Last summer, I bought my son a new children’s book which contained several characters which dangled from the book on strings – the concept was that you could move the characters in between pages so they could give “hugs” to the other characters. I bought it because it reminded me so much of a book I loved as a child. When I brought the new book home, my sister had the same reaction: “this is making me think of a book from when we were growing up!”
The best clues I can come up with:
– I was born in 1984 and my sister in 1980 (we also have a younger brother born in 1987).
– Our grandma loved to give us vintage books, so it may have been even older, though I suspect it was from the 1980s.
– There was one character on a string, sturdier than a single sheet of paper but not as thick as a board book. The string–about 6 inches long–was glued into the binding of the book. The concept was to move the character from page to page and bring him throughout the story of the book. He was probably about 2 or 3 inches tall.
– The book had interactive elements – for example, I remember vividly that you could somehow insert him on a slide, and he could “ride” down the slide as you pushed the little character along the page.
– I think the character was an animal (a bear? A weasel? Something brown?) but my memory is so faint on this that it may very well have been a human.
I have an idea what it might be – Busy Bears by Peter Seymour.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1564255.Busy_Bears
There are two bears – Andy and Sandy, a boy and a girl – and they’re black-and-white pandas, but they are attached to ribbons, and the child moves them through various activities including, yes, going down a slide. When I was little, my favourite page was sitting them in the car (they slot into place). It was published in 1981 by Child’s Play.
If it’s not this one, Child’s Play had at least one or two more character-on-a-ribbon books – Molly Mouse Goes Shopping is another one we have. That one was published in 1979, but I’m pretty sure my parents bought it a couple of years later. They still have both of these and my children like them too!
https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z3%2BA1qW0L._SL500_SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
YES! This is it. So impressed you discovered it based on my vague clues. Thank you!
Yay!
I do love these puzzles but it’s not often that I’ve actually read the book (to my children) within days of seeing the question. But in this case, I had!
The book was mine as a child – I was born in 1979.