A look at Books!

I love old books. I can't pass up a chance to look through the "discard" rack at the library, which is where I found this treasure. It's a book called Books! by Murray McCain and John Alcorn, published in 1962.
My copy was free, and understandably, the dust jacket has seen better days.

The inside flaps tell you what you're getting into.

The contents of the book are a beautiful jumble of fonts and illustration styles, all in hot pink, red, and a sort of mustardy brown. And it is all about books, and how wonderful they are. This speaks to me.

The next few pages describe the physical attributes of a book: paper, binding, thread, glue, dust jacket. Also, they can come in all shapes and sizes, but, "Most books are just right for holding." And then:

There are books about all sorts of topics, and books that help teach you things, and even books to color in.

First off, there are hard words, like "planetarium," "if," and "Paderewski." Then, there are:

(How much do I love that two of the "words to think about" are "manhood" and "the President"? A whole lot.)

This page starts off a few pages about letters, which form words, and punctuation. "Put them all together, and you get books!" After listing a few more ideas about what books can do — that some books are about things that happened a hundred years ago, and some books are about things that may happen the day after tomorrow — we close with:

Thank you Books! for celebrating what I love about books! And, hooray for library discards!
xo