Little Merry Road Trips of the Biblia

I don't know this photographer (Timothy Hearsum), but he has driven through Santa Barbara, as I see from his book of panoramic photos, and his book Road Trips was published in Santa Barbara.

I decided to hitchhike along, occupying the wide-openness with my busybody language, spoken with three children's books.

One was Little Merry Story Book, from before 1900. It required the most delicate cutting, as the pages were severely browned and brittle. The scissors seemed to crumble the paper as much as cut it. But the paper took up the Elmer's glue beautifully and seemed to regain strength in the process.

One was Eight Little Indians, from the 1930s, gorgeously colored bits of myth-making about Native American children, filtered through the imagination of someone who probably didn't know any better.

One was Las Bellas Historias de la Biblia, Volume 1, part of a multi-volume series of Bible stories told in Spanish.

As the photos were panoramic, I had to pan-and-scan to get the whole image.

Road Trips, photographs by Timothy Hearsum (Santa Barbara: Hearsum Editions, 2001)

Little Merry Makers Story Book (McLoughlin Brothers, 1909)

Eight Little Indians by Josephine Lovell (New York: Platt & Munk Co., 1936)

Las Bellas Historias de la Biblia by Arturo S. Maxwell (Nampi, Idaho: Publicaciones Interamericanas, Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1965)