Thomas the Tank Engine - The Complete Series!

I'm pretty sure there are thousands of moms who are with me on this one.  That their son/daughter is stuck on Thomas & Friends.  Has to have everything Thomas; the little take n play trains, the comforter, stuffed trains, the little rug that can run their trains on, and all of the shows.  Yes, I'm describing what we have of Thomas for my little Thomas lover.

Now since Thomas was based on a series of books, I of course had to find the books for my boy.  

The series is called The Railway Series by the Reverend W. Awdry.  As a child, he grew up around trains when he lived near a train yard.  He would make up stories about each train that he heard since he felt that each train had a certain emotion and personality on just the way they sounded.  He then brought his son Christopher into the picture by telling him made-up stories about trains and even making him the trains as well.  

By the way, Thomas wasn't even in the first book.  He made his first appearance in the second one.   

Now, the Railway Series has 26 books (not including the books his son Christopher wrote after his father was done with the series).  And I didn't think it was possible, nor cheap to purchase each book individually (I did look at the prices and .... ugh.....)

So here was my solution:

Here is the complete book!  All 26 books with all the original illustrations.  It is pretty thick but I'll take the thickness with the cheap cost that came with it.  

I do enjoy the stories.  I mean, if you've seen the Thomas shows, you will understand how the engines work and what their personalities are like.  Many have argued that the Railway series is full of trains who are mean, argue and take vengeance on other trains.  But I don't know what they are expecting.  They are trains!  They are bold, hard workers.  They are the hard industry.  They aren't supposed to be cute, cuddly and have flowers in their funnels.  

There are few things to consider when purchasing the book:

As an American, there are a some words in the book that wouldn't be recognizable or understandable.  Awdry was British, and thus, he wrote that way.  

Sir Topham Hatt is known only as the Fat Controller in the series.  That was his original name.  Only in America is he called Sir Topham Hatt.

The pictures in the book are about 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  They aren't small to where you can't see them but it sure would be nice if they were bigger

But none of these deterred me away from purchasing it.  And I'm glad I did.  It's a fun book for Thomas lover, though the stories are long so they are best for kids around 5-6 years old.  

There's also a beautiful picture of the island of sodor on the front and back inside covers.  Plus stories about the author and illustrator as well.

 By the way, thanks kid for giving up this book even though it was an awesome birthday present from your friend/relative.  So sad.

So where to buy:

Here's a tip on buying this book.  BUY ONLY THE HEINEMANN EDITION.  This is the British publisher which, for some unknown reason, makes this cheaper.  It must be cause the American publisher is Random House, which is a worldwide famous publisher.

I purchased my book on Amazon, but there are two listings.  Since the book was published by two different companies (one in America and the other in Britain) they are sold separately.  The one sold in America is twice or even three times the price as the one from the UK.  So that's where I purchased mine.  On Amazon, via a used book dealer in the UK.  It's the same book, so just go that route.  The cheapest at the time I purchased was overseas and I didn't mind waiting the extra week.  But now they do have some American dealers for about the same price.

You can also find this book on Abebooks from the UK for around the same price.  It's also on Thriftbooks but this is where you will have to pay around $15 since the books are mostly in the US.
I prefer Amazon, so that's the one I recommend.  You can click on the link below to purchase

  

Do you have a First Edition or Early Printing?

This question crosses my mind frequently when searching for books.  I mean, it is an investment when you put your money into a book.  Okay, the big investment is your child reading the book and gaining knowledge and smarts from it.  Of course.  That's the ultimate goal.  But you are still curious and hoping that one day you will come across that one book that will make you money; that's worth more than the $1.00 that you are putting down for it.

So how do you tell if you have a first edition or if you have a first printing?  or both?

During these present days, it's much easier to tell a first edition or first printing.  Why?  Because they actually tell you in the book.  Take for example Hyperion Books (who publishes the Pigeon books by Mo Willems):

As you can see, this is a First Edition.  It plainly states it above the number line.  This means that this is the original book.  There have been no updates, no change of publishers, no change in the covers, no changes to the pages....nothing.  That's what makes it a first edition.

So let's talk about the number line.  It's weird....it doesn't even go in order.  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2  So what's this line about?  It's the printing line.  This tells you if it's a first printing, second printing, third printing, etc.  If it's a first printing, that means it was one of the first books from the publisher.  Second printing means it was one of the books from the second time the publisher issued another printing of the book.  They basically say, "okay, let's print some more"  then they will issue another printing which would be the third printing and so on.

So just look in your number line.  If you have a number one still in the line, it's a first printing.  Just like you see above.  Which is awesome.

Now here is another book printed by the publishers Dutton.  The number line isn't messed up like you saw above but they both mean the same thing.  In this one you can see that the number one is missing from the line and so the lowest number is 2.  This means that it's a First Edition, Second printing.  Not as great as the first printing, but it's still an early printing which makes it nice.

Here's another example of the copyright page from Scholastic:

As you can see to the left, it has a number line, too.  This lowest number is two which makes it a 2nd printing.  But there's another number line to the right.  This line tells you the year it was published.  The line says 10 11 12 13 14 15/0.  The number after the slash (0) indicates it was printing in the 2000s.  The lowest number before the 0 tells you which year.  So the lowest number 10, which means it was published in 2010.  Confusing?  Well, let's try this one.  A year line says this:   7 8 9/8   0 1 2 3/9    This one has two slashes, so this one is a bit more confusing.  But as with all copyright lines, you go with the lowest number.  So the lowest number after a slash is 8.  Then the lowest number on 8's line is 7.  So that book would have been printed in 1987.  They have the additional line with the /9 because it's almost to the 1990s.  So they need it there for when it switches decades.

Plus, Scholastic is nice and tells you when the first scholastic edition was, which was in September of 2010.

They started using number books, I believe, around the 70s.  So what about before then?  Well, that depends solely on the publisher and how they decided to tell you (and some even didn't tell you).  So to tell you, I will have to make individual posts for each publisher as I get to them.  Really, that's the only way since there are SOOOOO many publishers out there.  But hopefully this helps for anything slightly vintage to newer.

I'm BACK!

I'm back!  After having my second little boy, I'm finally able to return and start posting again.  This time with a little more detail than I have before.  Now that I've increased my son's library from 700 books to about 850 (don't judge), I'm ready and hoping to help others in their path to literacy in their children.

I'm a sucker for old, classic children's books.  I collect them in hopes that someday I will find the diamond in the rough.  I especially love classic library books.  If I find a book that I love, already have it but have found it in a library binding, I'll switch them out.  So pretty often in this blog you will see a classic that you remember but my copy will be old, run down.  Just the way I like it.

There's also something about inscriptions that I adore as well.  You know, those copies of books that was given to someone as a present, they wrote a very beautiful letter in there for them, but the recipient just loved it so much that they gave it away to Goodwill.  Yes, I love those.  It's almost like a story within a story.  I have quite a bit of those and when I read them I wonder about the people behind it.

I'm a huge advocate for children's literature and the importance of books.  I just remember as a child having all of these books and I would read them over and over.  Everytime I remember a book that I used to own or a favorite of mine from my childhood, I'd immediately search for one for my two boys.

I also urge the importance of adopting a used book.  There are so many thrift stores around the nation with hundreds of books, why not?  If you don't, they end up being recycled.....kind of like a pet in at the animal shelter (does that make you feel bad?  Yes? Okay)  I admit, I have purchased several new books for my boys, but that's because some people are crazy!  Especially on Amazon.  They will sell their used copy for more than just buying the book new.  Come on, people!  Really?!  Who wants to pay $15.00 for a used book when you can buy a new one for only $8?

So this blog is all about literacy in children, hopefully buying a book that your child can actually hold in their hands and turn pages.  Since I'm also a collector, I'll teach you how to tell if your book is a first edition, first printing, how old, etc.  We will go through reviews on the each book, talk about series, and even give some fun, interesting facts on publishers, authors, or the book itself. --- that was a lot of commas in one sentence.

I hope you enjoy this blog as it takes you down memory lane and into the stories you once loved as a child and newly published books that live up to that potential.