Friday, August 23, 2013

Random Handful of Goodwill Goodies: 80's Kid's Books

Today's Random Handful of Goodwill Goodies is all about kids' books. BUT WAIT! There's some really cool ones in here, so even if you'd normally click away when you see I'm just doing a big weird post about kid's books... hang around for a while, okay? Almost every single one of these books is based on an 80's property, or was published back in the 80's. 


Let me get the obligatory Sesame Street book out of the way. This one's pretty rad though. It's a book of Sign Language ABC with Linda Bove!!! When I was a kid I was completely in love with Linda on Sesame Street and the fact that she was deaf and spoke in sign language only made her seem cooler to little me. I remember this book from somewhere, probably school. I found it not at Goodwill, but for .50 cents at Bull Moose in Bangor, ME. 


Next up, a trio of exciting Hollywood adventures! These books and all the books to follow were indeed found at Goodwill, for .99 cents. Benji and the Tornado, Gremlins: A New Friend, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: The Mummy's Curse. I was most excited to find the Gremlins picture book, but Young Indy ain't no slouch either. Benji I used to watch a lot as a kid, so  it gives me warm and fuzzies.  


Here we have a Who Framed Roger Rabbit book, detailing a very abridged version of the movie's plot. Then, I found this Muppet Babies McDonald's premium book featuring baby Fozzie and Kermit. There were at least two other books in the series given out with Happy Meals. This one is all about how Fozzie wants to make Kermit into a frog-skin suit he can have Kermit all to himself. I guess. I haven't read it yet. The ALF book is from the animated series, detailing his adventures on his home planet of Melmac. Pretty awesome!


All right! Now we're into the Good Stuff! You can tell because the pictures are solo shots. Here we have a G.I. Joe book titled Operation Star Fight. The art in this book, done by Earl Norem, is phenomenal. It's pretty violent by Joes standards too. It looks like folks are actually taking bullets. The story's not much to talk about (Cobra tries to hijack a space shuttle. It goes about as well as anything Cobra tries to do.) This is a sweet looking book though.


The Real Ghostbusters: The Haunted Castle is nothing amazing to write home about. I'm mostly just excited that I now own a Real Ghostbusters storybook. This tiny little book is about as long as a novel, so it doesn't make for great bedtime reading... It's weird that most 80's books have this same problem. It's like they didn't even take into account that most kids have an attention span of about 40 seconds, give or take depending if there's candy in the room. Fun little piece of nostalgia. 


One of the MOST exciting kid's book finds in recent memory is this Thundercats book, Lion-O Walks the Plank! I haven't read this one yet either, but I have to beg the question: How does one walk the plank into the vacuum of space? Aren't they in like... outer space up there in that picture right now? How is that happening? All kidding aside though, I'm stoked (yep, stoked) to own this book.


Aaargh! I published this post without writing anything about this tiny little TMNT book! It's pretty great, but much like the Real ghostbusters book above, it's TOO LONG to read to my little guys. Maybe when they're older... until then I'll just hang on to it for them in the cave...


I guess Isaac Asimov must have been into like, science or something. This is not the first kid's science book I've found written by him. There was that "Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?" book I found back in August LAST year... (Spooky!) There are no Robots gaining self-awareness in either of these books. It's kind of a bummer. 


Hey! Here's a Q*Bert book! It has nothing whatsoever to do with the animated series either, which I found pretty refreshing. So no villains dressed up as a greaser/biker gang, and no malt shops or letter-jackets for Q*Bert. 


In fact, all of Q*Bert's dialogue is written in code that you decipher using the phrase key at the beginning of the book. The whole thing pretty much just tells a story to explain what the hell is going on when you play Q*Bert. I like how the picture on the cover is in the shape of a Q. This is deep stuff here people.


You didn't think I'd do a whole post about kid's books and not have at least ONE Little Golden book did you? This here's a Tom and Jerry LGB. They... have a party apparently. Looks fun, albeit most likely highly unsanitary. I love finding older properties like this. Even though the copyright on the story is 1955, this book was still published in the 80's as the coupon for 15 cents off another Golden book in the back of the book has a copyright of 1982. 


This is one of those pretty standard, generic books about monsters that talks about all the different categories, from old mythology, to current legends and cryptozoology, to monsters of the movies, and the "possible" monsters that aliens could potentially be. The artwork and text are all incredibly cheesy and enjoyable. This is the exact kind of flashlight-under-the-covers kind of book I would have checked out from the school library for six weeks in a row as a wee lad. 


Nyah-ha! I slipped ANOTHER Sesame Street book in here!!! This one's about The Wanted criminal known as the Great Cookie Thief. It plays out like a classic Sesame Street comedy sketch from the show, and it's all western themed. I'm cheating a little bit here as this book is actually from 1977. But it's classic Sesame Street! And by classic I mean the awesome stuff they used to do back in the day before it all started being about Elmo's goldfish. 

Well that's it for me tonight kids! I'll be back real soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

14 comments:

  1. Little Golden books. I only have one. The Tawny Scrawny lion.

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  2. I got to remember to start looking for books like these for you when am at the flea market.

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    1. Well, that would be awesome, but please don't go to extra trouble on my account! I just pick up whatever happens to catch my fancy.

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  3. ALF. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Q-Bert. TMNT. Lion-O walking planks and violent G.I.Joe shuttle heists? I'm not sure which I'm most jealous of.

    Oh, wait. Yes, I am.

    GREMLINS.

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    1. I was particularly excited to find that one too. I think I had some sort of really big hardcover picture book about Gremlins when I was a kid. Wish I could find that one!

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  4. New reader here! Love all your book finds, that gremlins one is my fav also!

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    1. I really appreciate the comment! Thank you so much for letting me know! I'm always worried when I post my kid's book finds that people are all just rolling their eyes and clicking over to a much geekier and cooler blog. LOVE those Gremlins! I'm going to have to so a post about JUST my Gremlins ephemera at some point. I don't have a ton, but there is a deep abiding love for Gizmo in my heart.

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  5. We have the Great Cookie Thief, it was a childhood favorite of mine. I remember having it on VHS with a Sesame Street compilation. And you're spot on about the over abundance of dialogue in 80's children's books. Every time my kids bring me a Muppet Babies or Wuzzles book I'm like "NOOO!!" I just paraphrase the whole book ;)
    These are some GREAT finds. A Q-bert book?! Who has a Q-bert book?!
    You do, my man. ;)

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    1. It's the ONLY thing that keeps me from sharing all my awesome old 80's books with the boys, because they take FOREVER to get through! And my youngest just gets bored.

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  6. I have to know, in the TMNT book is Leo supposed to be blindfolded or are his eyes missing?!?!

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    1. Okay, so what's bizarre about this book is that it's done in the animated series STYLE but it is actually a chunk of plot taken right out of the middle of the first live action movie. It's the portion of the film where (cartoon) Splinter has been kidnapped by (cartoon) Shredder and is being held captive. The turtles have to save save April (complete with yellow jumpsuit) from the Foot Clan ninjas in her apartment building/antique store. The ONLY characters NOT to be illustrated in the animated series style are the Foot ninjas, who look like they're right out of the movie. Everyone else just stepped off the screen of the TV show. There is no Casey Jones, but Raph ends up injured, soaking in the tub at April's country farmhouse after the battle. The turtles all sit around the fire together and share a vision of Splinter who guides them in their "final lesson".

      Leonardo does indeed BLINDFOLD himself (that's NOT just a printing error on the cover) and then fights his brothers. THEN the book abruptly ends. They do not rescue Splinter or stop the Shredder. They just celebrate a great training session while their sensei is chained up in a warehouse somewhere.

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  7. These are some awesome finds! The Q-Bert book is my favorite by far! I'll have to search my local Deseret Industry store for gems like these.

    Awesome blog, keep on hunting!

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    1. Y'know, I had to Google Deseret Industries. They seem to be a mostly west-coast thing. But yeah, the kid's book section is often a treasure trove for those willing to take the time to flip through ever single book... which I am.

      Thank you for the kind words, and I will definitely keep hunting.

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