When That I Was a Little Tiny Boy

Walt Disney’s Story Land, Selected by Frances Saldinger, Illustrated by art from the Walt Disney Studios.

“55 Favorite Stories Adapted from Walt Disney films.” This is a copy of the same edition we had from when we were very little, which had been read to rags. I bought it very early; editions have since been ‘updated’ for more recent Disney movies. Most if not all of the stories appeared first as “Little Golden Books” and appear here illustrated with plenteous but selected pictures from them. It is hard to gage the enormous impact and affection we had for this book; if we could not see all the Disney movies or cartoons, we could at least sample them here. For a long time, the original copy rolled around in our toys, treated more like a plaything or an artifact than a book. We always liked the cartoon stories more than the ‘real life’ adventures, of course.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Story Anthology. Children’s. Hardback.

Wonderful Worlds of Disney (1965): Walt Disney’s Fantasyland; Walt Disney’s America; Walt Disney’s Stories from Other Lands; Walt Disney’s Worlds of Nature.

Growing up I had no idea that these existed, although it seems that the content of some of them might have been condensed down into ‘Story Land’. When I saw this second-hand collection at a garage sale, I snapped them up, although they have some damage and markings. The ‘alternative childhood’ strikes again. Looking at it I wonder if Mike might have had the ‘Nature’ book under another cover; the animal photos look awfully familiar.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Anthology. Nostalgia. Hardbacks.

The Random House Children’s Treasury, edited by Alice Mills.

“Fairy Tales, Nursery Rhymes, and Nonsense Verse.” With classic illustrations by E. V. Boyle, Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, Richard Doyle, Kate Greenaway, and new pictures by Lialia and Valentin Varetsas. A very good anthology in the old style. It reminds me of that one book that Aunt Kathy had for her kids when they were very little. It was very beat up, missing its covers, and mixed in with their toys just like some books we had when we were their age.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Anthology. Poetry, Tales. Hardback.

Pufnstuf and Other Stuff: The Weird and Wonderful World of Sid and Marty Krofft, by David Martindale. Foreword by Marty Krofft. Afterward by Sid Krofft.

Pufnstuf was a big part of my early childhood, with the later Krofft shows decreasingly good, but with “Lidsville” and “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” still enjoyable/annoying (should be a portmanteau word – ‘anjoyable’?). Here we go into the history of the shows, of the puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft, of the origins of Pufnstuf at the San Antonio Hemisfair ’68. It includes the production history of the Krofft shows and an episode guide. Pufnstuf kind of straddled my pre-school life and first grade; I sometimes pictured Mom (with her red hair) as a benign Witchiepoo and us boys as her goofy goons. I remember ‘Witchiepoo’ was supposed to visit the Wonderland Mall (advertised during Cap’n Gus) and wanting to go, wanting to have Pufnstuf merchandising like a replica of Freddie the Flute offered in a cereal box (and imaginary ones of my own design), and also coveting all the props in Dr. Blinky’s house and Witchiepoo’s castle. I’ve been chasing that magical décor for my own rooms ever since.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Television. History. Softcover.

The Blue Fairy Book; The Green Fairy Book; The Olive Fairy Book; The Orange Fairy Book; The Yellow Fairy Book; The Red Fairy Book; The Crimson Fairy Book; The Brown Fairy Book; The Grey Fairy Book; The Violet Fairy Book; The Lilac Fairy book, by Andrew Lang.

All Dover reprints of the famous fairy tale collections. “Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic. He initially edited the series and wrote prefaces for its entire run, while his wife, the translator and author Leonora Blanche Alleyne (1851 – 10 July 1933), known to friends and family as Nora, assumed editorial control of the series in the 1890s. She and other translators did a large portion of the translating and retelling of the actual stories, as acknowledged in the prefaces … The 12 Coloured Fairy Books were illustrated by Henry Justice Ford — the first two volumes shared with G. P. Jacomb-Hood and Lancelot Speed respectively, and the sequels alone.” – Wikipedia. I first heard about Andrew Lang in Tolkien’s “On Fairy Stories”, and bought the first volume, “The Blue Fairy Book” my first year of college. I started to pick up the odd volume when I could, then dumped a few reprinted hardbacks I had found over the years and started getting a matched softcover set just a few years ago. I really love the H. J. Ford illustrations. I can’t say I’ve read every book all the way through, but I have browsed extensively.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fairy Tales. Collection. Softcovers.

The Complete Nonsense Books of Edward Lear, Illustrated by the Author. Castle Books.

I suppose this makes my Dover Lear superfluous; it appears to have even more material that that one. See notes to other editions.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Collected Works. Nonsense. Hardback.

The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus, by Joel Chandler Harris.

Compiled by Richard Chase and with Illustrations by Arthur Burdette Frost, Frederick Stewart Church, J. M. Conde, Edward Windsor Kemble, and William Holbrook Beard. There’s a parcel of names for you! Contains not only Brer Rabbit stories but also plantation tales and songs of slaves and former slaves told through the medium of a white author. It was considered quite progressive and inclusive in its day. I always had trouble reading the dialect of these stories, which was considered one its glories in times gone past. Harris was a friend of Mark Twain, who told his children that Harris was Uncle Remus in whiteface, so he would be allowed in through the front door – which was a bitter comment on the racial attitudes of the day. Autre Temps, Autre Moeurs.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Folk Tales. Anthology. Hardback.