Tuesday ramblings

Let's start off with some book stuff this time.

Above, you'll see a picture book (this one has a Japanese title -- which translates as : My Journey) illustrated by Mitsumasa Anno.  This illustrator is justly famous for his wonderfully, intricately illustrated picture books. Most of these picture books are books without words. Which means, basically, that the ENTIRE story is shown in pictures.

Not an easy thing to do.

Mitsumasa Anno has illustrated more than 50 books in his career to date and the majority of those books are books without words.  Just now, in looking him up on Wikipedia here-  Mitsumasa Anno, I found out that he attended the Yamaguchi Teacher Training College in 1948 and became a teacher for a number of years.  This explains a LOT about the illustrations and the types of books he has published.

I wish I had a picture of some of the math books he's done -- I've HAD copies, but currently don't have any jpgs or copies available.

The thing is, when you actually take a close look at the contents of his books, you could spend HOURS just picking out the details.

Here's another example:

This book, along with the one shown above is one of three books I have left in stock by Anno.  Over the years I've seen many of his titles -- but they tend to sell as quickly as I can get them in. (However, I do have two copies of this particular book).


If you've never had the chance to look closely at one of Mitsumasa Anno's books -- do so.  And remember to pay close attention to the details. They're small, but they're worth the effort.

And now -- onto a few books just recently added to the database:

This is the second book in the Wolves of Willoughby Chase Series by Joan Aiken.  A wonderful read.

Introduced by Princess Grace of Monaco, with poems by Fleur Cowles, the book is illustrated by the subtle and beautiful artwork of Robert Vavra.

Here's one you wouldn't expect (though I do have a customer who is always looking for children's books by Adult, Modern Fiction (well respected) authors--

the book is a tale about cooperation and outer space by Umberto Eco (yeah, the guy who wrote The Name of the Rose!) with illustrations by Eugenio Carmi.

All three of these books, along with others (yippee!  I got some data entry done!) were added to my database today & should be available on my website by tomorrow (if not sooner).

And here's hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to add a bunch more.  

I need NEW STOCK to take to the Book Fair in Sacramento, so I need to get cracking with the data entry.

In other news -- last evening, the Webelos scouts started work on their Engineer pin --  who was to know that building bridges.... which seemed like a relatively easy task in the planning stage... turned into a rather difficult task in actuality.

Three of the boys seemed to have a clue (well, two got it this time, the third is a transfer second year Webelos who did the pin last year and just participated this time).  A couple of other boys started to make sense of it. Two of them didn't get it at all.

However, a goodly amount of pipe cleaners and drinking straws were turned into all sorts of things (including items to chew on, and to spit at each other as missiles).

Next up -- catapults out of shoe boxes with marshmallows as ballast.  We'll see if it works.