Author Archives: admin

326N: The Way of the Cross for Young Christians

I’m looking for information on how to obtain a religious booklet from my childhood. Title: The Way of the Cross for Young Christians. Probably published in 1970. It has retro artwork, and I was able to find a picture of the cover. The images from this book are seared into my brain and were a huge part of my Catholic school childhood.
Also, I think the illustrator, Jeanne Hunt Miller, might have done handkerchiefs in a similar mid-century modern style, many of which are available on Etsy. Don’t know if that helps?
One last thing, the author may be Rev. William J. McLoughlin. There’s an updated version on Amazon, but it has different illustrations; I also called the publishing house, but they only had the new publication with the blue and yellow cover.
Any help would be appreciated!!

326M: Boy Has Adventures On River

I’m looking for a children’s picture book from the 70s or 80s for my friend. Her mom used to read it to her, but she can’t remember the name. It’s about a boy who floats down a river and has many adventures on the way involving animals and food. She thought it was “In the Peanut Butter Colony” by Louis Ross but that doesn’t look right after all.  Thank you for any help!

326L: Beautiful Dresses From Night Sky

I live in the UK and I am looking for a Children’s anthology of stories (I think), which I had as a child in the 1950s (it may have been older).   It included a story about three poor princesses called Cordelia, Sylvia and Arabella who were invited to a ball but had to make their dresses from old curtains.  The animals and birds helped to make them beautiful dresses from the night sky, sashes of rainbows, ice crowns and stars for their hair and fluffy cloud cloaks.  It was a lovely story, illustrated with black and white drawings.  I have been searching for it for years with no luck.  Maybe someone might recognize it and be able to tell me more.

326K: Young Kid And Travelers On Mission In Dark Cave

1) Looking for an illustrated CHILDREN’s book from the 1970’s or possibly from the 1960’s.  (I was born in 1971 and had the book when I was 4-6 years old)
2) Themes:
    1) Dark Underground cavern / cave system or Dark Mountains
    2) Group of travelers on some sort of mission
    3) A young person was a central character
    4) 8 1/2  by 11 inches approximately  (i.e. larger size)
    5) Thin sort of book…..perhaps 20-25 pages?
  It almost seemed like it could be a Hobbit theme but I don’t think that was it….
Thanks!

326I: Two-Eyed Freak

It was a thin children’s book, mostly of illustrations, about a girl who was born with two eyes and is considered a freak by everyone in her community who only has one eye. But she sees the world in color while everyone else sees in the world in black and white. I want to say the protagonist has long, dark hair. I don’t know how it ends. I think I read it in the mid-90s. No later than ’98.

326G: Kid’s Bad Day Is Remade Into Better Day (Solved!)

I’m looking for a book that is about a bad day, but *not* Alexander’s. The book I remember has a main character who is school-aged. The character wakes up late, puts too much sugar on his/her morning breakfast (after the mother warned him/her not to), and ends up wearing slippers to school. The kid decides to reset the day by going home at lunchtime and starting the day over. Puts the right amount of sugar on breakfast, wears the right clothes to school, and has a better day.

326F: Artistic Computers as Counterpoint to Throw-Away Technology

My stumper is just a fragment of a memory. I don’t remember the plot of the book at all, but it was near-future science fiction or maybe cyberpunk. The main character comes across someone with a beautiful laptop where the interior components can be refurbished and replaced, but the outside of the computer is a work of art that they would never part with. They talk about how there is a group of artists or maybe an artist commune that manufactures these computers with wood cases, and with beautiful keys made out of mother of pearl or semi-precious stones, basically to serve as a counterpoint to the throw-away culture of new technology. It was such a cool idea; I wish some artists were actually making computers like this.
If anyone recognizes this description and remembers what book it was in, that would be great!

326E: Planetary Creature Encyclopedia

I had an amazing book when I was a kid that I haven’t seen for decades. I was born in 1973, so it would have been published sometime in the 70s or early 80s. It was a large, slim encyclopedia- or reference-style book, but it was about all of the planets and what each of their creatures would look like based on the physics, chemistry, and gravity of the planets. It was very colorful and there were wonderful renderings of all of the would-be creatures. I believe it also listed what these creatures’ habits, diet, lifestyle, etc. would be like as well.

I hope you can help me find out what it is!