By: David Elzey,
on 4/8/2011
by Helen Palmer with photographs by Lynn Fayman Beginner Books / Random House 1963 One tow-headed boy's laundry list of what he intends to do includes a good deal of eating and pretty large amount of time hanging out with the Marines. Includes gun play. This is perhaps Palmer and Fayman's finest collaboration and also it's most incendiary by modern standards. A boy – let's call him Timmy
By: David Elzey,
on 4/6/2011
by Helen Palmer with photographs by Lynn Fayman Beginner Books / Random House 1962 A group of kids go to the zoo and do things no kid would ever be allowed to do, setting up some false expectations and perhaps forever ruining the notion of zoos to children forever. "What would you do if you went to the zoo?" is the question posed to a number of children. One would want to play with a baby
By: David Elzey,
on 4/4/2011
by Helen Palmer with photographs by Lynn Fayman Random House / Beginner Books 1964 A boy trades up from a turtle to increasing larger pets, building and modifying homes for them, until finally he has a house big enough for a Boogle. (What's a Boogle?) It starts with a turtle, a pet this boy has always wanted. He builds a house for it to live in out of wood. The next day the turtle has run
This same author-photographer team also produced <a href="http://ozandends.blogspot.com/2008/08/simpler-times.html" rel="nofollow"><i>Do You Know What I'm Going to Do Next Saturday?</i></a>, an even more outlandish book, using the same technique of staged photos. And the result is just as out of synch with our time.<br /><br />Incidentally, Helen Palmer was Mrs. Seuss.
i'll be getting to SATURDAY on friday...