Wednesday 7 May 2008

A spot of thrifting

One of my favourite things to rifle through in an op-shop (thrift store) is the children's books. I often find gems that either I owned as a kid and no longer have, or books that I wished I had owned as a kid. Here are some favourites from last week:

The New Zealand ABC. Each letter includes pictures of uniquely NZ things. My favourite is K. If you look carefully on the cover you might also be able to spot a lamb and a takahe. I think this will be a favourite with visiting littlies.


Horrakapotchkin! A Ready-to-Read book. It's a bit like a school journal, with short fiction and true life stories from NZ authors plus a play or two. I remember reading out loud from this book when I was in J2 at Primary School (I think this is now called Year 2)
And lastly, my favourite of this bunch: the New Zealand girls' book of crafts, pets, sports and hobbies. This one falls squarely in the "I wish I had owned it" category. It was published in 1972 and looks like an early NZ version of the Daring Book for Girls. You can see a bigger version of the index here, but it contains information on (almost) everything a young girl in the 70s might want to know about, from astronomy to codes and ciphers to kites, paper mache, tadpole collecting and so on. I've included a picture of the fabric printing page below.

7 comments:

Josie said...

How fabulous! What a great haul! I love that ABC book, must keep an out for that for the children. And how gorgeous is that NZ hobbies book for girls!!

tash* said...

No way!! I remember that exact horrakapotchkin journal from primary school - doesn't it have a story about a band of travelling animals?
And i remember the ABC book too - it had beautiful illustrations...jealous!

sweetp said...

what a great find!

kimberlee said...

that NZ ABCs book is a classic!

Anonymous said...

My school library were throwing out the ABC book - I claimed it and colour photocopied the back of every page - laminated the lot. I have the best alphabet frieze in my classroom! K

Veronica said...

Great Books! Love all things Kiwiana!

Mary Nanna said...

We had a copy of that girls book in our house growing up. If my memory serves me accurately it had a section on cats. Once upon a time I longed for a cat - now I long to get rid of my "step cat" which came with my husband. I suppose as baggage goes I got off pretty lightly but it doesn't feel that way when pamper puss wants breakfast at 4 am.