Grease Fotonovel 1978 – Tell Me More, Tell Me More

Walking past David’s Bookshop, Letchworth Garden City, this afternoon I noticed this in the secondhand books trays outside. As Grease is in my Top-Ten-Desert-Island-Movies-best-ever-feel-good-watch-over-and-over list I had to pick it up.

Published by Fotonovel Publications in 1978. It’s by Allan Carr and based on the Grease screenplay by Bronte Woodard.

Originally $2.50 with a Futura Publications sticker £1.25. Dated Christmas 1978.

I don’t know about you, but I’m hopelessly devoted. It’s the whole film from before the opening credits to Sandy and Danny flying away, including song lyrics.

What did you do this summer, Sandy?

You sure got a lot to offer a girl

I got chills

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Wonderland Tales 1973

Wonderland Tales and Story-and-Picture Book. Published by Ideabooks 1973. Featuring artwork by Spanish illustrators Jesus, Alessandro and Adriano Blasco. According the blurb the brothers lived and worked together. You can see the slight differences in style through the panels, and I love the definite 70s aesthetic Alice has to her.

The book also features Gulliver’s Travels and The Golden Box as well as a couple of short stories, Shouting Stones and The Brave Young Shepherd

Willo The Wisp Annual 1985

Willo the Wisp Annual 1985, IPC Magazines © DN and PM Spargo 1982. Originally priced at £2.95. It’s completely clean but there is a single-sheet insert missing.

Willo the Wisp is a fantastic cartoon series, voiced by Kenneth Williams, that first aired in 1981. It features the denizens of Doyley Woods – including Willo the Wisp (the narrator), Mavis Cruet, the blue-haired fairy, Arthur the caterpillar and the wicked witch, Evil Edna. Go look for it on YouTube if you’ve never seen it – it’s a treat!

The incomparable Evil Edna

Astrognats game

Cut out models – there is a background scene later in the book

Hare and Hedgehog 1970

This is a Picture Grasshopper book. Retold by Euan Cooper Willis and illustrated by Horst Lemke. First published in paperback by Abelard-Schuman Ltd in 1973. It was originally 50p (which is what I paid for it in the Salvation Army charity shop the other week).

The story goes: the hare is very proud that he can run so fast and challenges the hedgehog to a race. Hedgehog wins by roping in his family – who all look like him – and hiding them at various points along the course, so the original hedgehog is only there at the beginning and the end.

I think the moral is meant to be ‘don’t show off’ or ‘pride comes before a fall’ or something. I always found these sorts of stories a bit suspect – I know the hare is a show-off, but the hedgehog wins by cheating, so I’m not sure who gets the moral advantage here!

Anyway – the illustration is FAB. I love the costume touches – the hedgehogs’ neckerchiefs and the hats on the birds – and hare’s check trousers are brilliant.

Walt Disney’s Giant Book of Fairy Tales

Published in 1974 by Purnell Books. Over thirty fairy tales – and not all the usual suspects either, ‘Toads and Diamonds’, anyone? When there was an existing Disney film, they used scenes from that, but when there wasn’t, they just bunged in characters they already had. So we have Grumpy in place of Rumpelstiltskin, and Alice (of Wonderland fame) standing in for the little match girl as well as several other characters. Somehow I can’t imagine Disney going for this approach today!

Snowstiltkin?

Pre Lumiere, Cogsworth et al

Alice in disguise

Isn’t that John from Peter Pan? And Figaro? And King Stefan from Sleeping Beauty?

Thrilling Stories From the Past for Girls 1970

Edited by Eric Duthie, illustrated by Reg Gray and published in 1970 by The Hamlyn Publishing Group for Odhams Books. This is a collection of 14 stories by different authors – including KM Peyton.

I was an editor for the My Story series, published by Scholastic Children’s Books, for many years, and although I wasn’t in at the beginning (it was actually developed as the UK version of Scholastic’s Dear America series) this book was surely on someone’s bookshelf in the editorial team!

So how often do you see a story about the Lisbon earthquake in 1775?

jacket blurb

There were more in the series. I shall be looking out for them. There were also books ‘for boys’ in the same format.

Other books in the series

Every story has an illustrated opening page and one full-page illustration.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass illustrated by Dagmar Berková 1992

Produced by Aventinum, Prague, for Treasure Press and published in 1992. I’d not seen this before. The rather lovely illustrations are by Dagmar Berková.

These are the three sisters in the treacle well – I don’t remember seeing them illustrated before.

The History of Tom Jones 1959 Folio Society edition

Here we have a lovely 1959/1973 Folio Society edition of The History of Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. The illustrations are by Derrick Harris.

The History of Tom Jones was first published in 1749 and is one of my favourite early novels. I was really pleased to pick up this copy for £1.25!

It’s even got a slipcase…

And tells you what paper it’s printed on…

Robin Annual 1973

Robin Annual 1973 – A Fleetway Annual, published by IPC Magazines Ltd.I believe Robin was a children’s comic in the UK.

Peter Pan illustrated by Eric Kincaid

Found at the same time as the Alice in Wonderland in my last post. This is another WHSmith exclusive edition, published by Brimax Books in 1990. This edition is adapted from Barrie’s original by Peter Oliver.

‘Second to the right, and straight on till morning.’ That, Peter had told Wendy, as the way to Neverland.

I love Tinker Bell’s Art Nouveau look here…

And the lovely blue-haired mermaids…