Books in Shaped Books series

Lewis Carroll’s duo of novels about a girl named Alice and her surreal adventures have been popular since their publication in 1865 (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) and 1871 (Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There). Neither book has ever been out of print. But many parents find the originals too difficult for young children, and thus the publication of many simplified and abridged versions of Alice. Our Alice in Wonderland Picture Book features illustrations of several major episodes of the story from Italian mid-century illustrator Maraja. Accompanying these vibrant images is a very simple text. It serves as a marvelous introduction to Carroll’s world of marvelous madness.

This is our sixth reproduction of a shaped children's book, and our fourth illustrated by Margaret Evans Price. Price has certainly proved popular with our customers, and for good reason. Her illustrations are pretty and fanciful. She is especially gifted at depicting children in a stylized yet not cartoonish manner. In The Betty Fairy Book (1915) a little girl ? Betty ? inadvertently angers the fairies by wearing a fairy crown that she finds and dancing ?on fairy ground?. The fairies decide to banish her to a boat, on which Betty bravely faces several hardships. Betty's courage endears her to the fairies, who relent and take Betty to fairyland where she is cared for and given gifts. Betty comes away from her adventure with fairy souvenirs and new friends. This charming tale is richly illustrated and will appeal to both children and sentimental adults.

The new Shape Books series brings the ancient world to three-dimensional life and reveals the most interesting topics from some of the world's most important empires. Each title is a self-boxed 3-D board book that replicates an iconic structure from an ancient civilization. Page-filling color illustrations and concise text take young readers back in time, where they discover how people lived and what their world looked like. Engaging, interactive and informative, Shape Books are sure to be a hit with curious readers. Readers will find the fascinating stories of the most famous Egyptian icons: hieroglyphs, pharaohs, gods, pyramids and other tombs, mummies and the Nile. Cutaway illustrations and concise text describe how archaeological discoveries were made and what they reveal about the civilization that created them.

Kitty's ABC Shape Book is a reproduction of an 1890 book featuring cats and kittens in an alphabetic parade of charming adventures. This eccentric tale of a beautiful "A for Angora" cat who overcomes jealousy and buckets of water to find love and happiness is beautifully illustrated with cats playing banjoes, getting married, singing in a choir, and many other whimsical activities. This tender love story is highlighted with verses such as: "T stands for Trouble now over and past, and The Triumph of True Tender hearts at The Last," and "V is the Vanity Fluffy displays, When on a Visit her kittens you praise." The Victorians' love of cats is on full display in this fine addition to our popular series of shaped books.

Let me call you "Sweetheart," I'm in love with you.Let me hear you whisper that you love me too… Let Me Call You Sweetheart is a book-length valentine using the words of the beloved 1910 song as the text. It is illustrated on every page with a beautiful vintage valentine from the Laughing Elephant's vast treasure trove. Let Me Call You Sweetheart is die cut, like an over sized Valentine's day card, and is in the same format as the Laughing Elephant's popular line of die cut, shaped, books. Crafted to look like a lovingly filled out scrap book, with hand written text, Victorian scraps and Valentine's and the sweet words of the song hand written in old fashioned cursive, replete with an elaborate border area for personal inscription. Let Me Call You Sweetheart will make a stunning Valentine’s Day gift for those times when a card just isn’t sufficient.

""Would that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony.""The iconic story of the beautiful Snow White and her eventual triumph over a particularly evil Queen is filled with colors and their powerful symbolism, and in this version – illustrated by Beth Livings in 1937 - the colors are strong and saturated, and the illustrations are rendered in a flat, almost naïve style. They are beautiful yet straightforward, and thus mesh well with this abridged version of the Grimm tale.

The new Shape Books series brings the ancient world to three-dimensional life and reveals the most interesting topics from some of the world's most important empires. Each title is a self-boxed 3-D board book that replicates an iconic structure from an ancient civilization. Page-filling color illustrations and concise text take young readers back in time, where they discover how people lived and what their world looked like. Engaging, interactive and informative, Shape Books are sure to be a hit with curious readers. Gladiators were an important part of ancient Roman civilization. Most gladiators were unwilling slaves and prisoners of war, but some did win their freedom through their exploits in the arena. This book describes the gladiatorial system, the types of gladiators, their weaponry and the animals they fought. Important architectural features of the Colosseum are also explained.

Laughing Elephant presents a reproduction of a shaped ABC book (circa 1905) featuring various breeds of dogs and puppies (A is for Afghan etc). The book features breeds both familiar and not so familiar and the charming Victorian illustrations prove that affection for our canine friends is by no means a new phenomena. Alphabet books are much loved by children, and so there have been many of them published over the years. Happily they provide a stimulating challenge to artists and authors. This reprint, from 1908, features dog breeds. The poodle, greyhound and collie are familiar friends, but a few breeds, such as the harrier and the lurcher, show that even dogs change with time's passage. the rhymes that accompany each letter are delightful and informative, for example: N is for the Newfoundland Who springs in the wave And strives to his utmost The drowning to save.. Other passages are more moralistic, as was common in children's books of this era: Q stands for the Quarrel, It's most sad to see Both Puppies and Children Who cannot agree. Some of the dogs herein are less pampered than their more modern counterparts: E stands for the dogs of the Eskimo Who draws laden sleds for miles over snow. Charming pictures of dogs leaping, swimming, playing and doing all manner of canine things take us from a to Z in this delightful alphabet book.

A classic Grimm's fairy tale in an appealing facsimile of a shaped 1916 edition. Hansel and Gretel tells the story of two siblings who brave a night in the dark woods and cleverly defeata witch who lives in an deliciously tempting gingerbread house. Margaret Evans Price (1888-1973) was a prolific American illustrator of fairy tales and children's stories. Her gentle yet archetypal style achieves the right tension between the sweetness of the children and their plight and the scariness of the witch and her fiendish plans. Hansel and Gretel is the third title in the Green Tiger series of facsimile reproductions of shape-cut children's picture books. The previous two titles. The Night Before Christmas and The Three Bears have proven to be very popular.