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Friday, February 22, 2008

Another Image of Childhood- 1960's


A Happy Nursery Book PLAY, story and pictures by Virginia Parsons. NY: Doubleday and Co. 1963.


I dare you to look at this cover and not smile!

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Auction Price Realized- Harold's Trip to the Sky Crockett Johnson


I usually don't report on Ebay auctions but the auction of a possible first of one of the Purple Crayon books by Crockett Johnson fetched a most reportable $565.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Dust jacket Art- Images from Childhood 1960's

Some examples of 3 color illustrated dj art from the 1960's taken from books in my inventory.



THE GALLOPING GOAT AND OTHER STORIES by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Illustrated by Robert L. Jefferson. NY: Abingdon, 1965.








MYSTERY ON A MINUS TIDE by Marg Nelson. Jacket design by Catherine Smolich. NY: Farrar, Straus & Co, 1964.









A PLACE BY THE FIRE by William MacKellar. Illustrated by Ursula Koering. NY: David McKay, 1966.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Dust jacket Art 1960's Juvenile Sports Books

Well, one of the advantages of spending most of your time uploading pictures of inventory is you get to see some neat books. Here are a few images of some juvenile sports books from the sixties that we currently have in stock.



Stepladder Steve Plays Basketball by C. Paul Jackson. Illustrated by Frank Kramer. NY Hastings House 1969.














Last Summer To Ride by Patricia Leitch. NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1965. (First published in the U.K. in 1963 as: Janet, Young Rider.)












The Comeback Guy by C.H. Frick. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961.

Friday, February 8, 2008

I'd really rather be reading....

We've finally started the slow and tedious process of uploading images of our online listings. The process is slow because it is hard even with help to find the time take the blasted pictures and tedious because we are not only uploading them to our own store at windyhillbooks but are also sending them to a couple of the large book database sites.

I know we are late to the game getting pictures of our books online, but with over 12,000 books it was daunting even thinking about getting started. We finally started uploading on Feb 1st and have approximately 250 images to date, it will be interesting to see how long it is going to take to get this finished.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Pardon Me Have You Seen My Childhood?

A compendium:

"I remember a book I had when I was 4 or 5 or maybe 6

It was blue or green or maybe yellow

And had a picture of a duck or frog or puppy dog

The duck was lost but found his way home

The frog was bad but her family loved her anyway

And the puppy was hardly ever afraid of the dark or being alone.


It’s gone now, lost when we moved


or in the basement flood of '78

or the garage sale the year I left for college...


That’s the book I want to buy, do you have it?"

More Images of Childhood- Juvenile Dustjacket Art 1940's - 1950's

After a few years dealing with children's books a dealer can usually date a book (at least by decade) by illustrator art alone. Here are a few examples of 1940's and 50's dj cover art from books in my inventory.


Trudy Terrill Eighth Grader by Bernice Bryant. Dj by Alice Carsey. Published by Bobbs-Merrill, 1946.
















Old Charlie by Clyde Robert Bulla. Illustrated by Paul Galdone. Published by Crowell, 1957.













That Jud! by Elspeth Bragdon, illustrated by Georges Schrieber. Published by Viking, 1957.