I love Richard Scarry’s stuff. One of the most favorite books I had growing up was the “Richard Scarry’s Best Rainy Day Book Ever” which kept me endlessly occupied for a good many years with things to color, cut out, put together, and who knows what else.
A photo set recently popped up on Flickr comparing the differences between the 1963 and 1991 editions of Scarry’s “Best Word Book Ever”, including omissions of references to cowboys and indians, gender-specific names such as “mailman” and “stewardess”, and antiquated things such as an old fashioned stove, milkmen, and train conductors. “Beautiful screaming lady” becomes “Cat in danger” and the “handsome pilot” becomes, quite simply, “pilot”.
See all this and more at The Best Word Book Ever, 1963 and 1991 on Flickr.
One Comment
eric, i cannot believe you had the richard scarry books! i was relatively obsessed with them growing up. i can’t recall which book it was in, but one of his little bunnies was depicted being served strawberry icecream in the hospital because she had just had her tonsils taken out. i thought the icecream looked pretty enticing and begged my mom to get my tonsils taken out too. surprisingly, she would have none of it.
yes. um, the end.
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