Author Archives: admin

336R: Large painted picture book with little people at war in forest (Solved!)

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I read this book in the 80’s in my elementary school library. Large, detailed paintings, rendered realistically, of little cartoon-ish humanoid people dressed in WWI type clothes and gear. They lived and fought in the forest and used animals as we would use machines. I remember the pictures always showing both sides trying to get the upper hand on one another in each picture, and one wore WWI German type gear, while the other side wore British.
One picture was a guy riding a sparrow, dressed as a fighter ace, the sparrow having a intricate harness to hold the rider and two maxim machine guns mounted to its back. He is looking behind him, or below at the opposing Sparrow pilot.

I have included sketches of what I remember.

336Q: Brigands

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I wish I had something more for hints, but this query comes for a book I believe was published in the 1930’s.  Had it been in the 1940’s I would have been able to read it myself, and I don’t think I ever could.
It was hard backed but not more that a half-inch thick, all black and white.  Illustrations included stick figures or possibly pear-shaped bodies (inverted?) with stick arms and legs.  These figures or characters were called “Brigands” and were bad.  I have no idea what the title may be.
There seem to have been two stories in the book.  It’s possible one was “Ferdinand the Bull,” but that may be a merged memory.
That’s all I’ve got and I really don’t expect anything.  You’d have to be older than I am with a marvelous memory.

336P: Girl with tangled hair and a fat uncle barefoot in a mudpuddle (Solved!)

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Seeking a children’s book about a slight girl with very long, slightly tangled dark hair, illustrated in realistic colored pencil, maybe?  On one page, there is a very affable, very fat uncle-type character, with his trousers rolled up, no socks or shoes on, and he’s in a stream or a mud puddle.  I feel like the girl has to be patient with her uncle(s) because he/they are very scatterbrained. 

336O: The Last Unicorn (Solved!)

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I feel as though the title of the book may have been along the lines of “The Last Unicorn” – but that book that comes up in my internet searches is not the correct book.  (The over 50 year old book that was made into a movie about the unicorn looking for more of her own kind is not the correct book.)

This novel was about a little girl that travels via carriage to an unknown family member’s home.  She passes through a gate of high walls.  There is a mysterious gate keeper who I believe turns out to be her grandmother who is very youthful and is a main character in the book.  There are geraniums at the home she ends up at and it is revealed later that the woman she interacts with is actually her grandmother…?  I’m unsure about all of this.  And there is a unicorn that she sees on a late night foray into the forest.  I believe she and a boy save it from destruction but all of my memory about this is foggy although I’m sure I read it many times.  I had a tendency to re-read books like this over and over and I’ll be very disappointed if I’m mixing plots.

336N: Reincarnation theme with lovers

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This children's picture book was likely published in the 70's, probably before 1978. It was set either in China or Japan and centered around a loving couple who died and then kept reincarnating as adversaries (like a fox and a hen) until they both reincarnated as swans. Loved getting this book at our local bookmobile from the Montgomery County public library system in Pennsylvania.

336M: Captive Mage Falls In Love With Woman Captive In Tower

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I’m looking for a fantasy novel, likely written in the 90’s, as I read it between 1998-2003, I think.
It was about a woman who was captive in a tower with a Druid/mage who produced alchemical fireworks. He was also some kind of captive in the city-kingdom, and naturally they fall in love.
My parents pitched it out and I’ll never let it go

336K: Confused Woman Wants To Know Where Her Daylight Went

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I am looking for a book. Here are the details I can remember:

1) The book is about about a woman who is desperately hurrying to bring sunshine/daylight into her house so that she can save it for later, she uses things like pans and jugs to trap the daylight and carries it into the house, but is then confused when she gets inside and there isn’t any light (her house may not have had windows).
2) It is a children’s book
3) I believe the main colors in the illustrations are yellow, brown and black
4) I read it as a child in the late 1980’s, but it was likely a hand-me-down book from my sister who was born in 1980

336J: Obscure Memoir – Woman (nurse) drives her Defender across Europe and Africa, works in Africa, then decides to keep driving around the world.

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I read this memoir in my childhood in the 80’s or 90’s.  May have been paperback, may have been hardcover, and it was not a new book when I read it.  Was possibly only published in Australia or Europe (my friend got it from her Auntie in Western Australia, but they are of British heritage so it could’ve been from there, too).

Woman in the mid 20th century decides to drive her Defender across Europe and Africa, working as a nurse along the way. She settles down but eventually gets restless and decides to keep going, driving her Defender back (or maybe it was around the rest of the world?).

 

336I: Confused Bird of Paradise

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We are looking for a book that we had when we were children. We think it might have been published in Australia, as it was a gift from family there, and must have been published before 2004. We can’t remember the title but it was about a bird of paradise. We think that the book started when he falls out of his nest or something and then asks lots of animals one by one what animal he is, until one animal tells him that he is a bird of paradise, and we think the last page was a double page spread of a picture of a bird of paradise.
We have been trying to find this book for years and had no success, so if you think you might know it I would really appreciate your help!