Saturday, June 7, 2008

Things I found at work today:



1. That one of my childhood favorites, Ben and Me by Robert Lawson (of Ferdinand the Bull and Rabbit Hill fame), has a sequel called Mr Revere and I, told from the perspective of Paul Revere's horse. And in fact, the process of looking these books up on Amazon has revealed that they are but the first of an entire line of stories of famous people told by their pets, including Christopher Columbus's parrot and Captain Kidd's cat.

I remember Ben and Me was made into an animated short by Disney, which bore only a passing resemblance to the book. I liked it a lot as a kid anyway. I'm a little curious now how well it would hold up. I'm a little sorry now that I didn't know when I was younger that Robert Lawson had an entire line of pet-authored biographies, because I'm sure I would have liked them then. I may have to pick up Mr Revere and I sometime at work and see how good an author an 18th century horse can possibly be.


2. That we have quite a few origami books in the children's section. Some are good, some are so-so, but none are quite so mindblowingly frightening as this:



Yes, that is Shari Lewis of Lambchop fame, in her younger and if it's possible, even scarier days, when she apparently liked to put eye makeup on with a trowel. It's actually a pretty straightforward, basic origami book with good instructions, punctuated with moments of horror like this:

You WILL enjoy your paper airplane


Shari prepares to release her breath of fire upon the unsuspecting paper boat and its doomed inhabitants


A discerning reader expresses their editorial opinion

I know I complain a lot about the age and general decrepitude of the books in my library, but occasionally finding gems like this make it all worthwhile.

7 comments:

  1. I love childrens books! If only I knew more small children to share with them!
    As for the knitting, are you on Ravelry? I searched but couldn't find you. It's been so much help as I've started out knitting. The link is in my sidebar, if you are on there, or want to join feel free to add me as a friend. I'm hilltopkatie on there.

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  2. Thanks for visiting my blog!

    My best friend went to K College. She is still in the Kzoo area. Of all the places I've lived I liked Kalamazoo the most. Most likely because it was where I was finally an adult; first real job, first house, etc.

    It sure is a small blog world!

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  3. I didn't know Ben and Me, but I do remember reading the story with Paul Revere and his horse. I loved that book!

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  4. That is great! I loved Ben and Me too! I will have to look for it to read to the kiddos! I came across a book called Octagon magic the other day. I got it from a friend when I was 10 (16 yrs ago). I looked at it and knew I had saved it for so long because it was one of my favorites, yet I couldn't remember what happened. I decided to read it and am half way thru and love it as much as ever! NCLM

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  5. lambchop! haven't thought about him in ages!!

    thanks for visiting my blog and I am so glad you like the kitchen! we put sooo much work into that thing!

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  6. There are soo many reasons why I'm not allowed in book stores if I have any cash, or credit, on my purpose, and children's books are just one of those reasons!

    I'm definitely going to have to look at my local library for the pet series of stories. I think I remember reading Ben and Me, but when I get back to teaching(lower elementary) those might be books I'll have to read to my class when studying history!

    (NCLM)

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  7. The series of books written from the perspective of pets sound awesome. Thanks for the heads up!

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