the three bears

i love me a whitman tell-a-tale!!!

the three bears as told by solveig paulson russell
1968, western publishing co., racine
illustrated by louise gordon

the big bark

another cute little 'tell-a-tale' book.

the big bark by christine woyke
tell-a-tale book, 1975, western publishing, wisconsin
illustrated by stina nagel

the golden book of grimm's fairy tales

i love grimm's fairy tales...even though i still have a lasting fear of spinning wheels thanks to that little s.o.b. rumpelstiltskin. this is a really nice edition by golden press illustrated by gianni benvenuti.

the golden book of grimm's fairy tales retold by jane carruth
golden press, 1970, western publishing co., wisconsin
illustrated by gianni benvenuti

animals on the farm

you know blogger can be really annoying with formatting...so i'm going to start a new format of crediting, and will instead credit everything at the end of everything. just saying.

i'm not a huge fan of little golden books (besides their tell-a-tale series and nature guides.) i get the whole concept and they did use some wonderful illustrators, but i do really find them lacking substance. at least the ones i've come across. i do like this one simply because it's a wonderful way to teach kids the names of animals and their offspring and how some words change in the plural. the illustrations are really special too.

animals on the farm, written by jan pfloog
a little golden book, tenth printing, 1981, western publishing, wisconsin
illustrator not credited (anyone know?)

tell-a-tale

i wanted to post the other two tell-a-tale books in my library.

slowpoke at the circus by kay richardson
a tell-a-tale book, 1973, western publishing, wisconsin
illustrations by ruth ruhman

two stories about wags by betty biesterveld
a tell-a-tale book, 1960(?), western publishing, wisconsin
illustrated by dan and norma garris

**edit: i actually just realized that i have one more tell-a-tale book (a big one), but i'm saving it for a special post next week!**

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.