Christmas: Vintage Holiday Graphics and Halloween: Vintage
Holiday Graphics, both edited by Jim Heimann.
Taschen Icon books, crammed page after page with images that
evoke memories of classic holiday celebrations, with historical interest for
the changing ways of the festivities. Glorious to peruse.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Holiday. Art Books. Softcover.
The Adventures of Unc’ Billy Possum, by Thornton W. Burgess.
Illustrations by Harrison Cady.
“Thornton W. Burgess's books were some of the first
"chapter" books I read back in McQueeney Elementary back in
the early Seventies. At the time a lot of their resources were a little
elderly, recalling the Fifties and even the Forties (this goes for their
teachers as well as their books), but provided an excellent grounding in the
basics for all of that. Burgess's books with Cady's illustrations
always strike that nostalgic note with me, and I was pleased to see
them lovingly remembered and paid tribute to by John Crowley in his
monumental Little, Big.” – Power of Babel. I used to have quite a
few Burgess books, but I’ve sold most of them, as I realized I only wanted a
few for nostalgia. Unc’ Billy is the one I most remembered, and this used
edition, from the “Seguin Independent School District”, is just perfect for
that purpose. [Although I can't find an image for the library re-binding cover of my copy, which inexplicably shows Bobby Coon wandering through the snow with a stick, rather than Unc' Billy Possum himself. This picture is close to the spirit, though.]
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Children’s Book. Nostalgia. Hardback.
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