No. 453: The Canoe

I bought this beauty for twenty-five cents at a library sale yesterday:




Be this a lesson to you all! Please don't neglect the disgusting, sad children's book bargains in the corners of bookstores, libraries, thrift stores, dollar stores, novelty toy stores, and women's shelters, for you never know when beautiful images will creep their way into your mind forever for a couple of dusty old dimes. Children's books can be just as powerful as comics in their own ridiculous and often borderline-boring ways. Be on the lookout! Don't reject these types of books just because they seem awful and uninteresting at first glance. UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CANOE, with beautiful artwork by George Carlson (of Jingle Jangle Tales fame), could pass for the new Jim Woodring book if your heart is in the right place. Definitely my best purchase since I left Vermont and can't buy large, barn-shaped boxes of animal crackers for $1.10 anymore.


I wish I had a canoe
Like this birch bark one, do you?
Best of all, I like the sails
Made of furry squirrel tails.
Froggie, waving from the shore,
Wishes they had room for more.