Sealed Richard Scarrys Great Big Mystery Book by Richard Scarry read by Carol Channing retailer Vinyl Record Album LP Please and Thank You book

Richard Scarrys Great Big Mystery Book is a collection of stories by Richard Scarry and read for you by Carol Channing. From the back cover: Children don't look at Scarry books. They immerse themselves. One reason is that even before a child learns to read he can read his Scarry books. In fact, children read Scarry books before they learn to talk! Scarry books are like movies. The pictures tell most of the story. Once a child knows what's happening he can "read" the story to himself by looking at the pictures-especially if Carol Channing is standing by to help out.

And Scarry books are full of extra stories that are told only in the pictures. Once watched a two-year-old "reading" the cover of What Do People Do All Day. Somewhere in the middle of it is a pig hanging onto a fire hose which water pressure has forced way up into the air. After studying the cover for a surprisingly long time, detail by detail, the child looked up and asked, "What dat pig doing up in da air?" Somewhere else in Scarry's books you find a little pig fellow standing behind a station wagon and looking out at you with a disgusted face. At the other end of the station wagon you see a board poking through a broken windshield. You can't help telling yourself the story of how the pig has just pushed the board into the back of his car and out the front. And then you can't help laughing.

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Richard Scarrys Great Big Mystery Book by Richard Scarry read by Carol Channing

Vinyl: Factory Sealed
Cover: Factory Sealed, VG+, some shelf wear, bends, and bumps.

Stories:
The Great Steamboat Mystery
The Supermarket Mystery
The Great Pie Robbery
Please and Thank you Book
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Nobody laughs harder at Richard Scarry books than Richard Scarry himself. It's been many years since I last saw Dick, but the way he laughs at his books is one of the things I remember most. I was one of the first to meet Dick's preposterous character Lowly Worm, the little retailer guy with a shoe on one end and a hat on the other. I wasn't sure if it would be successful, but Dick was beside himself with delight. And he was right, because if there is any Scarry character more fascinating to children than Lowly Worm, I don't know who it is. Lowly's unique armless ways of going about everything are uniquely disarming.

Maybe that's the main thing to be said about Scarry books. Children feel comfortable with these animal people who put boards through their windshields and, if they happen to be Lowly Worm, shake hands with their feet. All the adults are furry, pattable animals a child can feel equal to or bigger than and love. And not all the mistakes that get made in Scarry books are made by the children, but also by the grown-ups. And then, it is clear, they are still lovable. Comforting, isn't it?

There is so much more to be said about Scarry books—about how they give children the words they need to make their way around in the world, about how they bring the world to the children before they can make their way around in it.

Who could present Scarry in a more perfect tone of voice than Carol Channing? Carol Channing talks Scarry better than Scarry (who has a Boston accent) himself. She has an intimate, l-am-reading-this-story-for-you-and-only-you-love-AuntCarol tone of voice that almost makes me feel I'm sitting in somebody's lap again! So what a good idea it was to have Carol Channing record What Do People Do All Day. And now, how nice to have her version of the Please and Thank You Book, the Supermarket Mystery, Great Steamboat Mystery, and the Great Pie Robbery as well.

In the Please and Thank You Book, Lowly Worm is politeness par excellence. From cooperation to safety to friendliness, he and Pig Will and Sergeant Murphy demonstrate and make plain the value of thoughtful, kind, safe, and polite conduct.

In each of the three mysteries, Sam Cat and Dudley Pig, complete with a costume-filled umbrella, are the super sleuths that save the day. In The Supermarket Mystery they go undercover and, after a few hilarious flubs and false accusations, unmask the grocery-grabbing crook. In The Steamboat Mystery it's purloined pearls and their pilferer that have to be discovered, while The Great Pie Robbery brings us all the thrills of a traditional great chase. All the elements of any good mystery, perfectly sized down for pint-size private eyes.

When my husband and I were married, Dick Scarry did us the honor of carving our names on the trunk of one of the trees in one of his books. See if you can find it! Soon after we were married the Scarrys moved from Connecticut to Lausanne, Switzerland. In Connecticut they had had a hat tree, hung with all kinds of hats Dick liked to draw on his animal folk. In Lausanne folks wore those hats, and when we visited them there it was easy to see that Dick was in his element-living where he wanted to live, doing what he loved to do. Hiking through the alpine pastures with the Scarrys we were surrounded by flocks of sheep and goats herded by a picturesque boy in lederhosen. Walking with Dick, I couldn't help wondering, "Why are all these animals walking around without their clothes?" -Polly Berrien Berends

Polly Berrien Berends is the author of a number of children's books and one book on parenthood, WHOLE CHILD/WHOLE PARENT. The former children's book editor lives with her husband and two sons in Westchester County, New York, where she writes books and has a private counseling practice.

Carol Channing is entertainment–it's that simple. Her credits would fill this liner and some would still be missing. Whether it's as the star of the original Hello Dolly! or of Lorelei, or of Sugar Babies, Miss Channing has but to bat her baby browns and say, with that inimitable voice,
"Hi-I'm Carol… Carol Channing?" and she has any audience from six to sixty eating out of her hand. What we mean is that Carol is the one-and only. There is nothing she enjoys so much as doing children's albums for Caedmon and they have ranged from those "Twelve Little Girls in TWO Straight Lines" of MADELINE (TC 1113) to that pig-in-a-poke in William Steig's ROLAND, THE MINSTREL PIG (TC 1305), to the best of-all bears that is WINNIE-THE-POOH (TC 1408), and a whole list of other creations, even one called KIDDING AROUND (TC 1494). Her most recent recordings for Caedmon are Richard Scarry's WHAT DO PEOPLE DO ALL DAY? (TC 1588), PETER AND THE WOLF / TUBBY THE TUBA (TC 1623), PURPLE COW/GOOPS (TC 1656), THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER (TC 1670), THE STORY OF SILENT NIGHT (TC 1681), WINNIE-THE-POOH AND TIGGER (TC 1696), WINNIE-THE-POOH AND KANGA AND ROO (TC 1685), and THE POOH SONG BOOK (TC 1686). They are all delightful and we recommend them and Carol to you.

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