Puffin Covers 1.

[callmemadam]

I was delighted to get the Postcards from Puffin box for Christmas. 100 postcards! I’ve had great fun looking through them but for my taste there are too many early picture books and not enough story books. Why did the compilers choose Noel Streatfeild’s The Growing Summer rather than Ballet Shoes? Why two different versions of Little Women? So here is the first in an occasional series of Puffin Story Book covers from my own much-pruned collection.



Melissa Ann by Ethel Parton. Puffin Story Book 79. First published 1931, Puffin edition 1955. Cover by Sylvia Dyson. Lovely story about Mitty and her family, set in New England in the 1820s.

Comments

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Oh, I had that one and loved it!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I'm expecting a few comments like that!

[joyeuce]

I got the postcard set for Christmas as well, but haven't managed to look at it yet. Unfortunately I can't view your pictures on this computer.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll love it.

[aellia.livejournal.com]

My grown up children found their Puffin joke books in my scary cupboard on Sunday.
I had to buy them one each as they liked it so much.
My "Ballet Shoes" is in there somewhere :-)

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I've still got my Ballet Shoes and would never part with it. We did have the joke books but I think they disappeared in the great move clearout.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

Florence and I have almost finished Ballet Shoes. She loves it; I think she thinks she is Petrova. Can you believe that when she was taken skating last term, for a friend's birthday, the friend's mother had never read White Boots? I told her I was thinking of buying it for her as a present and her mother thought I meant actual boots ...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I was always a Pauline girl, because she acted.
I love White Boots but not as much as Ballet Shoes or my favourite Curtain Up. I only like Streatfeild's earlier books.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

I was a Pauline girl, too (although I might have been a Posy if she hadn't been so irritatingly obsessive about ballet).

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

I really like the pack, too. There were lots of happy memories in going through the cards. But there were also an awful lot of books that I'd never even seen, let alone read - though they may have been lovely covers in their own right. Perhaps that's a difference from the 'Postcards from Penguin' box, where, even if you've never owned/read that particular edition, you probably know (or know of) the great majority of the books.

I like the idea of your series - I'll look forward to more!

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

There's one type you're never likely to see, and that's the super-rare and collectable cut-out books. I think there's one in the box.

I'll try to keep it going!

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

The VG and I were also lamenting the lack of our favourite Puffin stories in the box so I am looking forward to more posts from you on the topic. I had never heard of this one - what a lovely cover.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

What taste. I'm just going to go through the shelves so it will be pot luck.
I don't think Melissa Ann is particularly hard to find.

[ramblingfancy.livejournal.com]

What a brilliant idea! I do love this cover. I had to buy for my daughter the exact same puffin cover for Ballet Shoes that I had as a child. How's that as obsessive! I think Posy is a brilliant portrayal of a child with a vocation or gift. I always find her slightly scary, but very realistic!

[(Anonymous)]

I bought the postcards for a friend but I don't think it was a very successful present, as she looked at them rather blankly and said, "What are they for?" And I'd been very tempted to keep them for myself!
Do wish they'd included Ballet Shoes, though.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

What a waste! My daughter gave me the box and said I'd better check there were still a hundred cards before she left.