Every great chess player was once a beginner.

In Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World (related entry/RDA here), Rafe Esquith recommends that parents and teachers engage the young people in their circles of influence in the game of chess, and he suggests Brian Byfield and Alan Orpin's humor-filled and accessible guide Every Great Chess Player Was Once a Beginner as one of the best starting points. Published in 1974 and lavishly illustrated by Alan Cracknell in that decade's broad, flat signature style, the book is a gem. It's also out of print, which invariably brings out the inner price-gouger in many used books dealers. At this writing, for example, Every Great Chess Player is being peddled for between $75 and $920.50 (yes, you read that correctly) on one online retailer's site.

Consider this post a public service announcement, then:

In April of this year, Batsford published Byfield and Orpin's Learn Chess Quick. With a cover price of $14.95, this trade paperback illustrated by Gray Jolliffe, is simply an update of their 1974 gem.

Don't be duped into paying extravagantly for a book you can, at this writing, order for as little as $10.74.