A collection of stories, nursery rhymes, fables, and illustrated topical word lists covering such subjects as numbers, alphabets, manners, seasons, and many others.
Scarry began his career as a freelance illustrator, drawing pictures to accompany the text of books by children’s authors such as Margaret Wise Brown, Kathryn Jackson, and Patricia Murphy (who became Patricia Scarry when she married Richard in 1949). His first two efforts at writing his own books, The Great Big Car and Truck Book (1951) and Rabbit and His Friends (1953), already suggest some of his interests as an author: travel, technology, and talking animals.
But it was the 1963 publication of Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever that put Scarry on bestseller lists, and established his signature style. Its densely packed pages are populated by anthropomorphic animals at work and play, in drawings that reward multiple readings with details children (and parents) may not notice at first glance. The large-format book contains over 1400 illustrated and labeled objects, along with simple introductions to concepts like sharing and helping.
In Busy, Busy World (1965), Scarry's animals star in a series of international adventures in such far-flung locales as Paris, Rome, and Algeria. Well before multiculturalism was an educational buzzword, Scarry believed he could use animals to help children imaginatively enter others' experiences. In a Publishers Weekly interview, he explained that "children can identify more closely with pictures of animals than they can with pictures of another child. They see an illustration of a blond girl or a dark-haired boy, who they know is somebody other than themselves, and competition creeps in. With imagination -- and children all have marvelous imagination -- they can easily identify with an anteater who is a painter or a goat who is an Indian."
Though Scarry soon abandoned exotic settings in favor of the fictional Busytown, he continued to illustrate different roles in society with cherubic critters like Postman Pig, Huckle Cat, Sergeant Murphy, and Lowly Worm. Once he had developed a cast of characters, he introduced them into everything from picture dictionaries and activity books to mystery stories and manners lessons.
Scarry's books, which have sold over 100 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, always reflected his own curiosity about the world. "Wherever I go, I'm watching," he liked to say. "Even on vacation, when I'm in an airport or a railroad station, I look around, snap pictures, and find out how people do things." In relating his discoveries to children, he expanded not only their vocabularies, but their understanding of the "busy world" as a social community in which people work, play, cooperate and share.
Richard Scarry's son Huck Scarry is also a writer and illustrator of children's books, including some new additions to the Busytown series. His nickname matches that of the title character in one of his father's favorite books, Huckleberry Finn.
Anonymous
Posted January 30, 2000
This book is one of my favorite memories from my childhood. I often look at this wonderful children's book, and memories are 'so thick, I have to brush them away' I love to read this book to the kids I babysit for and teach at preschool. The stories are short enough to hold their attention, and the pictures are wonderful. The stories are funny to them, and to adults. I highly recommend this book for every family.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 26, 2010
My daughter loves this book - everything from the stories to puzzling over the pictures of what people do and vehicles people drive and all the things in a house. It is a favorite that is requested time and time again at bedtime. She also likes to look though it on her own even though she's not reading yet! Every child's library needs this classic Richard Scarry book in it.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 30, 2009
I read this book as a child and absolutely loved it. After finding it on a book shelf in my room on a visit home from college I picked it up and still loved it 20 years later! I can't wait to give it to my kids in the future. I would recommend this fantastic book to anyone!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 9, 2009
We wore out one of these books when my children were growing up. They loved the great characters and the silly stories. So when our first grandchild came along we had to buy one for him. We read every night to our children and it instilled a love for reading that they still have today. This book has wonderful cute short stories, great illustations, and is a fun giggly (if that's a word) read out loud book!!!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 9, 2009
This was my favorite book as a child and it's still one of my favorite books ever. Whenever a friend of mine has a child I like to purchase this book for them. It's a fun book that teaches kids the basics in numbers, colors, manners, and everyday activities. I can't say enough wonderful things about it. There are a range of fun characters. The edition I have is from the mid 1950's, so it's obviously a timeless classic. Well worth every penny you spend on this.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 14, 2008
My sister and I used to read this book constantly over 20 years ago. It was one of our favorites. Now that I have a daughter I know the enjoyment that we had will be passed down. This book is entertaining and educational, a must-have in every child's library!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 14, 2005
I discovered this book when my children were tiny, my youngest is now 25 years old and we kept our copy to pass on to their children. I buy a copy for everyone I know who is having a baby. It is definitely the most delightful and educational storybook I've ever seen, and the illustrations are lovely. Our favorite story has always been 'My Name is Nicolas', and we can still recite the whole thing. Read it to your children or grandchildren from the day they are born!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 17, 2002
I grew up with this book, and it really is the best storybook ever. I'm 18 and I still love it. I'm going to make sure that I have it when I have my kids too. Its an awesome book filled with great stories!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 6, 2002
I luv the stories! They are useful because for my oral comm class we have to read a child book and i right away went to this book! its great for age 1-100! luv it!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 28, 2002
I read this wonderful book again and again to my 2 sons. There was an audio record (LP) that went with the book and we still sing some of the songs. I will now read this and other Dick Scarrys to my grandchildren (the first is on the way)!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 4, 2001
I learned to read at an early age (2) and part of my progress can be attributed to the progressive nature of this book. The book starts out with very basic, phonics lessons - teaching young children about the alphabet and like sounds. By the end of the book readers are able to read and enjoy short stories that are fun and whimsical. As I prepare to start my own family, this will be a purchase I will definitely make prior to the birth of my future children. I only want what's best for them and Richard Scarry's writings are among them!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 21, 2001
This book was one of my sisters and my favourite books when we were growing up. I'm still very young, but now, I really wish we hadn't gotten rid of it! It's a really good kids book, and I recommend it to anyone who is having any problems finding books you and your kids can read together!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 22, 2001
Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute. To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever was one of her picks. This book was my daughter's choice night after night during the years from ages 3-6. The stories are all vividly colored, humorous, and reasonably short. They just suited her perfectly. She would plead after each one, 'Just one more story, Dad.' (This was after her mother had read to her, as well.) I would read until I had almost no voice left. Eventually, we negotiated that she could pick two stories from this book, and if I was in the mood (and in good voice) we could go up from there. Otherwise, bedtime would have been delayed for hours! If you don't know Richard Scarry, he has a wonderful, light sense of humor. He usually features intelligent animals, but in human-like contexts. This makes the moral of the story easier for the youngster to swallow, while making the story more interesting. For example, A Castle in Denmark is about the rules that you should follow in a castle (or a house) such as not leaving things on the floor where people can trip on them. Who else would have come up with such a wonderful way to help establish household rules? The stories in the book contain all the elements needed in a preschool book, with lots of alphabet, numbers, socialization, and charming stories with important lessons attached. The book includes one of my daughter's all time favorite stories, I Am a Bunny by Ole Rison. This story was repeated like a mantra around our house by all four children. It is a great beginning reader story. The stories vary in sophistication from simple ones to mini-mysteries involving detectives. My daughter especially loved the mini-mysteries. Here are her favorite stories in the book (in the order they appear): The Rabbit Family's Home I Am a Bunny Work Machines Pip Pip Goes to London A Castle in Denmark Couscous, the Algerian Detective Officer Montey of Monaco Pierre, the Paris Policeman The Country Mouse and the City Mouse by Patricia Scarry Schtoompah, the Funny Austrian From a value perspective, it is much less expensive to buy these stories in this form than to get them in the various Richard Scarry books. Of all the story books we bought for our children, this one was definitely the best value. I suspect it only cost about a penny per hour used. Running the television costs more than that! Some readers have complained about the binding. Ours is a little loose in back after four years of
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 18, 2001
I had this book when I was little. Every night, I would look through the book. I never ran out of things to do in the book. There's counting, reading, and so much more to do. Highly recommended!!!!!!!!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 11, 2013
This book was a great favorite when my children were little. I especially love the section on colors, but our family had a marvelous time reading all of this book over and over. One of my favorite memories is of my daughter crawling through the house with this book under one arm, looking for me or her father. When she found us she would literally throw this big yellow book at us demanding, "Read!" In the years since it has been one of our favorite gifts to give to very young children and their parents.
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Posted May 5, 2010
This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. My huband and I both had a copy of it, but ours were both missing the covers and, of course, had been colored in over the years, so I bought it for my four-year-old daughter for her birthday, and she loves it as much as I did. Richard Scarry's illustrations are great and funny. It's fun to see my daughter's sense of humor as read through it - fun to see her "get" the funny jokes in the illustrations. There's also some education...colors, counting, the alphabet. And because there are so many stories, you can keep going back to it and re-reading it without wanting to pull your hair out!
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Posted April 10, 2010
awesom book, I bought it for a gift.
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Posted January 16, 2010
I love reading these same fascinating stories to my daughter. This is the book that taught me how to blend colors to make new colors--all of those memories flooded back (30 years later) while reading to my 6 year old. I wish we would have found it sooner--it is a household favorite!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MoonPrincess22
Posted January 9, 2010
These stories of Richard Scarry were always a favorite of my sons as they were growing up. Funny, silly, educational, & short. A quick story to hold the short attention span of young minds.
Now that grandchildren are entering our lives, old favorites are a must. This is a good compilation of some of the best stories that Richard Scarry wrote. Same loved characters, same great times.
This is definitely a "grow with me" book -- stories are great for developing manners & learning about the world around them.
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Overview
A collection of stories, nursery rhymes, fables, and illustrated topical ...