picture books – Page 2

Picture Book Roundup: letters, numbers, and apostrophes

I’ve missed doing picture book roundups, and I don’t think I’ve done a proper one yet this year so here’s a bunch of picture books I’ve enjoyed recently: Stephen T. Johnson’s Alphabet City, its companion book City By Numbers, and The Girl’s Like Spaghetti (Why, you can’t manage without apostrophes!) by Lynne Truss (illustrated by Bonnie Timmons).

The books were shamelessly scavenged, as usual — I’d been wanting a copy of Alphabet City for a long time and finally got it via BookMooch, and shortly after found a copy of City By Numbers for a very cheap P40 (less than $1) at a bargain bookstore. Then a few weeks back, I found Girl’s Like Spaghetti for P35! Wonderful additions to my ragtag picture book collection, none of which I buy brand new or full-priced, tee hee hee.

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Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey is one of my favorite writer-illustrators. I love his lyrical and wickedly macabre stories — like a twisted Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll) and his equally macabre pen and ink illustrations!

I’ve blogged about acouple books of his in the past — Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (illustrations) and The Curious Sofa (story and illustrations), and I’ve got a couple more to show you in this post: The Iron Tonic and the pop-up book The Dwindling Party, both rummaged in bargain bins in two separate occasions, at P20 (US$0.5) and P95 (around US$2) respectively.

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Vintage Parade! (Picture Book Roundup #9)

vintage

It’s been months since my last picture book roundup, and I miss doing it, even though it takes a bit longer to put one together. I love picture books and have a growing collection of them, because buying them doesn’t make me feel guilty about adding to my TBR (hehehe!)

So far I’ve done eight picture book roundups this year (here they are if you want to check them out: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and a special on The Three Little Pigs), and I’m aiming for at least ten for this year, so here’s another one.

Today’s roundup covers some vintage picture books I’ve acquired lately: An ABC of Children’s Names by Doris and Mary Ewen (facsimile of the Oxford edition); The Real Mother Goose (75th Anniversary Edition); Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine by Evaline Ness; Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag; and Curious George by H.A. Rey (books #145-149 for 2009).

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Reading in the 21st century

Reading never goes out of style, even in the age of technology.

In the August 1894 issue of Scribner’s magazine, an article by Octave Uzanne, predicted “The End of Books,” proposing that in the 20^th century, the printed page will be replaced by “storyographs,” patented cylinders containing recordings of books, and writers replaced by “Narrators” that read stories aloud for the recordings. Uzanne imagines today’s libraries transformed into “phonographotecks” or “phonostereoteks,” repositories for the “storyographs.” He also imagined portable players that he called “pocket phono-opera-graphs.”

While Uzanne’s predictions almost accurately cover audiobooks, ebooks, mp3 players, and personal ebook readers, he was wrong on one count: the introduction of these technologies did not herald the end of books, but rather gives the 21^st century person new ways to enjoy the printed page, enhancing the reading experience for the page-turner.

The Manila International Book Fair lists the top reading technologies, proving just how relevant reading still is in the 21^st century.

As the Manila International Book Fair, the paramount event of the Philippine book industry, marks its 30^th anniversary this year on Sept 16-20 at the SMX Convention Center, it once again welcomes book lovers to celebrate it celebrates the written word in all its forms.

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Bedside Reading (Picture Book Roundup #7)

beds
I’ve been missing in action this week because I’ve just gone through an AH1N1 scare. Well, it didn’t turn out to be AH1N1 but I can’t say fortunately — I’m on the last legs of a very nasty bout of upper respiratory tract infection that has kept me in bed for days.

I haven’t been able to read much in this time, as I had fever for four days, and after that my mom gave me this vitamin that makes me fall asleep in three seconds flat and then makes me eat like a hungry bear. And she’s afraid I’ll strain my eyes if I read too much or use the computer (hence I am sneaking this in while she is off at the drugstore).

Picture books were a great comfort to me when I was sick as a kid, and guess what – it still works! I read The Travels of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff; Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich by Adam Rex; and Mr. Peabody’s Apples by Madonna, illus. by Loren Long (books #102-104 of 2009).

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