Paperback 523: Baldy of Nome / Esther Birdsall Darling (TAB T71)

Paperback 523: TAB T71 (ptg unstated, 1958)

Title: Baldy of Nome
Author: Esther Birdsall Darling
Cover artist: A. DiSonetis (sp?) / Illus. by George Meyerreicks

Yours for: $5

Best things about this cover:

• It appears that "Baldy" is one of them there "comical misnomers."
• Looks like a Saint Bernard killed, skinned, devoured, and crawled inside of a wolf. Or like a werewolf eskimo.
• "Weakling puppy" Anthropomorphize much?

Best things about this back cover:

• At first Baldy and Ben merely exchanged meaningful glances, too scared to declare their love openly.
• Spoiler alert! I feel like I just read the whole book, in very primitive comic book form.
• Next in the series: "Baldy of Rome." Wherein our hero becomes a Cardinal.

Page 123~

Time now meant nothing. It was the Land of Day After To-morrow, where the obligation of definite hours for definite duties did not exist.

And so, calmly, Baldy put the rifle in his mouth and ...

~RP

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Paperback 111: Stars in My Crown / Joe David Brown (Teen Age Book Club T45)

Paperback 111: Teen Age Book Club T45 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Stars in My Crown
Author: Joe David Brown
Cover artist: Gould K. Hulse, Jr. (I think ... he's credited with the "decorations" on the inside)

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm your new preacher and I aim to give my first sermon right here ... even if I am jaundiced and half-drunk. Or drunk and half-jaundiced. Or dronk and half-jundiced. Point is, I got me a 12-pound Bible and this here gun, so what I says goes. Now if I can just traverse this comically high door frame..." "That's a window, you moron!" "In the name of Jesus, you better shut up!"
• Seriously, who taught this artist perspective? A five-year-old surrealist with bad eyes?
• The colors are so ... life-like. If your life exists only in primary colors and whatever color that guy in the corner is.
• Our hero looks like a sickly, less charismatic Robert Mitchum.
• What is that thing protruding from the chin of the man in the SW corner? A growth? A pouch of some kind? I want to say "beard" but ... it's got oddly regularly molded ridges on the end...

Best things about this back cover:

• "Grandpa"
• Why isn't this book called "Death Stalks the Parish" - it's a bit Agatha Christie, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current title
• Teen Age Book Club: For Teen Agers who are too emaciated to read standing upright.

Page 123~

"They didn't have no lamps when Ah went to school," he said, "an' Ah reckon what was good enough for me is good enough for the chil'lun [... sic!] nowadays."

~RP