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The Big Book of Big Little Books

Bill Borden with Steve Posner

Chronicle Books, $16.95

The Big Little Books cranked out from the '30s through the '60s combined recycled comic art from strips like Dick Tracy with simplistic text, yet they were often the first "real" books a child ever read.

More to the point, their chunky-yet-graspable 4" x 3" bulk and often breathtaking design make them appropriate (and expensive) fetish objects today.

Borden, a film producer, is a pretty lousy writer, but his collection makes for inspired graphic nostalgia.

And, yeah, I'd pay too much for a copy of the 1946 "Don Winslow and the Giant Girl Spy."

Grade: B
-- Ty Burr

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