''Tinker and Tanker'' is a children's book series written and illustrated by

Richard Scarry Richard McClure Scarry (June 5, 1919 – April 30, 1994) was an American children's author and illustrator who published over 300 books with total sales of over 100 million worldwide. He is best known for his ''Best Ever'' book series that take ...

, and published in the U.S. by Doubleday from 1960 to 1963.

Overview

The title characters live in a place called Tootletown. Upon the first book's release in 1960, Doubleday described both of them as "Tinker, the quick-witted

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

, and Tanker, the strong, steady

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

." A total of six titles were published within the next three years. According to Walter Retan and Ole Risom, "

heir adventures Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...

were typical picture storybooks, with simple plots and very little text. The characters were all animals, for the most part behaving very much like humans, and the drawings showed the strong sense of the absurd that would become a trademark of carry'sbooks." Cost restrictions at Doubleday caused the illustrations within each book to alternate between full-color and

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochrom ...

; this limitation also affected Scarry's work for a compilation of

Jean de La Fontaine Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...

's fables. Ultimately, ''Tinker and Tanker'' only proved a moderate success. Three of the stories were collected for an

omnibus edition An omnibus edition or omnibus is a creative work containing one or more works by the same or, more rarely, different authors. Commonly two or more components have been previously published as books but a collection of shorter works, or shorter wor ...

in 1968.

Titles

* ''Tinker and Tanker'' (1960) * ''Tinker and Tanker Out West'' (1961) * ''Tinker and Tanker and Their Space Ship'' (1961) * ''Tinker and Tanker and the Pirates'' (1961) * ''Tinker and Tanker: Knights of the Round Table'' (1963) * ''Tinker and Tanker in Africa'' (1963)

Overview

Titles

References

See also