Rainy Days Are Good Reading Days

Great new Michigan books!

Of course, sunny days are good ones for books, too, but since today is wet I’m finding time to put something up on this blog, the one I too often neglect (posting more frequently to Books in Northport and A Shot in the Light). As you see in today's top image, right now I am featuring Michigan writers and water, a call to all you Piscean fishers and dreamers. I’ve restocked books by Jerry Dennis yet again (reordering his books is necessary quite often!), and one of the latest new books on the round table up front now is Linda Nemec Foster and Anne-Marie Oomen’s The Lake Huron Mermaid, companion book to their earlier The Lake Michigan Mermaid. Artist Glenn Wolff is the illustrator for Jerry Dennis’s books (theirs long-established collaboration), and Meridith Ridl provided the dreamy, watery, sometimes abstract images for Linda and Anne-Marie’s mermaid books. 

Mermaids in the Great Lakes!

Leaving water behind but staying on the topic of words and images, fans of Bill O. Smith’s chickadee books will be thrilled with his latest, The Chickadee Year, which takes our favorite little year-round Michigan resident bird from spring nest-making through summer, fall, and winter, and back again to spring. Grandparents, this is a book you will love reading to your little ones, over and over, and Thomas Ford’s illustrations, simple and charming but also realistic, are the perfect accompaniment to the text. Learning is fun with this new chickadee title – and the copies I have in the shop are signed by the author.

Dogs and cats? I usually focus on the dogs, but the cat book here looked irresistible. Cat friends, don’t you just itch to get your hands on it? 

This is Dog Ears Books, though, so old books deserve some attention. How about a complete Shakespeare from 1876? A cookbook from 1889 or a set of natural history books with beautiful color plates? We currently have in stock some lovely modern editions of old classics from Roman times (I must put in a plug for my favorite, the Eclogues of Virgil, which I was delighted to find exploring agricultural topics), as well as (coming up to the 20th century) a nice selection of signed Jim Harrison titles and many books from the “Rivers of America” series, brainchild of Constance Lindsay Skinner, most with dust jackets.

The Dog Ears Books book bag was a big hit this year, and now, down to the last one available, I’m wondering whether I should re-order before the holidays or wait until spring. 

If I hear from enough people who want to give the bags as holiday gifts (you could put “stocking stuffers” in a book bag!), I’ll see about getting more before snow flies. (That is, of course, unless we get snow on Halloween, as we did last year.) As for the new bookmarks, there are plenty of those on hand, never fear. Bookmarks are free, of course, with any purchase.

Postscript: Oh, oh, oh! I am just in love with the cover of this edition of Anne of Green Gables, which just arrived today in my shipment of new books! 

And here's an idea: classic scary stuff for Halloween! Come visit us and explore outside your day-to-day box!

Chickadees Are Stars Again!

Bill O. Smith’s third book starring chickadees lives up to the standard set by his first, Chickadees at Night, and second, The Chickadee Spirit. Like the earlier books, Chickadeeland once again presents the little birds we all love in rhymes that please the ear and captivate the imagination, completing a trilogy of perfect bedtime stories that all ages will enjoy. Traverse City artist Charles R. Murphy’s watercolors, too, could not be better suited to illustrating Smith’s chickadee adventure tales.

Nor will you want to overlook a fourth Bill Smith book (third in chronological order), Four a.m. December 25, illustrated by Glenn Wolff. There is also a lot going on in the pictures that isn’t told in the words in this book. Lots to look for and talk about as the author and illustrator take us around the world, through the time zones, for one hour in the dark of Christmas morning.

The author is donating his profits from Chickadeeland to the National Parks Conservation Association, Historic Sleeping Bear Preservation, Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, Groundworks Center, and the National Park Foundation. His profits from Four a.m. December 25th are going to the Air Force Enlisted Village, Air Warriors Courage Foundation, Our Military Kids, Inc., and the Cherryland VWF Post 2780 Relief Fund. 

Books by Bill O. Smith, all hardcover with beautifully illustrated boards:

Chickadees at Night, $18.85

The Chickadee Spirit, $18.85

Chickadeeland, $18.85

Four a.m. December 25 (somewhat larger format than chickadee books), $19.95

You will definitely want to catch the chickadee spirit yourself!