Mommy's New Tattoo

Why does someone get a tattoo?
Why does someone's mother get a tattoo?

These days, of course, it's not an unusual thing at all. Especially in hipster-riddled hubs like Austin and Brooklyn and Seattle and Portland (where author Levi Greenacres makes the greater part of his living as a professional tattooist), people of all ilks have their skin precisely stained with miniature works of art or calligraphy or, at worst, some garish band logo they'll regret still wearing a decade down the line.

Greenacres' delightful bedtime-story-like take on the process – it's related in stanzas of at least approximate rhyme among the full-color illustrations – relates the journey of a young girl who accompanies her mother to the parlor where that Mom gets a new tattoo, and then, years later and past the cusp of adulthood, gets a tattoo of her own. Simply, engagingly told. And … illustrated, did we say? Yes: Page after page of beautifully colored illustrations like less baroque versions of tattoo flash art, wonderfully complementing this instructive and considerate tale of dermal enhancement, created by the talented author.

Bonus: You go to the Schiffer Publishing website to check out this beautifully produced volume, you're going to find a treasure trove of other books about tattooing and pin-up culture, as well as a seemingly endless (and undeniably elegant) array of books on more high-brow art forms. Wouldn't be at all surprising, though, if you could find a selection of these hardbound goodnesses at Austin's own BookPeople.