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The early 20th Century saw the first of what can be considered the modern children’s picture book. The books were short, the words relatively few, and the illustrations advanced the story instead of merely illustrating the text. Whether it was Peter Rabbit squeezing himself under Mr. McGregor’s fence or poor Pooh being thumped on the stairs by Christopher Robin, the best of these books also reflected a change of viewpoint: the change from the vantage point of an adult to more of a child’s eye view of the world.

While it’s fairly easy to identify and value the children’s classics like Peter Rabbit or Winnie the Pooh and the ALA website is a good resource for Caldecott Award and Caldecott Honor Books, there are a large number of modern children’s illustrated books which are widely sought that can’t be quantified in terms of edition or merits of the art and text. These books are not usually being sought by traditional book collectors, they are being sought by non collectors looking to revisit, and usually pass on, a specific childhood moment. The one thing that is almost impossible to predict with children’s books is which books will resonate enough in a persons childhood to make it sought, sometimes frantically, when that person becomes and adult.

These books are in such demand, that even after 15 years as a children’s bookseller, I rarely, if ever, have handled any copies. The advent of the internet has made tracking down these books somewhat easier but that fact is usually offset by the large number of non traditional collectors looking for these titles. Two examples of books that I’ve had multiple requests for over that years, and that I’ve never had a copy of are: The Boy Who Ate Flowers by Nancy Sherman and illustrated by Nancy Carroll, and The Christmas Cookie Sprinkle Snitcher written by Robert Krauss and Illustrated by VIP.

And the conversation which is most dreaded by all out of print children’s booksellers everywhere usually starts with; “I’m looking for this book I had when I was little, I don’t remember the title or the author…..”

I wrote the following on my rants and rambles blog after an especially difficult day of hunting for unnamed books, (and probably after one too many glasses of wine).
A compendium:
“I remember a book I had when I was 4 or 5 or maybe 6
It was blue or green or maybe yellow
And had a picture of a duck or frog or puppy dog
The duck was lost but found his way home
The frog was bad but her family loved her anyway
And the puppy was hardly ever afraid of the dark or being alone
It’s gone now, lost when we moved
or in the basement flood of ‘78
or the garage sale the year I left for college…

That’s the book I want to buy, do you have it?”

Posted By Dana Richardson of Windy Hill Books

My television and HDR have been down for several weeks. I’ve barely missed them. In fact, during the day, I haven’t missed them at all, my rule against daytime TV being such that it is.

But I’ve missed three weeks’ of Saturday Night Live, Desperate Housewives, and America’s Next Top Model. It’s been horrible. At night, I’ve been doing housework instead of sitting on the couch with ice cream and entertainment. This is not my idea of a good evening (although I will say the laundry is caught up).

I finally got the big idea to catch up on these shows through their websites. NBC doesn’t provide full episodes of SNL, and the CW site didn’t stream well for me, but I did get all caught up on my Desperate Housewives Saturday and wouldn’t you know it—serendipity! Live TV worked Sunday night!

With great joy, I scooped my ice cream and moved to the couch, ready to be entertained. Instead, my housewives made me cry. [Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!] When Lynette found out she didn’t have cancer, she walked out to the back yard in shock. Just as she looked upward and you could feel that sense of unburdening, she spotted the dead animal in her yard. Dead from the poison she left out. (I really did like the symbolism earlier with the air rifle.) I couldn’t tell if the animal was the possum or a dog—my screen colors are not quite right. In the same episode, Bree’s daughter gave up her baby. Excellent acting, Joy Lauren (Danielle).

So then I watched Brothers and Sisters. I do not normally watch this show (it's good, BTW), but my TV is in the condition where one must actually rise from the couch, walk across the living room and manually—manually!—change the channel. I wanted to watch something funny but I didn’t feel like getting up. [Spoiler alert!] Calista Flockhart’s character had a miscarriage.

Ah, man! Not the note I wished to go to bed on. I will be so glad when my HDR is fixed and I can get comedy on demand. I’m hoping everything will be working by Thursday so I can watch 30 Rock live. If the next episode is as good as the ones on the website, I’ll be adding it to my HDR.

Word choice is so important. This post is not choppy--it's stream of consciousness. Here are the bits and pieces of my weekend:

I didn't feel like making an appointment at the salon, so I hacked my own hair. When I picked up my sister for church, she said, "Wow! Your hair looks really good today."

The new TV season starts soon! Parts of it have already started. I liked it better when I was a kid and all the new seasons started the exact same week. TV Guide would have a special edition introducing the new shows and making recommendations. It was exciting. Today's new season is so staggered, you really have no idea when you favorite show is going to start again.

Shows my HDR is set to record: Saturday Night Live (new episodes and old reruns), Desperate Housewives, and an open record for anything involving Bono and U2.

An alligator lives in a pond I pass every day. I know because I've seen him. But I did not see him today.

That's all folks. I start my new WIP this week.