Vintage children’s books shouldn’t automatically be tossed out just because they are old or the covers don’t exactly look appealing. As an elementary school librarian, I run across quite a few old books that need to be weeded from the collection to keep up with state standards. Although they have to be removed from the shelf, it still doesn’t stop me from looking through them to see if I can’t use it as a teachable moment with my students or my own child. So what can your child learn from a vintage children’s book?
What Your Child Can Learn From Vintage Children’s Books
In May when I was packing up the library at school, I ran across this older, sweet children’s book. The book, Questions Children Ask by Edith and Ernest Bonhivert, had a copyright of 1969, with previous editions dating back to 1956.
Because of its age and physical condition, this vintage children’s book was weeded from the collection and headed for a fate that would probably include a dumpster at some point. I was curious about what this book could be about, so I opened it and instantly fell in love with the illustrations. Further proof you should never judge a book by its cover.
I could tell just by checking over the table of contents that this was the perfect book for my son, even though some of the information in it was outdated. Most of it was just straightforward answers to everyday questions that children ask, such as, “Why is the sky blue?”, “Are there really such things as mermaids?”, and much, much more. There are almost 200 pages of questions and answers. My son is very inquisitive, so I decided to rescue this little book and bring it home. I’ll admit even I wanted to know the answers to some of the questions in this book.
What happened next when my husband and I took turns reading this book to our son before bedtime was something of a bonus. Some of the topics dealing with science and history have, of course, changed greatly. When we came to points in our reading where we knew that information had changed (such as space discovery and advances in technology), it made for some great conversations and teachable moments with our son about how much things have changed and what improvements have been made since this book was published. It even sparked conversations amongst us as parents because we were anxious to hear what the other had read aloud the night before. Since this book was also written before my husband and I were born, some of the things were funny to us as we remembered things like telephones with cords and a world without cell phones and personal computers. It still amazes me that my son won’t ever know a world without these things. Now he will at least know how these things evolved, thanks to vintage children’s books like this!
What Can Vintage Children’s Books Teach Your Child?
-How the world used to work.
-Vintage Children’s Books can spark conversations about what we used back then versus what we use now.
-The illustrations can be quite eye-appealing, sparking conversations about art.
-Some values and lessons just never change.
-You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
Your child may fall in love with a particular vintage book and want to read more from those authors.
There are still copies of this book floating around at Amazon. While looking for more information about the authors, I discovered that Edith Bonhivert passed away just last year, and her husband before her in 2005. I can only imagine how many children and parents have read and enjoyed this book over the years. I’m so glad I can count our family in that number.
