Paul Rand (1914–1996)

I'm oscillating wildly between giving it 5 stars and giving it 2. 3-and-a-half seemed like a nice compromise :)

This is a book about... words and poetry, but not really. (I'm aware that's clear as mud, but bear with me here.) The author is seeking, I think, to define language and ideas without actually giving definitions. As an example, the first page runs:

What are words?
Words are how what you think inside
comes out
and how to remember what you might
forget about.

The book goes on like this until show more the end. And honestly, I'm not sure if I like it or not. The author has a gift of putting together language in a way that's friendly and makes the whole concept of "language" clear... but I'm not sure if she goes above the head of her audience or, conversely, is well too easy for them!

The illustrations are cheerfully retro (well, they were modern when this was first in print), no complaints there.

Check this book out of the library before you buy it. And you know what? If you like it, try Margaret Wise Brown's The Important Book. These two have similar styles. show less

It's full of lovely examples but doesn't really dip too deep in the philosophical details. That's probably an expectation of mine rather than a shortcoming, but for all the discussions of symbols and signs there's very little on Saussure or Pierce. Beautiful art though.

Wittgenstein himself couldn't have written a finer treatise for preschoolers on semantic theory.

This reissue of the childhood classic I Know a Lot of Things is a celebration of all the new and intriguing knowledge children delight in possessing. Written from the simplicity of a child's perspective, the plain-but-powerful text voices important childhood knowledge such as "I know when I look in the mirror, what I see is me" and that "dogs go bowwow and that is how they talk." Illustrated with graphic designer Paul Rand's colorful, playful artwork, I Know a Lot of Things, with all the show more teeny nuggets of wisdom contained therein, is destined to please a new generation. show less