I swear, it feels like I've posted about this before--maybe I just noticed or felt it when I picked up a pristine 1st edition of Richard Scarry's awesome pictionary, Best Word Book Ever a few years ago.
But DT reader Melissa is right, it's fascinating to see the little cultural tweaks between the 1963 and 1991 editions--the dad rabbit in the kitchen, the she-bear traffic cop, the fact that not all the black bears are maintenance workers or jazz musicians...
Best Word Book Ever photo set in kokogiak's flickr [flickr thnx dt reader melissa]
50% of the farmers are out of work.
oops. read it backwards.
farmer married a scarecrow.
I can't for my little guy to get to the age where he does not want to tear paper pages from books. I loved the Richard Scarry books growing up. My parents sold them at garage sales or gave them away years ago.
"Busy Busy World" is my favorite Scarry book. Why isn't it in print? Perhaps because it's chock-full of stereotypes. I wonder how an "updated" version would read.
The Richard Scarry books are amongst my son's favourites, especially the Best Word Book Ever. We just found a bilingual (German-English) version in Cologne, but I haven't had a chance yet to see how it varies from the English edition.
Also there's an updated kitchen -- granite countertops. Sadly, the bunny riding the tricycle is still lacking a crash helmet. :(
Do you mean recently? Because you posted about it November 28, 2005. I remember (ok, I had to look up the actual date) because I was checking out your Scarry posts somewhat recently & came across it. Great stuff then, great stuff now. Got my mom out scouring the church fairs for the original versions...
hah, yes that's it. thnx