Traditional American Farming Techniques A Ready Reference on All Phases of Agriculture for F... Book

The general information for book collectors in the front of the book is well illustrated and useful. As flawed as it is, it is one of the few collector's guides that covers Whitman books. General collectors guides for juvenile books have much less complete information for Whitman books. The Whitman Teenage Fiction - Identification & Value Guide was a more complete listing but the original edition was limited and difficult for the average collector to obtain.

Overall, the book is a bit of a disappointment. About 1/2 of the illustrations are ugly and pretty much useless. On the 1940's Whitman books, the dust jackets are interesting and colorful but all of the book covers are dark brown with a few dark green or dark blue, with just the titles printed on them, About 1/2 of the illustrations are just these plain book covers. It is surprising to me how many dust jackets are NOT shown. I have only been collecting for a short time and already have some of the dust jackets that are missing from the book -- some that aren't rare or even difficult to find. This also makes the price guide pretty useless because, even though Whitman book prices don't seem to have changed too much, there is a radical difference in the price of those books with dust jackets and the same books without dust jackets. In this price guide only one price is given with no indication if it is for the book with or without the dust jacket.

Also, probably the most collected Whitman books are the 2300 series (numbers assigned by the publisher) but there are two major parts to the 2300 series and this book mixes them together in alphabetical order. Generally, the 2300 books published in the 1940's are printed on horrible-quality war-time paper and have dark, solid color covers but brightly colored and interesting dust jackets, some by very well-known illustrators. Many of the 1940's books had themes involving movie stars and popular comic strips. The 2300 books published in the 1950's were quite different. They had pictures laminated right on the covers with no dust jackets. Many Whitman books of the 1950's and later were based on popular TV shows.

Whitman reused some of the numbers but this problem doesn't seem to be directly addressed. For example, Fifteen Days in the Air (Andy Lane #1), Little Orphan Annie and the Gila Monster Gang, Adventures of Plum Tucker, and Gene Autry and the Big Valley GrabGene Autry and the Big Valley Grab Xdj are all number 2302.

There are indexes in the back of the book by author and by number. There is also a list of "Books not Pictured" which doesn't even list a fraction of the Whitman juvenile books that are not pictured.