while i was visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago, i went through their kiddie bookshelf to choose a story to read little d before her nap. she picked one of her old faves [good night moon], but i was totally excited to come across these fun picture books from when i was little. i had forgotten about them completely, and had a great time flipping through them with o, making up stories, thinking back to my childhood.
'in the town' [above] and 'in the home' [below] fold out to create a scene with four flip panels of sweet illustrations to create your own story. what fun! like a choose your own adventure picture book.
the home version is particularly funny to me, as the images portray a lot of stereotypical roles in the family [these were published in the 70s]. mom wears an apron as she cooks, vacuums, irons, and tidies the pantry, while dad shovels dirt in the yard, paints the door trim, and smokes his pipe by the fireplace. my favourite panel is when the milkman shows up at the door. he looks pretty excited to be there.
the other fun picture book i found was 'a shufflebook', produced by golden books. it's a large deck of cards, printed with funny pictures on each side and a verb or noun written above, so that you can make your own story. the words don't flow together all that well, but the idea is great, and i think this is a fun way for kids to start creating their own stories. i plan on getting some hard cover blank books to encourage o to write some stories with me this summer.
i really love the wizard. he's all psychedelic + fantastical, with a tiny bit of evil thrown in for good measure. and i love that 'my mother' is wearing the most styling super-short mod dress. nice!
