The Telling Tommy Series by Paul Pim has a fascinating backstory. In the late 1930s, Pim, now known as Paul Pim, began writing and illustrating a series of children’s books called the “Telling Tommy” series. They were all published by the Cupples and Leon Company of New York who published juvenile fiction and children’s books. The company is mainly remembered today as the major publisher of books collecting comic strips during the early decades of the 20th century such as Mutt and Jeff, Little Orphan Annie and The Katzenjammer Kids. Each children’s book published by Cupples and Leon would include an inside back jacket letter to parents assuring them that their books are “fit for children in every way, that the reading material is clean, interesting, inspiring and educational.” Running about 100 pages each, Pim eventually published seven “Telling Tommy” books

Telling Tommy About Mother Nature's Curious Children (1939), Telling Tommy About Famous People in Their Youth (1940), Telling Tommy About Days We Celebrate (1941), Telling Tommy About Famous Inventors (1942), Telling Tommy About Our Good Neighbors (1943), Telling Tommy About Things We Use (1946), and Telling Tommy About Pilgrims Progress (1957, published seven years after Pim’s death in 1950).

This listing is for three of the books from the series:

Telling Tommy about Days We Celebrate (1941) - This focuses on holidays and festivals that were and are celebrated by many of us.
Telling Tommy about Mother Nature's Curious Children (1939) - This focuses on interesting creatures in nature and their habits and characteristics.
Telling Tommy about Famous Inventors (1942) - This focuses on historically important inventors and their inventions.

The format of each book was a one page narrative of the topic with an illustrated one page of cartoon-like drawing to explain the narrative by the author. Each book had a full Contents listing at the front and were 93 pages long. These are all easy to read and great for general reference or for home schooling.

The books are in varying degrees of condition. The Telling Tommy about Inventors has the cleanest cover as there is a partial dust jacket still included and it protected the book. There are still scuffs along the bottom edge and slightly bent corners. The other two do not have dust jackets and their edges and covers have more soiling and scuffs. The Celebrate book has the most soiling and edge scuffs of the three. The Inventors book has a more orangish red hue than the other two - I suspect different dye lots from different years. All have Janice McMonagle/Robinson in ink on the front fly leaf page and the Mother Nature one has a book plate stamp as well. All three have a library pocket in the back, no circulation cards included. The back page of Celebrations has pencil squiggle marks.

All pages are included in all books and the bindings are still firm.

Dimensions - 7” x 8 5/8” x ½”

Sold as a Set of Three - You are almost half way to the full set of seven!