Richard Scarry Collection: Archive.org

https://archive.org/search?query=Richard+Scarry&and%5B%5D=subject%3A%22Richard+Scarry%22

162 46 3 years ago

dddw• 3 years ago

Love this. Great world building. Their educational books are so fun without it being cheesy.

I loved Richard Scarry as a kid, and my daughter is now old enough to follow me in that love. I had no idea there was anything beyond books. She's not in that phase anymore, but for about a month, Richard Scarry's big book of words was the only bedtime book she wanted me to read her.

The biggest impact on me, though, is how I think about jobs. "Richard Scarry" jobs seems more _real_ to me than what I do. Often, when I'm sitting in a meeting that seems to drone or at the end of the day when I'm not sure if I've done anything of worth, I dream of Busytown and what job I could slide in to from there.

tokai• 3 years ago

Made me remember this popular tweet.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fb...

3littlefish4• 3 years ago

So true!

andrewgioia• 3 years ago

For some reason that link isn't working for me, but this should: https://old.reddit.com/r/90s/comments/10giw53/busytown_usa/

earthboundkid2• 3 years ago

My son was looking at a Busy World book and there was a newspaper in it filled with jobs that are mostly obsolete like typist (context: I work as a news site developer).

1123581321• 3 years ago

That reminds me of the strangest Richard Scarry fact I know:

“Richard Scarry once called me a Nazi after I posted on Usenet that there were much busier towns than Busytown.”

So he might have been glad you remember Busytown as real work and not a vacation.

https://metatalk.metafilter.com/20946/Graeber-makes-an-appea...

ZeroGravitas• 3 years ago

The archives sister project Open Library has nearly 200 Richard Scarry books to digitally "borrow":

https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL35039A/Richard_Scarry?mode...

butterfi• 3 years ago

I was recently in Istanbul and I’m always reminded of Scarry when I watch the traffic going over the Bosporus. So many ships, bridges, etc.

3littlefish4• 3 years ago

I LOVED these books so much as a kid, and my children also love them now. Gorgeous illustrations and just really fun. I believe they were slightly updated in recent years to add more women into jobs other than housewife/mum!

3littlefish4• 3 years ago

Found an article about this: https://www.upworthy.com/8-changes-that-were-made-to-a-class...

3littlefish4• 3 years ago

I particularly love the headline "Regular People Needs Rescuing Too" and the change from "Beautiful Screaming Lady" to "cat in danger!"

earthboundkid2• 3 years ago

Article is just a write up of a Flickr album, so linking to Flickr is better.

ggm• 3 years ago

What can beat hunting for lowly worm.

artichokeheart• 3 years ago

Well damn. I loved these books as a kid but it was only your comment that made me realise that Lowly worms name was a pun. 40+ years of ignorance.

nytesky• 3 years ago

Wait, pun? Please spell it out.

hyperbovine• 3 years ago

Finding Mr. Frumble and his hat

lubujackson• 3 years ago

Don't forget Goldbug! The re-readability of these books is extraordinary.

d1l• 3 years ago

Our well-thumbed and torn cars book was a favorite of my brother's and mine. Half the pickle truck is missing and my kids speculate what other vehicles might have been on the missing page. There's no lesson here other than, I think, that when someone creates something good, honest, and with love, then that thing is worthwhile and praiseworthy. The love shows in every detail of his books.

lordofmoria• 3 years ago

Couldn’t agree more - my kids have been reading the two “big ones” - Cars and Trucks and strings that go, and “What do People Do All Day?” almost every night for a year now. There’s always a delightful new discovery and it’s an endless source of “Why?” questions with interesting answers!

pfdietz2• 3 years ago

Are these not still under copyright? Scarry died in 1994.

tiahura• 3 years ago

I enjoy stealin', it's just as simple as that. Oh well, it's just a simple fact. When I want something, man, I don't wanna pay for it!

kwhitefoot2• 3 years ago

So? Copyright won't be encouraging him to create any more works will it. So why should anyone care that it is still under copyright?

pfdietz2• 3 years ago

If you violate a copyright and are taken to court, you will find yourself caring very much.

arxiv.org is being sued for things like this, so I have to question why they'd host this.

olodus• 3 years ago

Was about to ask the same question (though didn't know when he died).

Ok then, I'll get back to these when we finally have been able to convince the government that the current copyright length is obscene or when they have entered public commons - whichever is earlier (don't make me bring the mood down by suggesting which one I think will come first).

jollyllama• 3 years ago

There were some great Busytown PC games in the 90s too. The boat screen in particular had a fun song.

semireg• 3 years ago

At 40, I only found these when reading to our children. Oh, how I would have loved these as a youngster! Everything about RS is filled with smiles. I’m grateful I’m able to “be a kid again” with our small collection.

We’ve purchased almost all copies second hand from: https://www.thriftbooks.com/ and our local used bookstore. Love!

lproven2• 3 years ago

I was 52. Still been 100% joy.

jmuguy• 3 years ago

We received one of Richard Scarry's books from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and I had this wild memory come flooding back of reading them as a kid. Really weird experience to have an extremely old memory like that come out of nowhere.

If you're in the US and have young children, or are expecting, check out the Imagination Library - its awesome. They send you an age appropriate book once a month, for free. Further solidifying that Dolly Parton is a nation treasure.

https://imaginationlibrary.com/

mysterydip• 3 years ago

Just got our August one in the mail yesterday. The kids love it! Highly recommended.

addled• 3 years ago

There's Busytown board game that's pretty fun to play with young children: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/64220/richard-scarrys-bu....

It is very distinctive, with a huge 6 foot long game board. Plus, it's totally cooperative: everyone wins or loses together depending on if they can _all_ get to the ferry and make it to a picnic before Pig-Will and Pig-Won't eat all the food.

mcphage• 3 years ago

His Busytown airport board game is also fun with little kids: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113853/richard-scarrys-b...

chang1• 3 years ago

Busytown: Eye found it is one of my kids' favorite games. It's a lot of fun to play as an adult too. I'll have to checkout the airport one. Thanks for posting!

MisterTea• 3 years ago

I had a bunch of Richard Scarry books as a child. As someone who grew up interested in engineering Scarry has these wonderful cut aways and illustrations of all sorts of everyday things.

My favorite is What Do People Do All Day. Cut aways showing pipes and cables underground with labels and colors, blue for water, green for sewage, red with white stripes for electric and blue with white stripes for telephone (might have those backwards). Homes under construction, farming and water wheel grain mill, power generation plant, road construction, even a passenger ship. Those books really stimulated the mind with those little details. And labels! Everything was labeled to tell you what that thing did or was. Some of the characters had little quips; I still remember the electrician in the house construction section standing by the fuse box/main disconnect/meter pan stating "never ever touch!"

The one thing that both infuriates and baffles me is why in gods name did they abridge What Do People Do All Day. The power station and more than I can remember is missing. My original copy was lost or destroyed, can't remember, when I was still young. When my mother went to look for another all she could find was abridged. WTF!

Projectiboga• 3 years ago

What Do People Do All Day, is still my all time favorite book. I am glad I could share it with my son.

zem• 3 years ago

i had a copy of 'what do people do all day' as a kid, my siblings and i all loved it! i can still visualise some of the pictures·

johtso• 3 years ago

I just watched the intro to one of the episodes and the music definitely brought back some memories!

I was left with the feeling that I'd heard the music before in a different context though. It then twigged that it was in another children's TV series, the wonderful Czech cartoon The Mole (Krtek). After a bit of digging I found it was in the Mole and the Rocket (Krtek a raketa) episode. https://youtu.be/LqGqqzTO8MQ?t=213

It turns out that the theme song was composed by Milan Kymlicka, a Czech composer, interesting! And lo and behold, the music for that episode was composed by the same composer! https://en.kinorium.com/390051/episodes/s1e3/

amock• 3 years ago

Does anyone know of a comprehensive list of changes made to his books to update them for more modern audiences? His books were the first I heard of being updated for that reason and I'd like to see what was done, but I can only find news articles listing some changes.

tacoman• 3 years ago

There is an artist who has a Tumblr featuring characters in the style of Richard Scarry that parodies professions that many on HN would be familiar with.

https://welcometobusinesstown.tumblr.com/

It's one of the best things on the internet.

kraig911• 3 years ago

When I started in my career I was working as an ink and paint artist for a company making these types of games. It was all in macromedia director. We'd put the elements for everything everywhere and so much of the loading was collecting random small files from all over. It's where I made my first real application. This was kind of before flash and the web. I prefer the books now to the games but I loved what we were trying to do. Now the market is flooded with terrible edutainment software. I wish there was something you could see by the quality of illustration anymore and be able to say "hey this is quality" so much of it's trash. I was read I am a bunny as a kid. I now read it to my son.

dj_gitmo• 3 years ago

This morning my child insisted that he was Huckle Cat and I was Grocer Cat. I think he will appreciate this.

vlark• 3 years ago

Two words: Cannibal Pigs.

http://davegilson.com/scarry.html

lproven2• 3 years ago

He wasn't first...

https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/6w218e/in_the...

themadturk• 3 years ago

Years ago, pre-Amazon, a friend sent to me a downtown bookstore to pick up a book he ordered. It was a book of folk rhymes, illustrated by Richard Scarry. I only remember one of the rhymes:

When in danger, When in doubt, Run in Circles, Scream and shout!

Richard Scarry Collection: Archive.org

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