..."Oobleck."
"Oobleck...?" asked the King. "What will it look like?"
"Won't look like rain. Won't look like snow.
Won't look like fog. That's all we know.
We just can't tell you any more.
We've never made oobleck before."

The foreboding is deliciously sinister. The series of events as they unfold -- completely engulfing. It is a lesson in climate change and the outcomes of doing horrible things to the natural world. (As well as being a selfish pig and learning to say you're sorry.)

There is this page boy named Bartholomew who -- even as the oobleck is hitting the fan and people are getting stuck in the muck -- pulls it together to give the king such an empowering tongue lashing... wow. The drama is impeccable, and the climax, as good as any I've seen. We've had three reads since yesterday -- "Mommy, where's the book about the gunk?" -- and mark my words, 20 years from now, this will be one of the ones that floats to the top of his memory, time and time again. A thousand thumbs way, way up.

Also by:
McElligot's Pool
The Lorax
Come Over to My House
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

The Cat in the Hat Song Book

The Cat in the Hat Songbook
Dr. Seuss ~ Piano Score and Guitar Chords by Eugene Poddany
Random House, 1967

My son recently added guitar to his legion of after-school lessons. Though his teacher is the guitarist for a local hard rock quartet and the boy's current favorite band is The Clash, I still think he has a little room for the Dokkulous Doctor in his musical lexicon. Not out-of-print by any stretch of the word, our copy of the classic song book that's subtitled "19 Seuss-Songs for Beginning Singers" dates back to the 60s. It features a mess of medleys penned by the doctor himself and scored by the man who wrote the music for various Chuck Jones/Seuss collaborations like the original animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas television special from 1966. Fawho fores dawho dores!

Picture of Suess, Thurl Ravenscroft - who (though uncredited) sang the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" (Boris Karloff played the Grinch otherwise) - and Eugene in white via the Chuck Jones blog.

Let us all sing!
It's good for almost anything.
It's good for dusty, musty throats to let out gusty lusty notes.
It's good for people, frogs and goats to open up and sing.
It's good for tongues and necks and knees of people, bees and chimpanzees.

Man, the songs in this book are big fun. New found faves like "The Super-Supper March"; "My Uncle Terwilliger Waltzes with Bears"; "The No Laugh Race"; "Somebody Stole My Hoo-To Foo-To Boo-To Bah"; "Rainy Day in Utica, NY"; "Happy Birthday To Little Sally Spingel Spungel Sporn"; and the unforgettable "Left-Sock Thievers".

The left sock thievers have been sneaking into town.
So don't you ever let them catch you with your left sock down.
They reach around dark corners, when you stroll about at night.
Then, woosh!
There goes your left sock.
And you're left there with your right!

These songs are the stuff childhood is made of. Crazy rhymes and silly sayings, arranged perfectly to tune in Mr. Geisel's bouncy gait.

If your child has a piano, a guitar, or simply a set of really good pipes, this book was meant for you.

Also by:
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
The Lorax
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck
The Sneetches
I Can Write! A Book By Me Myself!
Hooper Humperdink?... Not Him!
McElligot's Pool

----------------------

Read along on Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and Etsy

I Can Write! A Book by Me, Myself

I Can Write! a Book by Me, Myself
with a little help from Theo LeSieg (aka Dr. Seuss) and Roy McKie
Random House, 1971

Just in case you haven't had enough of Roy McKie this month...

Similar in theme to the still-in-print Seuss/McKie classic A Book About Me, if you're a vintage buff and go searching, unsullied copies can be hard to come by. Why, you ask? Well, a child would have to be insane not to want to write in it.

I, myself, shared a copy with my two sisters, and I seem to remember repeated erasing and rewriting until someone got sassy and used a magic marker. The copy I'm scanning here is inscribed "To Paul Feuerbacher From Dwayne F. 1973" and apparently this "Paul" had impeccable handwriting for such a young buck (as evidenced above and below). Though the text is a conduit for which children can perfect their handwriting skills, it also tell a snazzy Seuss rhyming story, of course.

1
2
fish in shoe

1
2
3
fish in tree

2
3
4
in the door

yellow
red
cow in bed

...and so on and so forth, full of awesome, made all the more so by McKie's signature sillies. Though I do love much of the realistic painting and waifish pencil drawing styles that dominate the market today, there's something about simple bold colors, outlined in black that makes me giddy inside. It takes me back to an age when handwriting the words "fish in shoe" was the - ahem - hardest thing I had to do. Good times.

Also by:
Bennett Cerf's Book of Animal Riddles
The Nose Book
Summer
Mélisande
Snow
Bennett Cerf's Book of Laughs
Bennett Cerf's Book of Riddles
McElligot's Pool
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck
The Lorax
Hooper Humperdink...? Not Him!

—————

Read along on Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and Etsy

Hooper Humperdink...? Not Him!

Hooper Humperdink...? Not Him!
Theo LeSeig/Dr. Suess ~ Charles E. Martin ~ Random House, 1976

Another case of Random House reillustrating a perfectly wonderful Beginner Book. Are they on crack or what? Is the world really so lacking in original material that they must spend all their time and effort reinventing the wheel? I'm not privy to the philosophies of that publishing house, and I'm sure money, rights and politics are involved, but still... I like this book just the way it was. Really, can you improve on the awesomeness of Charles E. Martin? I think not. (No offense to you Mr. Scott Nash... who is a quite lovely and capable artist himself, I'm sure.)

I can only imagine Dr. Seuss sitting down to write this book, perhaps based on a funny name he made up or heard and trying to think of all the rhyming names and laughing at the little boy Hooper who no one wants at a party. It probably tickled him to no end. Every child had someone like this in their class... and some of us were probably the kid who didn't get invited. In a wildly exaggerated tale as to who should be invited before HH, the drawings are a party unto themselves... leaving little to the imagination yet feeding it completely.

Oh, what a party!
Sally! Sue!
Solly! Sonny!
Steve and Stoo!
I'll ask the Simpson sisters, too.
But I'm not asking YOU KNOW WHO!
Nobody wants to play with Hooper.
Humperdink's a party-pooper!

Of course, all ends well, because good little children always include everyone at their birthday parties, no? Nobody wants to be the kid who gets left out. Speaking of, recently I've heard some of my friends mention the birthday age rule... meaning if your child is turning six, then you should only invite six friends to the party. Somehow that doesn't work into the nobody getting left out equation, but I guess I'll worry about that later when the boy actually wants to start excluding. Yuck!

Also by:
The Big Orange Thing
McElligot's Pool
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck
The Lorax
For Rent

The Sneetches and Other Stories

The Sneetches and Other Stories
Dr. Seuss ~ Random House, 1961

Everyone is pretty familiar with The Sneetches (the story of the bird-like animals with stars and the ones with none upon thars), but one of my favorite Seuss stories (and one of the silly-spookiest) is tucked away in the back as part of the "and Other Stories". What Was I Scared of? was republished separately in '97 as a wee "Little Dipper Book"... I have to assume with the notion that it be given as a graduation present.

So there's this little yellow creature, out and about, minding his own bizwax... when he see a pair of personless pants... He tries to escape them, but time and again, they keep finding him...

I said, "I do not fear those pants
With nobody inside them."
I said, and said, and said those words.
I said them. But I lied them.

Eventually, he overcomes his fears and faces the pants, befriending them after all. So, I suppose some could see this as a cautionary tale for adulthood to not fear the unknown. But hey, if I ran into some free floating pants, I think I might hightail it in the opposite direction as well... courage be damned.

Also by:
McElligot's Pool
The Lorax
Come Over to My House
Bartholomew and the Oobleck
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

I Was Kissed by a Seal at the Zoo

I WAS KISSED BY A SEAL
Helen Palmer with photographs by Lynn Fayman/ published 1962 by Random House

I figured since I raved about the Boogle House, I needed to get some of Ms. Palmer's other books up here. Obviously, this book was made during an era when if you published a children's book, the San Diego Zoo would allow you to bring a bunch of school kids in to fondle the wildlife. Somehow I doubt this would happen now, even if you were the first Mrs. Dr. Seuss. Like Boogle House, I love the funny story illustrated by black and white photos contrasting against bright color pages ~ red, green, blue and yellow. Though, if I'm not mistaken, I believe the seal mentioned in the title is actually a sea lion. I guess technically, a sea lion is a seal, but I digress...

What would you do if you went to the zoo?
Well, I can tell you what I would do.
I would walk right up to the zoo keeper.
I would say,
"Please, may I play with your baby lion?"
"Yes," he would say,
"if the lion wants to play."

Didn't see until looking up just now that she killed herself in 1967 -- after 40 years of marriage to the Seuss man and a long struggle with cancer. That stinks. Sad that the two never had kids together (or apart) that could enjoy their books as much as mine does. Next up, Do You Know What I'm Going to Do Next Saturday? and Fish Out of Water. I'll get to them someday!

Also by:
Why I Built the Boogle House
Do you know what I'm going to do next Saturday?

Great Monday Give: Chanticleer and the Fox

As promised, The Great Monday Give returns. One lucky commentor will win a nice/ hardcover/ vintage/ ex-library edition of the 1959 Caldecott Medal winner Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before midnight, Sunday ~ June 8, and a winner will be selected at random by the awesome (and highly-scientific) blind scroll and point method.

I will ship the book to the winner for free, and you can feel good that I am giving away great vintage books that I have found for a song instead of hawking them at a bloated price. (Though someday when my son grows older, I'll probably have to purge my collection and won't that be a lucky day for a lot of folks?)

That said, good luck, and keep an eye out for a book review later today. (I'll be giving props to Come Over to My House by Theo LeSieg, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, with illustrations by Richard Erdoes -- so don't miss it!)

Why I Built the Boogle House

Why I Built the Boogle House
Helen Palmer ~ photographs by Lynn Fayman
Random House, 1964

This was one of the first titles I picked up for my son a few years back, from Cheever's Books on Broadway in San Antonio. Written by the first Mrs. Dr. Seuss, it follows the struggles of a young boy in search of the perfect pet and the perfect house in which to house said perfect pet. Possibly better known for the classic Fish Out of Water, Helen Palmer did a series of these awesome books with photography including I was Kissed by a Seal at the Zoo and Do You Know What I'm Gonna Do Next Saturday.

Ms. Palmer's incantation is a delight and once you've gotten into reading her stuff, you can tell instantly if a book is hers. I love the way she repeats words to get her point across...

"So, I swapped him.
I swapped the rabbit for a dog."

A truly far out title and one that several friends have remembered fondly from childhood. (My copy came with the sweet inscription "Merry Christmas Nora Ellen from Fred & Lois, 1974").

Also by:
I Kissed a Seal at the Zoo
Do you know what I'm going to do next Saturday?