The Little Leather Library Collection consists of 101 books, 3-1/4” x 4,” published by the Little Leather Library Corporation of New York.  The miniature books are bound in imitation leather and characteristic of the Redcroft edition published between 1920-1924.  The Little Leather Library Corporation of New York was the first company to mass-market inexpensive books in the United States.  The corporation, founded in 1916 by Albert Boni, Harry Scherman and Maxwell Sackheim, made available a wide variety of classics by authors including Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Morris, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats in miniature editions.  Only the first two editions were bound in real leather.  When first published, the little books were sold at the Woolworth’s chain.  By the early 1920s, the books were advertised in popular magazines, selling in National Geographic from 1922 to 1924. Sometimes a miniature classic might appear in a cereal box as a promotion.  Robert K. Hass, Inc., Publishers took control of the Little Leather Library Corporation in 1924.  Boni later established Modern Library Publishing Company, of which Random House Publishers would become a subsidiary company. Scherman and Sackheim as well as Hass were later involved in the establishment of the Book of the Month Club.  https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86d604k/    

Jurassic Park, later referred to as Jurassic World, is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs.  It began in 1990 when Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment bought the rights to Crichton's novel Jurassic Park before it was published.  The book was successful, as was Steven Spielberg's 1993 film adaptation.  The film received a theatrical 3D re-release in 2013, and was selected in 2018 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".  Crichton's 1995 sequel novel, The Lost World, was followed by a 1997 film adaptation, also directed by Spielberg.  Crichton did not write any further sequels in the series, although Spielberg would return as executive producer for each subsequent film, starting with Jurassic Park III (2001).  In 2015, a second trilogy of films began with the fourth film in the series, Jurassic World.  The film was financially successful, and was followed by Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022).  The Jurassic World films were co-written by Colin Trevorrow, who also directed the first and third installments in the trilogy.  Jurassic World Rebirth, a new film set after the preceding trilogy, was theatrically released on July 2, 2025, without Trevorrow's involvement.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(franchise)   

John Michael Crichton (1942–2008) was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker.  His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films.  His literary works heavily feature technology and are usually within the science fiction, techno-thriller, and medical fiction genres.  Crichton's novels often explore human technological advancement and attempted dominance over nature, both with frequently catastrophic results; many of his works are cautionary tales, especially regarding themes of biotechnology.  Several of his stories center on themes of genetic modification, hybridization, paleontology and/or zoology.  Many feature medical or scientific underpinnings, reflective of his own medical background.  Crichton received an MD from Harvard Medical School in 1969 but did not practice medicine, choosing to focus on his writing instead.  Initially writing under a pseudonym, he eventually published 25 novels in his lifetime, including:  The Andromeda Strain (1969), The Terminal Man (1972), The Great Train Robbery (1975), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), Jurassic Park (1990), Rising Sun (1992), Disclosure (1994), The Lost World (1995), Airframe (1996), Timeline (1999), Prey (2002), State of Fear (2004), and Next (2006).  Four more novels, in various states of completion, were published after his death in 2008.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton   Surname is pronounced "cry-ton”.  https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/crichton-michael-1942-2008    

Johann Zinn and the Cinderella Flower: From Eyesore to Beloved Zinnia 
April 6 is the anniversary of the death of Johann Zinn, who died young at the age of 32.  Johann accomplished much in his short life, and he focused on two seemingly disconnected areas of science:  human anatomy and botany.  From an anatomy standpoint, Johann focused on the eye.  He wrote an eye anatomy book and became the first person to describe the Iris.  Today, several parts of the eye are named in Johann’s honor, including the Zinn zonule, the Zinn membrane, and the Zinn artery.  As a young man, Johann was appointed the University Botanic Garden director in Göttingen (pronounced "Gert-ing-en").  He initially thought the University wanted him to teach anatomy, but that job was filled, so he took the botany job instead.   One day, Johann received an envelope of seeds from the German Ambassador to Mexico.  After growing the plants, Johann wrote about them, drew the blossoms, and shared the seed with other botanists throughout Europe.  Like most botanists in the 1700s, Johann corresponded with Linnaeus.  Johann’s reputation as a bright, young garden director--and the fact that he tragically died young from tuberculosis--spurred Linnaeus to name the flower Zinnia in his honor.  https://thedailygardener.org/ota20210406/    

April 20, 2026