Regular readers might remember us hitting a mid-summer crafters sale, along with me wandering around in shoes from the sale (something I would never do without meeting the person first — it’s a kooky rule, but it works for me. Like if I did get some foot cooties I could go back to the person’s house and confront them or something …)

Anyway, at that sale Jenny found a copy of Crafts for Retarded. No, really.

We had a discussion about who would buy it, which we seem to do on a regular basis. In the “one of us needs to buy that” sort of vein … and let’s get real, it’s usually me that takes the bait, since I have no will power.

What exactly is this book? Well, let me start by saying that some of the crafts look downright difficult. Many of them I probably couldn’t do now (and maybe that is saying more about me). Far as I can tell it’s a school aid or parent aid for teaching crafts to the mentally retarded.

This is the first edition from 1964 and lord knows how many printings they could have had. Hell, even growing up in the ’70s saying retarded was a NO-NO. Not that it’s stopped me from calling all of my friends retarded many, many times.

Shocking that even in 1964 they would use a swastika in this drum project.

Yes, I know that it’s a Native American symbol and you can tell me all day that it’s a symbol used for 100s of years, blah. There is no friggin’ way that it’s ever going to be okay to use in a children’s book.

Not only is the drum odd, but there’s a full-on product advertisement on page 53 for textile paint. This is in the table of contents.

I did think these “Phonograph Record Bowls” were pretty cool.

Wanna see a better cover? Awful Library Books uncovered a less scraped-up copy.