shiny suitcase

friday finds - Fall Is Here

I'm starting a new column today! On Fridays I'll be sharing fun, interesting items I've come across in my wanderings, some bits and pieces of my collections or even ask another blogger to show some of their finds.

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I've been gathering vintage children's readers for many years. These are books used in elementary school and teach children to read, write, or explain scientific, social or health concepts. I love these books for their illustrations and for their simplicity as well as for their ability to capture and idealize a time period, especially the 1940's through the 1960's.

Today I've captured some pages from Fall Is Here by Bertha Morris Parker from 1948. It is from The Basic Science Education Series. The cover illustration above is by Florence McAnelly and the page illustrations are by Frederick E Seyfarth. This reader is clearly meant for very young students, probably kindergarten or first grade.

I absolutely adore the palette in these illustrations. The themometer page on the left in this spread shares a lot of color in common with my blog mood board.

I imagine this is an Indian Summer kind of fall day, a cool breeze with the warmth of the sun and the electric blue sky.

Some of the spot illustrations like these flowers are lovely just in themselves.

This spread is my favorite in the whole book. The energy and excitement in the left page is so familiar, the colors are well balanced with the cool blues, grays and greens against the warm reds, yellow and oranges. I think the right page is unique because so many depictions of Halloween are shown after the pumpkin is carved. You can see the science, social and health lessons here. "What's inside a pumpkin?" " What are the seeds for?"  "Have a grown-up use a knife." "Father's wearing an apron so he keeps his clothes neat and clean." Besides all of that heady stuff, I just 100% love both of these pages.

The book ends with the onset of Thanksgiving which, as I've grown older, has become quite a favorite holiday of mine. Although there are plenty of wild turkeys around, we've never wrecked havoc on a poor bird like these kids.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Find!

 

 

 

vintage cookbook meets retro kitchenaid

On the way back from a southeast Wisconsin trip for our anniversary we stopped in a few quaint towns to check out the main streets, sample goodies at their bakeries and coffee shops and poke around in a few antique stores. In Wonewoc, I found a nearly perfect 1950 first edition copy of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book.

The part of the book that makes it "nearly perfect" is also my favorite added feature. Petrine  (from Winona, Minn), the former owner, penciled in the date she baked each recipe and left little notes about the day.

Brownies - Made April 24 '54 (a rainy day)

It's like a lovely little diary. Brownies on a rainy April day in Winona sounds very nice.

Apparently, Petrine and I are both baking type ladies because there weren't many dinner or salad recipes with notes. In honor of this great find, I opted to try out my new Kitchenaid 90th Anniversary mixer on a vintage Snickerdoodles recipe.

It went really quite perfectly and I can't believe how well that machine works. It's so powerful I think you could make anvil cookies and it would go smashingly.  And I love watching the dough in the glass bowl. 

I added my own note to the picture cook book.

10/10/09 - first snow of the year and used new kitchenaid mixer!