Books! - by Murray McCain (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

BOOKS! by Murray McCain and John Alcorn, the beloved classic children's book originally published in 1962, is now re-released for the first time in a new large format.

This 1962 New York Times book of the year is beloved for its charming hand-drawn illustrations, inventive typography, and sweet homage to the very nature of books themselves. The author and illustrator celebrate the importance of books in our everyday lives, through words and graphics that are all beautifully designed and printed with fluorescent inks.

This sweet and nostalgic book shares the wonder of language, stories, and imagination that young children can discover through the joy of reading. In our digital age, a treasure like BOOKS! reminds us of how irreplaceable they truly are. This classic example of hand-drawn, mid-century graphic design is sure to find renewed interest in a new generation of young readers.

From original jacket copy:
""This is a one-of-a-kind: A wonderful book for children and grownups about Books, how books are made, what they do, what people do with them. It is called Books! Flip through it and you will see why it is likely to turn children into book lovers and parents into Books! lovers. Get Books! Keep Books! Give Books!""

Review Quotes

"Celebrate the dazzling spectacle of reading, writing, and designing in this vaudeville romp that explores the outside, inside, intellectual side, and imaginative side of those friends we call books. Antique-style fonts and warm-toned illustrations elucidate definitions and expose the possibilities found in the world of books. From history to fantasy to guidebooks, from Jabberwocky to ""once upon a time"" to goats, this book, imbued with ecstatic enthusiasm, has it all." --ForeWord Reviews

"Books!" is a fantastic, fun, embellished and color illustrated book for children about, books! The definition is varied and complete, with side definitions of letters, words, punctuation, and the value of knowledge. The joy of page turning, deciphering images and words, and exploration of new worlds through books is vibrantly demonstrated. Fancy type with gold and pink highlighting make exciting statements about all the fun of books, finding them, reading them, sharing them, borrowing them, giving them, and keeping them." --Midwest Book Review

"Half a century later, it has been reissued in a beautiful new edition that does justice to the vision and integrity of the original -- a pleasure to both hold and behold, and a timeless, ever-timely celebration of books as bastions of the human spirit. --Brain Pickings

About the Author

Illustrator John Alcorn worked as a commercial artist and designer for Esquire, Push Pin Studios, and CBS Inc., and illustrated numerous children's books in the 1960s and '70s.