Babies and books… you just can’t have too many

I have a weakness. A weakness that thrives at yard sales and thrift stores. A weakness that thrives on the smell of musty attics. A weakness that is firmly entrenched in the glory days of literature old. My weakness is antique books. And, antique children’s books make my knees go weak and my forehead break out in a cold sweat. Sounds like the flu, doesn’t it?

Oh, it’s not the flu, my friends. It is book fever and I found the cure (or the cause… I can’t be sure) this weekend at an estate sale. Thanks to a tip from the best mother-in-law EVER, I ventured out to an estate sale that promised a few old books. I like old books. She knows this about me. She also told me this was the last weekend of the sale and that it had been underway for two previous weekends. Since it was the last weekend, the books were all marked one dollar, picture books fifty cents. I couldn’t pass that up so I headed out bright and early yesterday morning.

I assumed there probably weren’t many books left so I decided to take ten dollars cash with me.

I am so naive.

When I arrived at the unassuming house, I hiked down a steep driveway (which would come back to haunt my quads 24 hours later) and entered what some might call a garage/basement room. I prefer to call it paradise.

Surrounding me on all sides were books. Old books. Books in varying forms of immaculate condition. Rare out of print books I’ve only dreamed of owning. Many books I already own via a three digit pricetag off eBay and an even bigger shipping rate from England. I bought those anyway. I’m starting a library for each of my children to take with them when they leave me and start their own families. It’s never too early to start educating my grandchildren.

Inside the pages of these books read by children long ago, I found treasures like this note from a brother about his sister. (click to enlarge) I added the words so you can see the funny poem he wrote and the glee at the thought of Teacher whipping poor Dorothy.

This note was written in 1926. Little brothers haven’t changed much in the last 84 years.

Dorothy received the book as a gift 84 years ago from what must have been her teacher. Maybe she was a teacher’s favorite and that inspired the drawing above. It’s delightful to speculate!

In the thousands… and I’m not even exaggerating this time… of books, I found a 1st edition Henty!

I found a D’Aulaire book I didn’t have, The Magic Meadow from 1959. I found two Holling C. Holling books, The Book of Indians and Tree in the Trail. I found vintage picture books. I found ghost stories.  Children’s ghost stories were all the rage in the 1930s. I also found some books that would not pass the test of political correctness. Wow to some of those. It’s so much fun to peek into the collective mindset from the 1800s on up.

Family life, the role of men and women, Thanksgiving books that still tell us that the Separatists were fleeing religious persecution in search of the freedom to worship the Lord. And, they called Him Lord. Refreshing!

Textbooks, readers and spellers from the 1800s. I would say the average 8th grader couldn’t spell the words in The Elementary Spelling Book being An Improvement on the American Spelling Book published in 1848.. Quite a book!

Words like caricature, estuary, spirituous, equivocate, and lixivial. Were YOU spelling those words in the primary grades?

There is even a picture book in French and English. All these filled the boxes that I then hoisted up that super steep, super long driveway. Four loads worth. My thighs are angry with me. Every time I attempt to move them, they attack and threaten to throw me to the floor in protest.

So what did I do? I took my sore thighs back to the book sale today. Oh yes I did. Guess what I found? This one is for Cindy…

A 1900 printing of The Mother Tongue II by Kittredge & Arnold among, ahem, a few other things. All afternoon I’ve been looking for Mr. P so I can tell him how many more shelves I need him to build in my schoolroom.

He dearly loves it when I find a book sale.  I can’t imagine why I can’t seem to find him.