Little Golden Book Monday #77

Today's little Golden Book is yet another of my thrift shop purchases from two weekends ago. It's a copy of Disney's The Little Mermaid based on 1989's Disney movie of the same name. which was the twenty-eighth Disney animated feature.
I chose this one as today's selection for 3 reasons;
1) It is a Disney related book, which I always love adding to my collection. It fits into two of my collections; Little Golden Books & Disney merchandise... And it has a mermaid on the cover!
2) In the last edition of Little Golden Book Monday I showed the back cover of the Powerpuff Girls book, which I said was one I had not seen very often before. Here again we have pretty much the same back cover, but with a slight variation to the goldenbooks.com logo in the bottom right hand corner. I am guessing that this back cover was a usual sight on books from the late 80's and/or early 90's, and I just hadn't noticed it until recently.
3) And speaking of dates, this book is one of many that doesn't seem to display a printing date - at least not one that is easily found. I have gone online before looking for info on printing dates for Little Golden Books and have seen all kinds of info, none of which ever seems to help. Here is the inside front cover of this book, where the date should be, but as you can see there is not date to been seen. If anyone can enlighten me as to how to figure out when a book without a date was printed, I would be most appreciative!

Walt Disney World Pop Up Book

Here is the 1972 Walt Disney World with Mickey Mouse Hallmark Pop Up Book. This most recent copy of the book brings my collection of these to three. This one cost just 20 cents and is in very good condition with all of the pop up pieces still in tack and in working order.
Here is the text on the back cover: Mickey Mouse will take you through the pages of this pop-up edition. Along the way you will twirl in a magic teacup ride and visit a haunted mansion. You will submerge in the Submarine Nautilus and view the clouds from Cinderella's Castle. Colorful illustrations and a happy text make a Fun-Filled Visit To Walt Disney World the next best thing to being there.
Hallmark Children's Editions are created in consultation with Dr. Edith M. Dowley, Director of the Bing Nursery School, Stanford University. Every title has been tested to make certain of its interest. You can be sure that a Hallmark children's book will be a happy and healthy experience for young people.
Along with the cover, here are a few scans and photos including, the inside front cover with a pop up of the paddle wheeler that takes you to the entrance of WDW. There is a scan of the Monorial page which has a door you can "life" open to slide Mickey inside the Monorail. There is a scan of the Mad Tea Party where you can "pull" the tab to spin Mickey in his tea cup. And lastly a photo of the Jungle Cruise page which features a great 3D pop up of a Jungle Cruise boat being skippered by Mickey.

Little Golden Book Monday #76

Today's Little Golden Book is Cartoon Network's Powerpuff Girls: Big Terrible Trouble? The book is from 1999 and based on the popular Cartoon Network characters the Powerpuff Girls created by Craig McCraken, who is the creator of a bunch of cartoon characters including two of my favorites; 2 Stupid Dogs and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, both of which are hilariously funny and worth checking out if you have not already. This book is a "Special collector's edition!", or at least that is what is says on the front cover. I don't really see anything that makes this a collectors issue, unless they mean the special shape of the book!? What do I mean, well, when scanned the cover and saved it, I was a bit surprised that it seemed that I had not put it on the scanner straight, and I had to crop it a bit in Photoshop to get it looking square. When I opened the front cover to have a look at the date of the book, I realized that it was cut a bit strange. When I placed it against last weeks book "Bugs Bunny", I could easily see that the bottom of the book was cut on an angle, meaning that the book is not square. Does that make it a collector's item? I also wanted to point out the back cover of this book, as I'm not sure if I have seen this one before. It has Little Lulu and Underdog, two characters I have not seen in Little Golden Books before. I wonder if there are any Little Golden Books that actually feature these two characters? I'm not big fan of either of these two characters, but it would be fun to find them to add to the collection.

I've Been Working on the Railroad...

Here are two great train related records I picked up this weekend at the local thrift shop.
The first is "The Little Engine that Could" from RCA Victor on two 78 Long Play records and in a nice record jacket with artwork and words inside. The Little Engine that Could was one of the first books I gave to my son. I found a great old vintage copy of the book at a thrift shop and read it to him. He liked it so much that we bought him his own copy reproduction copy of the book for his bookshelf. I'm sure we'll have fun listening to this new version together as well.
I could not find a date anywhere on the jacket or albums, but my guess would be that it is from the 1940's. If you would like to take a listen to this one, you can surf over to Kiddie Records Weekly where they posted a great mp3 file of this recording as well as many more vintage kids records.
The second record is "Railroad Sounds - The Sounds of a Vanishing Era" from 1957. What we get here is literally 20+ minutes of clickety clack, clickety clack, whistle whistle, chug chug. I am going to guess that this wasn't a huge seller. Hard to imagine someone pulling this off the shelve and putting it on the turn table, turning up the volume and sitting back to listen to the sounds of trains.

Little Golden Book Monday #75

My son and I have been on a real Warner Brothers cartoon kick lately. It's really cool that my 3 year old would rather watch Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck over Diego, the Wiggles and Franklin when given the choice. He has moved on from Treehouse TV to TeleToon Retro, which is great as I love watching the old Warner Brothers cartoons with him!
In honor of our current Warner Brothers mania, today's Little Golden book is Bugs Bunny. I'm not sure of the print date of this edition, but the copyright is 1949. As is often the case, there doesn't seem to be a print date anywhere obvious in this book, but being as there is a UPC code on the front cover, its obvious that is is not an original 1949 edition.
Here is the text from the inside front page of the book: "This Little Golden Book tells of the pranks of Bugs Bunny, the gay Warner Bros. (Who knew?) mischief-maker who has so ofter delighted movie audiences. Bugs has appeared in four other Little Golden Books, Bugs Bunny's Birthday, Bugs Bunny and the Indians, Bugs Bunny at the Fair, and Bugs Bunny Gets a Job."
Pictured below is one of the two page spreads showing the interior artwork.