One, of course, is The War of the Worlds. Over the years, my collection of Illustrated Classics disappeared. So, we spent the next half hour or so doodling little jokes in my copy of The War of the Worlds. (This was before my comic collecting days, where this urge to keep my stuff pristine went into overdrive.) However, this was my friend and I didn’t want to cause any problems with him. I hadn’t drawn in a book since I was very small, and took pride in keeping my books in good condition. I definitely had mixed feelings about this. He proceeded to doodle on the illustrations in the book!
I was skeptical of this, but found one anyway. He grabbed The War of the Worlds, and asked for a pencil. Joe, or whatever it was, my friend noticed the Illustrated Classics on my bookshelf. When I was in fourth or perhaps fifth grade, I had a friend over. (I even included an homage of sorts in The Thing from the Drive-In.) Every time I see a water tower, I think of how the nonfunctional tripods at the end of the story were illustrated in this version of the book. When I picture the Martians, I think of how they looked in this book. The cover, pictured above, was evocative, though it included an anachronistic pickup truck. The Time Machine made a big impression on me, but The War of the Worlds was my favorite. It was a great way for a curious kid like me to experience these classics stories for the first time.Īs a Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica fan, I gravitated to the sci-fi tales of H.G. Each book told the story in abridged form, written to the elementary school age reading level, and there was an illustration on nearly every page. The set I had included a variety of genres. Each book adapted a classic piece of literature. This series of book were small, perhaps 4 inches square, and nearly an inch thick. One such pile included a set of Illustrated Classic Editions. Nearly every birthday, Christmas, or other gift-giving time, books were in my pile of loot. My parents took us to the public library every two weeks, and I would load myself up with as many books as I could carry each time.
I skipped right over the picture book shelf at the school library and went into the chapter books. The War of the Worlds is one of my favorite stories, and I’ll be writing about all the various media adaptations all throughout October.įrom a very young age, I was a voracious reader. It’s War of the Worlds month here at the ol’ blog.
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