Real Kato Blog: The Secret World of Og

The Adventure Begins.

I was probably about eight or nine when I first read the book The Secret World of Og, by Pierre Berton. I had checked it out of the library; I can't remember if it was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or in Middlebury, Vermont. But I do remember that I greatly enjoyed it. In my journal at the time (yes, even at the age of eight, I was blogging... offline), I wrote it down as a book that I liked.

I don't know what made me think of this book recently; perhaps it was the experience of being in a used bookstore with Jen a few weeks ago, or perhaps it was the fact that a baby at Panera Bread made an "Og" sound at me. Whatever it was, it made me nostalgic enough to buy the book. I found a paperback edition from a used bookseller online.

When it arrived, it wasn't really in very good shape. The cover was ratty, creased, and torn. Someone had written HENDERSON on it with a Sharpie, then tried to rub it off. I suppose one can't expect a thirty-year-old children's book to be very well preserved, but I was hoping it would be at least presentable. I want to be able to display it on a shelf. This book and The Towers of February (by Tonke Dragt) are among my very favorite books from childhood, and I want to have them as keepsakes.

What I decided I would do is, I would make a new cover for it, by scanning the original, touching it up, and gluing it to some stiff construction paper. So this is the project that I've been working on all week. I took a 600-dpi scan, and went to work in Photoshop. I'll tell you, touching up a fourteen-million-pixel image a couple of dots at a time is tedious work, the kind of work that would normally tie my stomach in anxious knots. But I got through it, with some help from free beer and Photoshop's lovely lovely "Clone Stamp" tool.

Here is the before-and-after result:

I'm quite pleased with it! Yay me!

Permalink 8 Comment

Posted by Ken in: books, life

Comments

Comment #1 from Jenn (Guest)
2005 May 30 - 10:04 am : #

I love that clone stamp tool. Very nice photoshopping!

Comment #2 from Speaker (Guest)
2005 May 31 - 10:30 am : #

good work! why does the house and author name on the right look higher than the one on the left while the rest of the image looks about even? well, almost......

Comment #3 from Ken (realkato)
2005 May 31 - 12:13 pm : #

Well, after I started editing, I realized I hadn't saved the original scan, so I had to take another one to make a before-and-after comparison. So they're not quite lined up right.

BTW, it's still a work in progress. I need to print a proof, so I can do some final color and size corrections.

Comment #4 from Speaker (Guest)
2005 May 31 - 1:21 pm : #

hell, still looks damned good like it is! g'luck!

Comment #5 from Cori (Guest)
2005 Jun 13 - 2:17 pm : #

I didn't realize anyone else in world had ever seen this, wow.

I remember finding it so creepy and strange when I was a child, but of course, since it's Pierre Berton, it's a Canadian classic.

Comment #6 from pippin (Guest)
2006 Jan 24 - 2:51 pm : #

I didn't realize anyone else in world had ever seen this, wow.

I remember finding it so creepy and strange when I was a child, but of course, since it's Pierre Berton, it's a Canadian classic.

Comment #7 from Laura (Guest)
2006 Apr 1 - 12:21 pm : #

I first read the World of Og when i was 10; it was my mother's book and the dust jacket has long since disintergrated. Its great to see someone else loves this book enought to reconsrtuct it, and brilliant to be able to see what the whole cover looks like!

Comment #8 from Geoff Hart (Guest)
2006 Sep 14 - 6:47 am : #

The book is now a series (again)
It was originally part of the ABC animation special weekend back in 1983.

In 2006 it's being broadcast on CBC as a flash animation.

Airs every Saturday on CBC at 9:30am in the morning starting Sat Sept 9th/2006.

Glad to hear it's a favorite.

Comments are closed for this post.

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