the fourteen bears in summer and winter

Happy Wednesday all! How is your week moving along? We are on day three of summer vacation and I'm already worn out. We've been spending a lot of time outside and playing many many games of 'library'. Basically I sit on the floor in their room and pick out books and the girls check them out. It is one of those great games that requires minimal brain power from me and keeps the girls occupied for hours. I am a game creating genius.

The hot item at 'the library' these days is my absolute favorite childhood book. The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter. The fourteen bears are kind of like the Duggars of the literary world - 12 sisters and one brother who live with their mom and dad in the forrest. They have great adventures in the summer and winter (duh, as the title implies) but what I would pour over for hours were the pictures.

Each sister had her own tree and each tree was decorated differently. It was like House Beautiful for those under 10. You had traditional, mid century, chippendale, country; you name it they covered it. There is even a feature on how they decorated their front doors. Pure heaven.

My copy is well loved, shall we say, and over 35 years old. So just for fun I did some digging to see if I could get a new copy. And I can, for $641.70.

Excuse me?!

Apparently this book went out of print not long after my sisters and I got it for Christmas and it became quite the collectors item. They started a reprint in 2005 but it went back out of print in 2008 and has been 'a get' ever since. Who knew?

Makes me think twice about playing library with it. But part of what I love about the book is how used it is. One page even has a rug that has been colored in by...someone. I vividly remember doing it oddly enough. I was watching Punky Brewster at the time. Ah, like it was yesterday.

Do you have any items from childhood that were a glimpse into what you wanted to do when you grew up? Any happy memories about an old book? Ever color in a book? Yeah, me neither.