When I was a boy growing up in Farmingdale, NY (Long Island), I attended a primary school (Parkway Oaks) from 1973-1976 and there was a picture book that I used to take out of the school library all the time.
It was full of color photographs of objects. I believe it was an object book or visual dictionary of some sort. However, I also vaguely remember that it was organized by color so that green objects were together, etc. I could be misremembering this, though.
It was not a very thin book; I think it was reasonably thick, chock-full of photos. It was smaller in dimensions (WxH – not an oversized book).
I remember the color being red, but I could be wrong, and that could simply be an artifact of edition. This book appeared to have the style of a book from the 50s or 60s. I cannot imagine a book from the 40s having this much color photography.
I remember being fascinated by all the color photographs (rather than illustrations, which were more common in the other children’s books), and I would love to find this book again.
Thanks!
Could be First Things, A Picture Book in Natural Color Photos by George Adams
Check Tana Hoban books. A photographer. Not sure she did anything but large format picture books, but her books were very colorful in the way you describe
So, neither of these are it. “First Things” is precisely the right vintage, but the book I am referring to was much larger – more of a visual dictionary of sorts. Tana Hoban books are much newer than the book I am seeking.
More guesses: I See a Lot of Things by Dean Hay. Some pictures here: http://toysandtechniques.blogspot.ca/2014/03/i-see-lot-of-things.html
The Modern Wonder Book by Fox Photo
Where Am I? by June Behrens. Brief descriptions help identify the places shown in color photographs of such locations as the fire station, hospital, library, and zoo.
The author of the first book I suggested, George Adams, did some other color picture books. Good luck!
Celeste,
When I see the color (red) and thickness of one of those Modern Wonder Books, it sure seems close – but all of the Modern Wonder Books I have been able to see inside of online seem very text-oriented rather than photo-oriented. Are there specific ones that are just basically photo books?
The Where Am I books don’t look quite right. The book I remember had several different color photographs on each page. I suppose that would have been an important detail in my original post. I hope it helps clarify things a bit.
Thank you again! This is all giving me a great deal of hope!
Hey Drew, I’m no expert on these books – just posting results I got from plugging different keywords into Worldcat. Here’s the Google Books page for the Modern Wonder Book that came up for me. Good luck!
https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Modern_Wonder_Book.html?id=iMQDMgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y