Author Archives: admin

299M: Like brightly colored Hummel characters

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I’m looking for a children’s book that was a collection of fairy tales or stories.  My father brought it home to me around the mid 1980’s from one of his trips abroad.  The book was written in English, largish font, and beautifully illustrated.  The pictures stand out the most in my memory, reminding me of brightly colored Hummel characters.  I believe the front cover had a boy and girl on a wagon.  The stories were unique, I’ve never read them anywhere else.  The only bits I can recall is that one story was about a princess or young girl who was picking peaches and either in the same story or a completely different one there were elves or fairies picking leaves of gold and they had to wear special sunglasses to do so.  It was either leaves or apples of gold.

I hope what little information I was able to provide will help you in figuring out what book this was!

 

299L: A girl is given the power to swim underwater

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I cannot remember the title. All I can remember is it was a fantasy book involving a girl who was given the power to swim underwater where she befriended a whale, a dolphin, and it involved rescuing her friends at the bottom of the ocean who were trapped there underneath a bubble. One key character that I remember was a “dimity bird” that was enchanted to move about. Presumably published in the ’60s, early ’70s.

299K: Naughty Boy Who Runs Away in a Tote Bag (Solved)

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I read this book in the mid-80s; It’s either a picture book or a young reader book.

I think it may have been from a Scholastic/other company book order from submitted through school. I think (I don’t know why I think this) it may have been translated into English, possibly from a Scandinavian language.

I  believe it was about a kind of naughty little boy; his mother was always exasperated with him, but she made it clear to him she loved him no matter what.

He got into all sorts of trouble, including, I think cutting a wolf’s fur with scissors. As drawn, the little boy had bright yellow hair.

The most vivid thing about the book from my memory is a single  scene and an illustration of that scene: the little boy was running away from home, and he did so by taking a bag– a sort of tote bag– of his mother’s, cutting some holes in the bottom, and climbing in. His legs and feet stuck out of the holes, but none of the rest of his body is visible. In the picture, you see the bag with legs running down a little path or road.

I’ve been searching for this book for a while. I remember my mother and i finding it very entertaining and sweet, and would love to know what it is.

299J: An Illustrated Cinderella

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I’m searching for information on an illustrated version of Cinderella that I had when I was growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s.  It was a small book, maybe 3 or 4 inches in height, hardcover.  Here are the details I can remember:

-I think the cover’s background was black.

-The scene at the ball is illustrated with the two stepsisters wearing black beauty marks on their faces, I think in the shape of a heart and a star.

-Some of the pages had borders around them, maybe vines and glass slippers?

-It was a colored line drawing style– fanciful, but not cartoon-ish.

299I: Social insect lifecycle in cartoons

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I had this book in the 1950s. It was almost certainly British, though I got it from family who left India after the war when Indian independence made the British no longer welcome. It is a nonfiction children’s book describing the life cycle of wasps and ants, and possibly other social insects. It is illustrated with line drawings of the insects, rather in Aubrey Beardsleys style. I remember the picture of a newly hatched queen holding a dagger (looking rather like Cruella de Ville) as she kills all the other grubs so that she rules the nest. Also the rather foppish drones returning to the nest after the nuptial flight and being denied access by the workers.

 

299H: A Child Sees Each Petal

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[Private role=”author”]Amanda Williams, hopper3us@gmail.com[/private]

I have a Book Stumper from my aunt. She received a book in 1970 for a baby shower gift. She was told it could be for her or the child, called The Wonder(?). It was basically about comparing how grown ups see the world vs a child. She used an example of how an adult might see a whole flower as pretty or ugly, but a child sees each petal.

299G: They grow young as they age

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I am looking for the name of a book I read close to 20 years ago as a child. It’s one of the books that made me fall in love with reading and I’ve never been able to find it. Some of the details may be off as it was so long ago but- a brother and sister somehow end up on a far away island. And while they’re there they realize everyone has great respect for the children and the children are very well spoken and wise. But these people it turns out are born out of caves old, and they grow young as they age. That’s about all I can re-call. Thanks for your help!

299E: Pre-Revolutionary War historical fiction trilogy read in the early 1970s

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As I remember this trilogy it starts shortly before  the French and Indian War and follows the generations of the family through the war of 1812.  I think the main character in the first book is named Adam.  The family owns a farm.  A key scene I remember is when someone is dying of a fever and their family member takes pity on them and gives them water to comfort them even though it is strictly against the doctor’s orders– the medical practice being so wrong really made an impression on me.  I took these three books out of the Park Ridge, IL public library when I was in junior high and read them several times.   I think they were written in the early sixties but it could be earlier.  There are a lot of descriptions of colonial life and the generational tensions about fighting in wars.  They were longer and more advanced reading than Johnny Tremain.

299D: An illustrated non-fiction book of dog breeds from the 70s or 80s

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This was a perhaps slightly oversized paperback book with illustrations of different dog breeds.  I believe the cover had a green border. I’ve been been poking around online to see if I could find an old copy with no luck.  So far the closest thing I’ve found that’s similar are the illustrations from How Why Wonder Books Dogs Wild Animals Irving Robbin Martin Keen, 1962.

The illustrations were grouped in a certain way on the page, similar to these (but it wasn’t these books):

 

It’s not impossible that our paperback was a reprint of a 1960s book.  There were no photographs in the book, and very little (if any) information about the care of dogs.  It wasn’t very wordy.  We got it at a garage sale in Michigan in the 1980s.