Carlos And His Friends

Phoenix, Arizona: Library Book Supply Co., 1940 Yellow illustrated paper paste down the full length of the front board. Cracked spine, cracked in the middle and front. The book has a string binding. The book has 53 numbered pages.<p> The book is signed by the author kind of in the center of the centipede, has some taped large tears on the page where the book is signed.<p> An interesting newspaper clipping about Alice Barber and her love for animals.<p> She took in animals. She had 12 doberman pinchers, six goats, a burro, a donkey and a flock of pigeons that lived with the former school teacher. Years ago she created a world of friends for the Tucson schoolchildren. Carlos the centipede, Billy the beetle, Helen the spider. She was known as "the animal lady" to second graders that she taught at El Rio Elementary School, because she used to bring everything from gila monsters to skunks into her classroom.<p> She was a recluse, a weird old lady as one teenager put it who grew up in the neighborhood. She kept her gate locked and chased cars away from the front of her house and she threatened the neighborhood children. Billings admits that the kids ganged up and tried to shoot and poisen her dogs. They threw rocks at her burro which according to Billings, the woman took in as a crippled stray.<p> It wasn't so much that Alice Barber got grouchy in her old age said Pilgrim, but bedeviled by the children's attacks on the beasts and fowl she cared for, and she chose to retire form the human race.