Are you an Abecedarian?

 From Word of the Day / Dictionary.com

ABECEDARIAN:

noun:

1.One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner.

2.One engaged in teaching the alphabet.

adjective:

1.Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.

2.Arranged alphabetically.

3.Rudimentary; elementary.

By the way, if you're fascinated by words, you can get the word of the day sent to your email address -- and learn a new word each day (well, lots of them I already knew, but, it's always nice to have a refresher).

In the case of book selling, Abecedarian generally has come to mean someone who collects books about the alphabet -- especially children's picture books with alphabets in them.

I have been trying to find more alphabet books lately for a customer who collects them -- and in the process of noticing more Alphabet books, I find that I really like them.

I have a few recent additions to my stock of Alphabet books

illustrated by Alan James Robinson, this book is filled with pictures of all sorts of wonderful birds, with little quips or interesting facts about them (in alphabetical order, of course)

this one lists all sorts of gardener's stuff including greenhouse, Japanese garden, and xeriscape)

this one takes the alphabet and turns it into a word game featuring outlandish alliterations.

And this one takes some of Norman Rockwell's best loved illustrations and turns them into an ABC book -- with the help of author George Mendoza -- in honor of the Bicentennial of the United States.

I have more alphabet books in stock, but this group came in about the same time this week and I liked them enough to show them off.

Field Trip Number Two in two days...

Well -- The thing in the middle of the picture is an Australian Skink (on the small side). The fuzzy stuff at the bottom of the picture is someone's hair and then there's the pair of knees at the top of the picture.

This is one of the very few photos that came out (I keep telling you, my skills with the camera are shaky at best) of the first part of a two part field trip last Friday. We visited a local natural history museum where there were mock-ups of different California habitats (with real stuffed animals staring nose to nose at you -- including a full sized Puma / Mountain Lion / Cougar..).

The second portion of the trip was a nature walk in a semi-local State park with a guide. It was GREAT! Unfortunately, many of the kids were either unimpressed or spent their entire time worring about dirt getting on them. Rather sad. Most of the parents enjoyed it, and number two son (who had come last year to the same park with the same guide for a walk for cub scouts) was having a great time getting more detail than he had absorbed last time. Too cool.

Yesterday I tried to get a picture of the large black carpenter Bee that was buzzing around the mock sweet pea (I think) bush in front of the house yesterday, but again.... my skills with a moving object...

here's the best shot:




The plant is the one with purple flowers. The bee.. well even as big as it is to my eye, you can hardly see it here... it's to the right of the plant and it's the black flapping thing on the underside of one of the flowers. Boy do I wish I had a real camera with a telephoto lens and some real skills. Nice plant though.

Yesterday was supposed to be a finishing day to get the books covered and boxed for the Book Fair this coming weekend. Well, I spent two hours covering, but not boxing and the bookcases which were supposed to come down & get stacked ready for the van haven't been. I'll try and get some more done after this. Right now I'm sending out my monthly newsletter with a note about the fair. Probably way too late, but that's the way it's going around here this month.

Hopefully, I'll spend more time tomorrow boxing and preparing than trying to enter new books into the database. At least, that's what I NEED to be doing.

Now it's off to baseball.

Buck Euchre.... a game for swingers!

You can't really see it well from this picture, but the group around the card table are all dressed in their....

birthday suits.

Yup, this is one swinging book from the 1970's where playing games is SO MUCH FUN because everone is Nekkid!

Or.... everyone is GOING TO BE Nekkid sooner or later...and of course that leads to other fun.

(in groups, no less).

How 70's can you get.

The heart of the book is a game manual on the specifics of Euchre, an offshoot / variation on the card game Bridge.

But lo, this book is not written in tech speak and diagrams (like those you see in the newspaper....actually, come to think of it, I haven't seen Omar Sharif's bridge column in a while ... maybe that sort of thing is long gone).

At any rate, no, this is not tech speak but a fictional dialogue (probably not Platonic) between players as they....enjoy.... the game.

Here's part of the flap blurb:

"Just what is buck euchre? A card game for four participants, similar to bridge, and somewhat more exciting! But this is no mere description of the game. This is an entertaining - and rather quite bawdy - learning experience! The book's format is most unusual. The game is explained in a dialogue between two characters whose risque humor helps to make the game come alive."

I couldn't help myself.

I had to post it.

Enjoy.