Empower backseat passengers to become informed backseat drivers with this road sign decoder featuring 35 shaped road signs! From road signs around the neighborhood, like "School Crossing" and "Playground," to signs you zoom past on the highway, this hefty reference board book highlights and explains 35 road and highway signs for the youngest readers on the go. The shaped pages make each sign tactilely memorable, and the carefully crafted one-sentence explanations will easily guide young readers as they contextualize the world that zips past their backseat windows.
"In the fall of 1925, young Allan Odell conceived the idea of using consecutive signs along the roadside. . . . In 1963 the last signs were taken down, ending the most famous outdoor advertising venture ever.”—1977 Minnesota Almanac The whole story is in this book, plus all the jingles used. The signs are gone now, except for one set on permanent display at The Smithsonian. You can have them all, always, in your own library with this book. “Rowsome’s volume indexes each of the 600 jingles . . . and as you down the list, preferably reading aloud, it might evoke visions of 1940 Chevies, roadside diners, signs that said EATS. . . . Why were the Burma-Shave jingles so universally loved? Because they were light-hearted and humorous in hard times and war times.”—Bov Swift, Knight News Service
When the road signs take a vacation, chaos and hilarity ensue--and they quickly learn how important they are. School is ending for the summer, and the stick figures on the school crossing sign are jealous of all the vacation plans they hear the students making. The stick figures work hard--maybe they deserve a vacation, too! So they abandon their signpost and set off on an adventure, inviting along all the other underappreciated road signs they meet on the way. It's all fun and games for a while, especially when they stumble upon a fantastic amusement park. But the people they've left behind are feeling their absence, and soon there are traffic tangles and lost pedestrians everywhere. The signs are more important than they realized, and now it's time for them to save the day!
For the last 25 years, photographer Sam Fentress has traveled America taking architectural photographs as his full-time profession. In this never-before published collection, Fentress reveals an America rich with spirituality, hunger, compassion, sorrow, remorse, and jubilation.
"Packed with over 200 funny signs, this book is the ultimate collection of accidentally entertaining bits of roadside Americana. Open to any page and you'll find an ironic, suggestive, mislabeled, off-color or otherwise amusing sign that was spotted and photographed by an everyday traveler on a road trip somewhere across America"--Back cover