children’s stuff

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    3 Fairy Poems by Rose Fyleman

    These poems come from the book The Fairy Flute by Rose Fyleman, originally published in 1921. It’s a collection of children’s poems about fairies; I picked these three specifically to share because I like the interaction between the real world and the fantasy world the fairies come from. The featured post image is “The Fairy Queen takes an airy drive in a light carriage, a twelve-in-hand, drawn by thoroughbred butterflies,” from the book In fairy-land (1875). šŸ‘‰ All posts about fairy tales / All children’s stuff posts / More poetry / More literature IN BOND STREET Upon her little velvet…

  • 11 Old-Fashioned Wooden Animal Toy Patterns from 1922

    This is a collection of patterns (or wood-making plans) for making old-fashioned wooden children’s toys, specifically ones that are shaped like animals! They come from Baxter, Leon H. Baxter’s Toy Craft, originally published in 1922. The book is meant to for kids to be able to make the toys themselves, so it should be fairly easy for beginner toy makers. I’ve included images of the toys, plus some tips for enlarging them to be the proper size. All of that came from the book itself, so be sure to head to the source if you want any info I missed…

  • The Wizard of Oz Book Series Index

    The Wizard of Oz book universe is a larger thing than you may know! There’s the original books written by L. Frank Baum, then there’s the spinoffs and sibling books, and THEN there’s the rest of the “official Oz” books written by authors approved by the publisher after Baum’s death in the 1920s. If you’ve only every heard of the original book (and maybe a few others), you may be surprised at how many books are actually out there! This post is an index of all the official Oz books, which include the “Famous Forty” official books, as well as…

  • The Langs’ Colored Fairy Books Index

    The Fairy Books are 25 volumes of collected fairy tale stories from around the world, translated and compiled by Leonora Blanche Lang and edited by her husband, Andrew Lang, in the late 1800s to early 1910s. You can read more about the history of the books and their creation on Wikipedia! This post is specifically an index for the books in the “Colored Fairy Books” collection, which is 12 volumes. I’ve also put together an index of the contents of each of the Colored Fairy Books, so you can CTRL-F to find a specific story and see which volume it’s…

  • 26 Wizard of Oz Illustrations by W.W. Denslow (1900) – Full Color Pages

    These were collected from the digitized version of the 1900 edition of The Wizard of Oz on the Library of Congress website. In that edition, all the illustrations were done by W.W. Denslow— you’ll probably recognize them because they’re used heavily in Oz products! As for this post: I downloaded each image individually, lightly edited them (keeping the vintage aged paper look), then re-uploaded them here! All these illustrations are in the public domain, so you can use them for personal or commercial things. If you do use them, it’d be nice to credit the original artist, W.W. Denslow. I…

  • Author L. Frank Baum Book Index

    Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 ā€“ May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children’s fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. (Source: Wikipedia) This is an index of the Baum books that are available for download on Project Gutenberg. I personally find PG a little difficult to look through when I’m focused on a specific author or topic, so indexes like…

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    Poem: WINTER-TIME (1895)

    Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;Blinks but an hour or two; and then,A blood-red orange, sets again.Before the stars have left the skies,At morning in the dark I rise;And shivering in my nakedness,By the cold candle, bathe and dress.Close by the jolly fire I sitTo warm my frozen bones a bit;Or with a reindeer-sled, exploreThe colder countries round the door.When to go out, my nurse doth wrapMe in my comforter and cap;The cold wind burns my face, and blowsIts frosty pepper up my nose.Black are my steps on silver sod;Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;And tree and…