Brave Little Toaster

DISCH, Thomas M[ichael]. The Brave Little Toaster. A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances. Illustrated by Karen Schmidt. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company [1986]. 12mo, 79pp. Glazed color pictorial boards. Light blue endpapers; 10 full-page b&w illustrations. Hinges of endpapers discolored (as always – apparently due to a chemical reaction with the glue), else a fine copy in original color pictorial dust jacket (two tiny closed tears at edges of front panel, slightest wear to upper edge).

First edition, having originally appeared as a story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1980. When five ordinary appliances, feeling abandoned by their beloved master, decide to take matters into their own hands, they find themselves on a treacherous adventure. But through it all, the brave, indomitable two-slice toaster Sunbeam urges the group onwards towards a new and happy home. The basis for the beloved 1987 animated musical film.