Oh No! One of My Favorite Books Is Out of Print! (Much-loved Children's Books)

I loved the Tall Book of Make Believe (compiled by Jane Werner, illustrated by Garth Williams)  when I was a child (I think it was published the year before I was born), and I loved it all over again when my daughter was little.

I want to provide a copy each for my granddaughter and my grandsons, but it's out of print.  Used copies are sellling in the +$100.00 range...so not so much.

I know that JumperGirl's copy is somewhere in her father's house (or in one of the other storage areas)-- but I have no idea where.  Her stepmother isn't much interested in facilitating their discovery.    JG had a pretty large library of picture books & early readers (for example, lots of Jan Brett and The Rainbow Goblins and Night is Coming and North Country Night and almost everything Maurice Sendak published and many others for which the titles are lost to my memory).   which was moved out of her room a few years after her father and I were divorced.

Neither of my daughters-in-law grew up in the United States, but both were bookish little girls. It's interesting talking about the differences in "best-loved books for children".  The Little Fur Family and The Nutshell Library were revelations to both.

Personally, I thought the Berenstein Bears were...well, not my taste.  As it turns out, ScholarMan has a deep affection for them.  So....

My granddaughter, DrummerGirl, is 4.5 and is careful with books, and I like buying them for her (and reading them).  ScholarBoy1 is only 18 months....I think it will be a while before he's careful with books.  So it's board books, all the time for now.  LFF came in a board book format, and I'm off to look for more classics in board book format.

What books did you love as a child?

Comments

[palisadesk]

Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling
Minn of the Mississippi (also by Holling) -- could get lost in the illustrations to these books for hours.
The Story of Ferdinand the Bull (don't remember the author)
Stuart Little (E.B. White)
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (first book I read by myself)
-A Little Golden Book (I think) called "The Cold-Blooded Penguin" about a penguin who wanted to live in the tropics
-All of Albert Payson Terhune's books about the Sunnybank collies: "Lad,A Dog," "Lad of Sunnybank," etc.
-Misty of Chincoteague and others by the same author (Marguerite Henry.) Helped that my sister had a Chincoteague pony.
-Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" books
-all the books about "Silver Chief, Dog of the North"
-Animal Farm (read it in second grade -- had NO idea of the politics, just liked the idea of animals taking over)
-Walden (read it in third grade -- made me want to go live in the woods -- as long as I could come home for dinner;-))
--any and all books about turtles, lizards and snakes
-- Nancy Drew books
--Rosemary Sutcliff's books, especially "Eagle of the Ninth" and "Knight's Fee"
-- Perry Mason books (wrote to Erle Stanley Gardner in 4th grade and still have his very nice reply)
-- The Secret Garden (Burnett)
-- The Enormous Egg (Butterworth)

A lot of these still make wonderful read-alouds to kids today.