Dandelion Library

Two-in-one flip books, back-to-front books, double-sided books...these are all names for volumes that include two books, printed together, but upside down and back-to-back. So you read one, then flip the book over to start reading the other. The technical term for this is tête-bêche (French, head-to-tail) binding, and you can read a little more about its fascinating history on wikipedia's "dos-à-dos" (back-to-back, not *quite* the same thing) entry or here at an article from The Guardian.

This is not a common practice, and only periodically in fashion. It seems that the late 1960s and early 1970s was one of those periods. We know of two vintage series that used this approach. Companion Library is one of these, and Dandelion Library is the other. Unlike the Companion Library editions, which each combine two novels, these volumes are picture books, heavily featuring fairy tales, fables, folktales, and a decided interest in animal stories.

22 KNOWN VOLUMES (more titles below):

  1. Audubon's Birds / Audubon's Animals
  2. Pie and the Pattypan / Golden Goose and Other Favorites
  3. Puss in Boots and Other Stories / Queen of Hearts
  4. Old Rosie, The Horse Nobody Understood / Bambi's Children
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18 Items found Print
Babar and His Children / Tale of Benjamin Bunny
by Jean de Brunhoff (Babar); Beatrix Potter (Benjamin)
from Grolier Society
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Babar and Zephir / Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
by Jean de Brunhoff (Babar) and Beatrix Potter (Squirrel Nutkin)
from Random House Books for Young Readers
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Babar the King / Grimm's Fairy Tales
by Jean de Brunhoff (Babar); Rose Dobbs (reteller, Grimm), Illustrated by Gertrude Elliott Espensheid
from Random House
for 2nd-6th grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Best Loved Fables of Aesop / Nonsense Alphabets
by Aesop, Joseph Jacobs, illustrated by John Tenniel and Joseph Wolf; Edward Lear (Nonsense)
from Grolier Publishing
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Best Loved Fairy Tales / Selections from a Child's Garden of Verses
by Walter Crane & Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith
from Grolier Publishing
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Flip / I'm Tired of Lions
by Wesley Dennis & Zhenya Gay
from Viking Press
for 2nd-5th grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Johnny Crow's Garden / Andersen's Fairy Tales
by L. Leslie Brooke & Hans Christian Andersen, retold by Rose Dobbs and illustrated by Gustav Hjortlund
from Frederick Warne & Company
for Nursery-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World / I Saw the Sea Come In
by Becky Reyher, illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett; Alvin Tresselt, illustrated by Roger Duvoisin
from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
for Preschool-2nd grade
1946 Caldecott Honor Book
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Peter Pan / Alice in Wonderland (abridged)
by J. M. Barrie & Lewis Carroll, abridged by Josette Frank & illustrated by Marjorie Torrey
from Random House
for 1st-3rd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Pinocchio / Adventures of Robin Hood
by C. Collodi, retold by Allen Chaffee and illustrated by Lois Lenski; Robin Hood retold by Eleanor Graham Vance and illustrated by Jay Hyde Barnum
from Random House
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Pony Engine / Bedtime Stories
by Francis M. Ford, adapted by Doris Garn and illustrated by Gregorio Prestopino; Thornton W. Burgess, illustrated by Carl & Mary Hauge
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 1st-3rd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Story of Babar / Heidi
by Jean de Brunhoff, translated by Merle S. Haas, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, adapted by Florence Hayes and illustrated by Erika Weihs
from Random House
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Tailor of Gloucester/ How the Leopard Got His Spots and Other Stories
by Beatrix Potter (Tailor); Rudyard Kipling (Leopard)
from Grolier Society
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Tom Thumb and Other Favorites / Treasury of Nursery Rhymes
by L. Leslie Brooke & Charles Robinson, illustrators
from Grolier Publishing
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Travels of Babar/ Tale of Peter Rabbit
by Jean de Brunhoff (Babar); Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit)
from Grolier Society
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Trubloff / Petunia, I Love You
by Roger Duvoisin
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for Kindergarten-2nd grade
in Vintage Picture Books (Location: VIN-PIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Uncle Wiggily Book / Stories Around the Year
by Howard Roger Garis & Thornton W. Burgess
from Grosset & Dunlap
for Preschool- 3rd Grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.50 (3 in stock)
Veronica / Three Little Horses
by Roger Duvoisin & Piet Worm
from Random House
for Preschool-2nd grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (3 in stock)