peppermint and if i could be

vintage childrens' books are just the best. it's also my most dreaded section at book sales. at the church sale where i picked these up, i had to peek around a family of 500 with a kid screaming to his mother, "can we sell this on ebay?" now i'm not against selling a vintage book, at all. but i did find it kinda annoying. i'm just sayin'. on the other hand, if there are a zillion (i'm overinflating numbers here in case you couldn't tell) kids looking at the books. that's ok. i'm the imposter. me and a whole bunch of school teachers.

lucky for me the family of 500 were more interested in contemporary hardback picture books. i was immediately drawn to poor little peppermint. she's cute, but i fell in love with the title font.

peppermint by dorothy grider
1966, western publishing co. , wisconsin
a whitman tell-a-tale book
illustrated by raymond burns

you can see the font more clearly on the endpaper. although on the cover the coloring is white with pale pink bubbles. i'm also quite smitten with the "illustrated by." overall this is a super cute book. it has a sort of surprise ending, which i won't give away here. i have other tell-a-tales books, and i find them all rather charming.

if i could be, author not credited
1953, whitman publishing, wisconsin
illustrated by lore e. winship (?)

interestingly, an earlier whitman title. this is a short paperback book. the boy on the cover reminds me of my brother a bit. i would've guessed this book was from the '40s were it not for the date. it's super cute! short and sweet.