More Christmas stuff - and slogging through the boxes from the book fairs

Some of the holiday books I pulled out of boxes are just too .... cute ...
for words.

The Santa book above is for tiny kids new to the season -- it's a touchy-feely book (with an added scratch-n-sniff patch too!) that a little kid sitting in the back of the car can play with to his (or her) heart's content.  I had to spend a bit of time playing with it myself to make sure everything was A-ok (yup it is - AND the scratch-n-sniff works wonderfully too)

This book is filled with stickers that can be torn out and added to the story (also a great back seat of the car activity book for somewhat older children who are on their way to a relative's house for Thanksgiving).  This is the sort of book that would have amused me for about five minutes when I was little, but these days, I find them quite endearing and wish that I HAD had them for myself when I was young.

Other than that, I actually slogged through two boxes of books which returned with me from the book fairs -- I checked to see which were listed with FULL details and which had pictures... then which were listed online or not (all one slick process for the most part). I have one medium sized pile of books that need pictures, but the descriptions should all be there and then they go back on the shelves for another year.

This is REAL progress!

Hopefully it will continue.

Now if I could just get enough time to do the tax stuff too....

Christmas stuff - and data entry

Last week - I don't know if I mentioned it or not - but I spent TWO DAYS going through boxes of books that haven't made it to the database yet. I was looking for a couple of books that I thought I had so I could quote them to customers (turned out I didn't), however, in the process, I found a small bunch of Christmas books.

Every year I mean to put all seasonal books in separate boxes and enter them into the database BEFORE the season is over -- you know, to SELL the darned things -- so I pulled these out and put them in the TO DO NOW pile.  Which means clean, get pictures taken, then enter the darned things.

This isn't ALL the Christmas books I found, but a few of the cute ones that I've entered into the database so far. I do have more (and keep finding more when I go out hunting! BAD ME!)

So I thought I'd put up a few pictures for you.  ALL OF THESE ARE AVAILABLE (as of this writing).

This particular book -- The Christmas Spider is a book that's been hanging around our house for a number of years -- it's got some wonderful craft designs, etc. from Poland. My mother got this to check out the paper cutting artwork and how to do it.  We tried it a couple of times -- I might still have a box with some decorations on it, but I am truly one of the NON- Arts & Crafts creative types. My designs are sad and copyish....and... did I say sad already?

I like many of the Christmas books for children that are available. I know it's a subject that  gets DONE TO DEATH, but sometimes, good authors and illustrators can add special meaning to the Christmas experience.  Russell Hoban seems to have that knack.

Other than answer a stupid, LONG customer phone survey this morning, these books were where I spent my time today.  After this, I need to work on the DREADED TAXES (dreaded taxes, dreaded taxes...echoes off in my head) and then it's work on unpacking more boxes from September's book fairs, clean, fix dinner and do soccer practice.

I know it's a bit early for the Christmas spirit overload, but if I don't get these books listed NOW, it ain't gonna happen!

A Firefly in a Fir Tree.... la la la....

Last weekend, I went book hunting and while others (it was a friends of the library book sale) were rather frantically scouring through piles of books (lots of ex library copies), I happened to glance down on one of the tables & see the above listed little slipcased set.

Here's a better view of the front:



Well, a better view of the front of the box and the four tiny books that go inside...

This is the Christmas Nutshell Library set illustrated by Hilary Knight (best known for his work on the Eloise books by Kay Thompson. There are other Nutshell Library sets (Maurice Sendak's version is VERY collectable, but there's another that I found by Robert Kraus... so far, those three are the only sets in THIS version of the Nutshell Library. I'll update this if I find others).

I love this set. I haven't seen one of the Hilary Knight versions before (in fact, there seem to be less of them available than the Sendak set, but that's likely because this set was never reprinted & Sendak's was). All the illustrations are by Knight & show the delicate, humorous style he is famous for. In fact, slipcase cover at the top of this post shows a little girl who looks a LOT like Eloise...

Here's one of the books:


And another:




Though I've always primarily thought of myself as a Science Fiction / Fantasy dealer, my luck at finding collectable children's books has grown and I seem to be wending my way more down that path...

I love this set. It's darling. It's funny. It's miniature. It's cool. It's collectable. It's the best find from a friend's sale in a while.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.