Books of days gone by

The work with the books continues at the rate of a few a day, but the number's already over five hundred and the first bookcase isn't even done yet. It's slow work because such a proportion predates the ISBN system. In the course of trying to learn something about the history of Hurlbut's Story of the Bible for children, I discovered the Baldwin Project, transcribing copyright-free children's literature. Just David is up, old weepie that it is, by the author of the Pollyanna books. It's transcribed from the very book that we used to read. They're still hoping to get Children of Odin by Padraic Colum. That was on the fourth-grade bookshelf and one of the newest books in the school. Now I learn that it was from 1920. One thing about this site that's really great is that, in selected cases, the period illustrations are up alsoAnother favorite, from the third-grade bookshelf, was Wi Sapa, by Lyla Hoffine, which turns out to have been published in 1936. The Hurlbut, by the way, is a 1904 edition and seems to be cheaper than most comic books. It appears that every American Protestant child who owned any book at all must have owned a copy of Hurlbut's Story of the Bible. The book continues to be published, but in much watered-down editions and without those great illustrations.