Droodles

1966, 1973 Price/Stern/Sloan edition
Roger Price
Droodles
Original price $1.00, purchase price 20 cents, perhaps the greatest bargain of all!
Very worn paperback
B

Price's company is best known for MAD Libs, but these "borkley looking sort of drawings" equally inspire creativity and silliness.  And the best known of these is the one that Frank Zappa chose for an album title, "A Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch."*  Most of the illustrations are timeless, but I went with the 1966 copyright out of the various ones to choose from on the title page because there's a Beatles reference.  Some of the Droodles are title only, while others have little stories behind them.  A few involve words, such as
GI
CCCCCCCC
and some of them are "so simple any four-year-old can draw them-- those over four may have a little trouble."

I was such a dirty-minded child that when I saw Price's comment on "Turtle smoking in bed," "Some people may say this isn't a Droodle children should see because it will give them ideas," I was sure it must have some sexual connotation that I wasn't yet old enough to understand.  Actually, the book is pretty clean and "great for kids 8 to 80" as they said back in the day.


* Yes, this makes at least my third Frank Zappa reference.  And I'm not even a fan.  It's just impossible to discuss the 20th-century without mentioning him.