There are some books that I always have in the back of my mind when I’m in used book stores or wandering the wide web. They’re often the ones from childhood which are just so worn (after all, even if they were just given to my sisters and not passed down from our mom, they’d been through nearly 10 years of children before I was even born!) that they won’t last to another generation.

Some have been “easy” finds – they’ve been reprinted in another edition, and while they don’t have quite the charm of the old books, they do – the story is still there. Others have proven more difficult.

One in particular is The Big Jump-Up Animal Book, which, if it were as boring as its title I would care nothing about. But it’s not. I’ s the kind of book you just can’t judge by its cover. There’s this lovely story within of five jungle animal friends who need food, so they all go out searching but can’t find anything. When they gather again, they realize that the giraffe is missing, and so they go searching for him, only to find that he has discovered a feast of food, but, since he has no voice, he couldn’t call out to them to help him carry it back.

It’s a great story, with beautiful illustrations, and yes, “jump-up” animals, but honestly, that’s the least appealing factor of the book. But that’s its title, making it all the more difficult to find.

So, I’ll continue the search; Google on my side, I shall persevere. And maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll find a copy with the binding still intact.