Nat's mom bestowed upon us a couple of lovely little treasures, the Book of Trees and Wild Animals of North America. Both are diminutive in size, the latter no bigger than a postcard, and the bindings have begun to crumble away, revealing old stitches and yellowing glue. A (rather naughty) boy named Phillip William Knight was presumably the original recipient of these two teensy tomes; he has scribbled over more than half of the pages in Wild Animals, including the (now faded) color illustrations, but thankfully left the nicer color plates in the Book of Trees untouched.
The Book of Trees appears to have been published in 1939, and features such informative tidbits as: How a Twig Grows, Cross Section of a Leaf, How Fruit Trees are Grafted, and White Pine Board (showing grain).
Front and back covers:
Inside pages:
(i chose the paper birch for you guys because it is maybe my favorite tree. When i was a kid i would collect the catkins and sprinkle them as fairy dust into my multitudinous potions.)
Wild Animals of North America is much more basic, but no less enthralling. i can't find out when this one was published, but if you ever needed a basic run-down on the Ocelot, Marten, Chipmunk or Alaskan Fur Seal, this is your go-to guide.
(i decided upon the musk-ox here because, well, just look at the drawing! Outstanding.)
We can forgive them their mouldy odors because it is so stirring to imagine all of the eager pairs of eyes that have pored through their pages. Young, impressionable brains, hungry for knowledge, back in a time when the natural world was more revered than it is today. i only wish we had kept sacred much more of that respect, but one can always hope for a resurgence?
('scuse the weird image-editing. i'm not so great at this yet.)
