When you visit antique shops looking for buttons, which I did in St.
Louis, you’re bound to trip across some books even when that’s not
your search object.
I found a strange assortment you might think. The little magazines
are for my grandchildren (and me). When I was growing up, I loved
reading “Jack and Jill” magazine. That, and Wee Wisdom, were
welcome arrivals in the mail. When I was little I once submitted a
story to Jack and Jill, but it wasn’t accepted (imagine!) These issues
are dated 1951-1955.
There was always an easy-read favorite page with:
from Jack and Jill magazine
(click to enlarge)
and a lot of stories and puzzles and riddles. Usually, almost always,
one of the stories was a “foreign” story, taking place in some exotic
country. I ignored those. Sometimes the stories were continued in
the next issue—hard to wait a whole month to find out the ending.
Two of these little magazines have a play written out and I think my
granddaughters will enjoy taking parts and pretending.
I laughed when I saw that for activities, there was a GIRLS page and
a BOYS page:
from Jack and Jill magazine
The girls were to make a “silver chain” from aluminum foil; “spool shakers”
from empty thread spools; and “button poppets” from buttons and pipe
cleaners.
The boys, in the meantime, got to do a “trick with light”; make an “indoor
garden”; and a “paper-plate snake.”
Well, anyway, for the real books, I bought a clean as a whistle Heritage Club
collector edition of David Copperfield in a slipcase. The illustrator is John
Austen. I don’t care for the illustrations—is this how you picture David
and Dora?
illustration by John Austen in David Copperfield.
But I agree with the publisher that the pages are nice in these editions:
lightweight and creamy and pleasant on the eye . . .
And “Pipefuls” by Christopher Morley. This is a collection of short pieces
written when he had a column for The New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia
Evening Public Ledger. This illustrator is Walt Jack Duncan. Printed in 1920.
Maybe a first edition. Morley is kind of fun to read, and there’s a large section
where he compares “two cities”—-that is, New York and Philadelphia.
illustration by Walter Jack Duncan for Pipefuls by Christopher Morley
You probably are guessing that I’ll read “X-Man” first, but that’s a
surprise for my grandson.
