Some Judy Blume Nostalgia

Hey! Remember the 70’s when author Judy Blume was ALL the rage among schoolkids throughout America? I wonder if kids today can fathom the impact those Blume books had on our generation- the subjects her books explored the topics that every teen or pre-teen went through- from worries, anxieties, peer pressures, etc, all while keeping us entertained with solid stories!

My Judy Blume Collection

The first Judy Blume book I borrowed from the library was her kids’ book  “Freckle Juice”, a story about a boy dealing with his freckles- something I never had to worry about but was entertained throughout nonetheless! At the time I didn't know who this Judy Blume was, just thought it was a fun story...But there would soon be more!

As most of Judy Blume’s books were focused on teenage girls, the stories I first learned from her were not through reading them but through hearing classroom book reports given by girls in class, specifically “Are you There God, It’s Me, Margaret”, “Blubber” and “Deenie”, dealing with menstruation, weight struggles (and bullying) , and scoliosis, the first time I’d ever heard of such a malady.

The book I really fell in love with from her was the 1972 classic “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing”.  The trials of a young lad named Peter Hatcher dealing with all the gradeschool problems as well as a troublemaking younger brother REALLY hit home for me who was living in a SIMILAR situation!!

About this time my younger sister started getting into Judy Blume, and over time amassed a small handful of books. It was through her paperbacks that I finally read most of Blume’s catalog: Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, Blubber, Tiger Eyes, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself, Forever, Iggie’s House, and found that even as a guy I loved them all!

As an adult rebuilding my library to include all my childhood books, I naturally amassed a bunch of Judy Blume books, and wanted to make sure I got all the titles my sister had as well. Here's the thing: I wanted to get those books, but I wanted editions with the same exact covers my sister had on her shelf, NOT an easy feat!

Because while ebay is your friend and there are lots of people selling Judy Blume books, they rarely are the versions I want, and sometimes the dealers DON'T EVEN POST THE CORRECT IMAGES on their auction, totally irking me when the book arrives in the mail and it's some  other variation I don’t want or need! 

For example, THIS is the version of her 1975 book "Forever" that my sister had and I was trying to get:

Found someone selling it on ebay with the exact image and bought it, only for THIS edition to arrive in the mail:

 Look, I understand that some dealers have hundreds of books to deal with, but they REALLY should specify if the item they're selling is not the actual item you're getting! Some do, some don't. 

In the end, it took months and months of auction bidding and buying Judy Blume lots and individual auctions, and at this point, have mostly completed my sister's original collection:

Only missing "Forever", but I suppose I will find it eventually. Gotta keep looking!

PS: I've mentioned this before, but as the household's only other sibling who read books as much as me, my sister's collection of paperbacks was a constant source of new books to check out, especially since they'd usually be girly ones I'd never borrow from the library on my own!

I wrote about the awesome Ellen Conford book The Luck Of Pokey Bloom in an earlier post, and the Judy Blume books are yet another series I learned through her! Thanks, Sis!!

Favorite Halloween Stories: "Danny's Luck"

One day years and years ago, I was visiting an old book fair to see if I could find any childhood books that I grew up with. This was back before ebay and online bidding, so it was purely by chance that you would come upon something you wanted at the used bookstores or swap meets. The Book fairs were a good (and cheap) way to find some Lost childhood stories!

 Sifting through the bins, I was immediately taken by an old childrens’ Halloween Book  called “Danny’s Luck” by Lavinia R. Davis and illustrated by Hildegard Woodward. The cover had an very antique looking feel to it, and I quickly stepped out of the crowded  shelves and stood aside to peruse this new find! 

I was completely blown away by how much the illustrations perfectly captured the innocent Halloweens of childhood, or rather, the classic autumn Halloweens promised to all kids dremaingof their first ventures out: crisp, autumn oranges and yellows, rustic  tress with bare branches and the smell of Pumpkin Pie waiting for you upon your return home! 

 Ironically enough, Danny’s luck has actually very little to do with Halloween itself as the story concerns Danny and his upcoming birthday, which just happens to fall in October. If it had fallen in December, Danny’s Luck could very well have been a Christmas story! 

No matter, October it was, and thus was born an amazing Halloween story, and it is lucky too, for there are too few of them out there. To me and the kids of my generation, naturally the best Halloween stories are the ones that were read to us growing up- these would be the ones published between 1950 to 1970, and to have found a book that time that I’d heretofore never heard of from was a treasure indeed!

My Beverly Cleary Collection!

Been organizing my shelves of Childrens' Books after digging out those Halloween classics a few weeks ago, and bringing out all my beloved Beverly Cleary books to scan, thought it might be interesting to take some pictures of them for posterity! 
   Up first are the Hardcover books, and these are the ones I treasure most because they're the ones that I grew up with, the ones that I read and re-read all through grade school and made me fall in love with all things Beverly Cleary!!  Through Rummage Sales and Ebay, I've managed to get my hands on just about every book edition I loved as a kid, though there are some (like "Socks") that I only have in later paperbacks.
  Next are the Dell Yearling Paperbacks that came out in the 80's that I remember my little sister bringing home from the library, at the time, the covers looked so strange and modern, now when I look at them I get the same feelings of nostalgia as the original Louis Darling/Alan Tiegreen/ etc covers!
  Then we've got the miscellaneous paperbacks and books (including the VERY interesting Beverly Cleary autobiographies where you found that so much stuff in her books happened to her in real life!(My Own Two Feet, for instance, is almost a dead-on same story as "The Luckiest Girl", they are THAT similar!) , and finally, some fun audio books-you haven't heard the Ramona story til you've herd it read by Stockard "Rizzo" Channing and Henry Huggins read by Neal Patrick "Doogie Howser" Harris!

 Hardcover Books:

Henry Huggins, Henry and the Clubhouse, Ribsy, Henry and the Paper Route, Henry and Beezus, Henry and Ribsy, Emily's Runaway Imagination, Mitch and Amy, Otis Spofford, The Luckiest Girl, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Runaway Ralph, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona Forever, Ramona the Brave, Ramona the Pest, Beezus and Ramona, Henry Huggins 50th Anniversary Edition

Beverly Cleary Hardcover Books

Dell Yearling Paperbacks (Joanne Scribner covers)

Henry Huggins, Henry and Ribsy, Henry and the Clubhouse, Henry and Beezus, Ribsy, Emily's Runaway Imagination, Ramona Forever, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona and Her Mother, Beezus and Ramona, Runaway Ralph, Socks

Beverly Cleary Dell Yearling Paperbacks (Joanne Scribner Covers)

Other Paperbacks and Books

The Mouse and The Motorcycle, Ramona and Her Father, Ellen Tebbits, Ralph S. Mouse, Ramona's World, Strider, Dear Mr, Henshaw, Otis Spofford, Fifteen, Henry and the Paper Route, A Girl From Yamhill, My Own Two Feet

Other Beverly Cleary Paperbacks and Books + her two autobiographies

Audio Books:

Ramona Forever, Henry Huggins

Beverly Cleary Audio Books: Ramona the Pest and Henry Huggins

I have a friend who was lucky enough to have met Ms. Cleary back in the seventies and is a proud owner of a personalized copy of "The Mouse And The Motorcycle", I sadly have never had a chance to meet her (yet!!!) but I was able to acquire copies of "Henry Huggins" and "Ramona Forever" autographed by Beverly Cleary through the internet! You can be sure that these are the crowns of my collection!

My Autographed Beverly Cleary books: Henry Huggins and Ramona Forever

Favorite Halloween Stories: Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons

  So here’s another one of those stories about the long and convoluted ways I had to go through to get my hands on another cherished childhood story, and this one involves a perfect fit for this year’s Halloween Entry: A fun ghost story called Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons!
  I’d always loved the English Reader books we read in Elementary school, enjoying those stories was one school-related thing I would do even at home, after school,  and during my free time on the weekends! But sadly, as each year came to a close and we had to return those books, those stories became no more than memories that I would think about every now and then. That is until I was a little bit older and realized most of those stories were in fact printed elsewhere and with a little bit of digging, you might actually FIND the books you loved so much!
  Perusing Swap Meets, Garage Sales and Used Bookstores helped me get my hands on a lot of those children stories, and with the advent of online services like ebay and amazon.com, I was able to pretty much recreate my childhood library book by book, story by story! But one story I REALLY wanted to get was “Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons”, a tale about a boy who scares a ghost and then blackmails him into teaching him how to disappear!

Oh MAN, did I love this story! Jimmy is a kid whose Aunt is having trouble renting out a house because it is supposedly haunted, and sure enough when he goes to inspect the place, a ghost comes sailing down the stairs and scares him right out the door! When Jimmy has time to calm down, however, he gets angry for being scared by such a thing. When he goes back to the house, he sees the ghost inside dancing and laughing at the prank he’d pulled on him,  and Jimmy is so incensed that he sticks his head in the door and yells "BOO!” at the top of his lungs, making the ghost jump and scream in fear!
  Naturally, the ghost doesn’t want Jimmy running around telling people he got the one-up on him, and after regaining composure, tells him that if he'll keep quiet, the ghost will teach him some tricks like vanishing. Jimmy takes him up on his offer, but still has to deal with getting the ghost to move out so they can rent the place. The Ghost refuses to move, so Jimmy and his Aunt move in, and hilarious hijinks arise! 
  Aw, such a great story, and in addition to the fun tale, the artwork was just superb. I found that even years later I fondly remembered what each picture looked like. I remembered the pic of Jimmy scaring the ghost on the banister. I remembered Jimmy’s Aunt giving the ghost smelling salts to revive him. And most of all, I remembered the splash page illustration that prefaced the story: an image of the ghost and Jimmy talking framed by a window of a Haunted House! I just HAD to find this story!

   After I had gotten to be pretty good at finding what I wanted on ebay, it was time to focus on the harder-to-get books, and Jimmy takes Vanishing Lessons was on the top of the list! First, going online I found out the author’s name was Walter R. Brooks, and with this information, it was onto ebay! In no time at all, I found a few sellers who had it up for auction, and soon I had copy coming my way! 

Original Book

   When I finally got ahold of it a few days later and perused the pages, I should have been in Seventh Heaven…but instead, I was puzzled. Something about it wasn’t quite right… Oh sure, the story itself was pretty much what I remembered, but the illustrations  didn’t look ANYTHING like the ones in the English Reader. In fact, I didn’t like it at all! Far from the fun, bright and ZANY illustrations I remembered, these were dour and scratchy looking…

Original Story artwork by Don Bolognese

No offense to the artist Don Bolognese, but part of the reason I loved the story so much was for the (admittedly 70’s-ish looking) illustrations, and these didn’t look like them in the least! Finally I realized the only solution: I had to find a copy of the original English Reader on ebay!
   This was a bit harder, because I couldn’t’ remember which one of those books the Ghost story was in! I DID find out that the books were all published by GINN under the name of Theodore Clymer, and once the covers for those came up on ebay, I purchased any of them that looked familiar! After months of ordering , I got my hands on a bunch of great books that contained other stories I loved, and then when I got a copy of the book All Sorts Of Things, the final story at the back was the Jimmy story I remembered so well!

All Sorts Of Things, GINN Reader

  Ah, each page’s illustrations kept blowing my mind with nostalgia, they were exactly how I remembered them, so vibrant and full of wonderment!!! Add to gether witht the marvelous story and you've got yourself a terrific Halloween story to re-read  for many years to come! Take a trip down Memory Lane with me and read along with these scans of Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons!

A Tribute To the Blue Nosed Witch...

I've already talked about my infinite love of the Children's Halloween Story of the Blue Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry, and one year at the Record Store I was working at, I decided to pay tribute to my beloved childhood story by using Blue Nosed Witch Blanche as the decoration for that month's "Upcoming Releases" Glass Bulletin Board outside. Don't know if there were many who knew who the witch was (nobody at work did), but it was a Halloweeney theme nonetheless!
 When Halloween was over and I put the displays into the storeroom, I decided to put Blanche in the window of the room. Was pretty funny because for months after that, you could see Blanche in the window, and at night, you could see her silhouette in the window!
This went on til they finally cleared out the room! LOLOL

The Berenstain Bears

Sad to hear Jan Berenstain passed away a few days ago. (Stan Berenstain passed away in 2005). Though their Berenstain Bears series got a bit saccharine in later years, I did so love those early ones- The Big Honey Hunt, The  Bike Lesson, The Bears Vacation, The Bears Picnic and Bears in The Night...they were always must reads on my visits to the library!

Out of all of the "I Can Read" books, those Berenstain Bear books were the ones that attracted me more than any Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham stuff. In fact, some of my earliest Children's Book memories are of having "Old Hat New Hat" and "Bears On Wheels" read to me. As I recall, these were part of a gift subscription an Aunt got for us, and I remember just sitting there soaking in the illustrations- Just mesmerizing to this impressionable youngster!

Taking out these books again to scan some of them for this post has got me all nostalgic again..the visuals these books have are so endearing to me...just looking at all the colorfully depicted hats in Old Hat New Hat sparks long forgotten feelings tucked away in the back of my mind, like a return to childhood!

A Mark and Brian Christmas: "The Polar Express"

More Classic Gems from Mark and Brian Christmas Past!

One year, Mark and Brian were talking about the awesome Christmas story THE POLAR EXPRESS by Chris Van Allsburg, and they were hoping to get their commentator Chuck Moshontz (who had a wonderful narrative voice) to read the book one morning before Christmas. He happily agreed, and after a week or so of preparing, they got him to sit down and read through the whole book, accompanied by some beautiful background music chosen by "Young" Anthony  just for the occasion!

 Well, it was an overwhelming success, and I came prepared and made sure I got the whole thing on cassette tape. Good thing too, because I had to make copies of that reading for many, many friends, and it occurred to me that it would be great to share it with other Mark and Brian fans out there who either haven’t heard it before or have special memories of hearing it on that incredible broadcast!

It was because of this reading that I eventually purchased my own copy of the Allsburg book, and although I scanned the pages to accompany the clip, in the end, the best way to enjoy this is the way I heard it that morning- Just close your eyes and listen to Chuck reading the story, and your own imagination will supply all the pictures you need!

A Harrowing Dinosaur Experience

Like a lot of kids, I was absolutely nuts for dinosaurs when I was growing up, and my favorite book of them all was this one that I used to read at Liberty House whenever my mother went shopping there. I asked for it for my birthday that year, and once I got it it became my most prized possession!

Called simply DINOSAURS AND OTHER PREHISTORIC REPTILES, published in 1960 by Golden Press, and written by Jane Werner Watson with artwork by Rudolph F. Zallinger, this was one of the BEST-illustrated Dinosaur books out there. With the barrage of Dinosaur books available nowadays, it’s hard to believe, but back in the early 7o’s, there were but a HANDFUL of Dinosaur books any library had, and most of them were for little LITTLE kids,  accompanied with uninspired sketches or(even worse) cartoonish drawings. But that Golden Book of Dinosaurs- MAN, the artwork was just incredible, and even now as an adult the paintings just amaze me. So much realistic details, as befitting the master who created the "Age Of Reptiles"!!

Look at all the attention to the flora and fauna in this shot of Ornitholestes about to make goulash out of Archaeopterix. ..

…And this double page spread of a terrifying Allosaurus killing a poor defenseless Brontosaurus was my favorite shot of the entire book- I remember staring at this one for  HOURS, so moved by the illustration!  Note the camptosaurus in the back going “What, ME Worry?” Anyway…So I LOVED this book to death!

When I began first grade, my little brother was too young to go to class, but still had to come along when my mother took me to and from school. One day he said he was too tired to go with her to pick me up, so since we lived only a block away from the school, my mother thought it would be OK to leave him home for a few minutes.

When my mother picked me up and we got back home, we were presented with the image of my brother sitting on top of our refrigerator, where he’d climbed up to get at the bottle of Flintstone Vitamins (everyone loves those Flintstones Vitamins!) which were in a basket up there, supposedly away from children’s reach.

To my mother’s horror, my brother had eaten almost on third of the bottle, and immediately called out family doctor to ask what to do. He had my mother pick up some  medicine which would make my brother throw the whole thing up . She administered the stuff to him, but as the results weren’t immediate, he killed time by reading some of our kid books. You can see where this is going.

When I happened to come into the living room, I realize he was reading MY Dinosaur Book- but before I could protest and take it away from him, he paused for dramatic effect and then emptied the entire contents of delicious Flintstone Vitamins from his stomach...and ALL OVER my beloved BOOK!

I remember jumping up and down yelling ARGHHHH! HE BARFED ON MY DINOSAUR BOOOOOOOK! To which my Mom said, "Don’t yell, he couldn’t help it.” I asked “what about my book!” to which she curtly said, You have to throw it away. THROW IT AWAY!!! With tears in my eyes I surveyed the damage- vomit all over the open book on the floor! I was SOOOO fricking traumatized, to this day, I can still remember EXACTLY which PAGE he barfed on, this gatefold with Iguanadon and Trachodon:

 Well, Luckily for me, my birthday was coming up, so I was able to get myself a replacement Book, and was so relieved I didn’t even think about what a rip-off it was that I had to blow a birthday gift on a book I already had! You best believe I guarded that copy with my life, and though It’s falling abaprt and bound with scotch tape throughout, I still own that book as part of my childhood treasures!

PS: At the time, the only other Dinosaur Book  out there that could compare was the equally stunning (though black and white) illustrations in the DINOSAURS AND MORE DINOSAURS (1965) book by M. Jean Craig and painted by George Solonevich. 

A few years later, another amazing book called ALBUM of DINOSAURS (1972) by Tom McGowan and Illos by Rod Ruth came out, and those were pretty much my “BIG THREE” of Dinosaur Books growing up!