Collectible Children’s Books

At Friends’ Book Sale

In addition to hundreds of collectible books written for adults, this year the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library has also received valuable children’s books, which will be available for sale in the Specials Collection room during the July 9–13 book sale at Reed Intermediate School.

The books include those valued for the illustrations, as well as those collected for author value or literary value.

Special children’s books include an unusual manuscript by noted literary historian Chip Boutell, said Mr Renjilian. Shrimp, The Story of a Little Submarine consists of two typescripts of an apparently finished children’s book by Mr Boutell. “Both are in ‘dummy’ format, with space left for illustration and the text worked around the space,” Mr Renjilian said. “However, there is no evidence to suggest who the planned illustrator might be, or if the images existed at that point in time. Both are housed in three-ring notebooks, one with obverse-reverse pages in plastic sleeves, one with the pages taped together. Boutell has covered his original name and address information with a paste-over, the newer version using a zip code, the older has none,” he noted. The notebooks, in very good condition overall, are priced at $250.

Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers, by John Burroughs, was published in 1900 by Houghton Mifflin. The book has color illustrations, a contemporary gift inscription, and embossed pictorial cover.

A 1986 edition of Favorite Nursery Tales by Tomie DePaola is inscribed by the author/illustrator and will be sold with a Children’s Theatre Company program, 19 September–8 November 1986, with dePaola’s Strega Nona on the cover, for $30.

The Sunbonnet Babies’ Book, circa 1902, by Eulalie Osgood Grover, illustrations by Bertha Corbett; Nessie the Mannerless Monster, 1964, by Ted Hughes, illustrated by Gerald Rose; The Fairy Alphabet As Used By Merlin, 1933, written and illustrated by E. MacKinstry; an author-inscribed copy of Sammy the Sparrow Fast and Fastest, 2003, by Valerie Nichols, with illustrations by Margie Segress; and Shirley Temple’s Bedtime Book, 1962, with illustrations by JP Miller are just a few of the other choice children’s selections collectors will find at the book sale, according to Mr Renjilian.