This is a little (about 4-5″) square green book. I read it in the mid 1970s in the UK. It is about someone who goes around visiting. They visit a giraffe who is beating her rugs on a line with an old fashioned carpet beater. They have homemade lemonade.
I’ve been trying to find this book for years! I read it as a kid in the 80s and it was about a little girl and, I think, her father moving to a new house that seems at first to be haunted and scary but turns out to be homey and cosy. What made this book stick in my mind was the illustrations: really hauntingly beautiful large, rich watercolours. The new house was drawn on a hill and somewhat isolated and the little girl had long dark straight hair, looking perhaps Spanish. At first the new home is drawn very dark and spooky, but by the last page it is lit up and warm and the little girl is hugging her father, having come to love their new home.
When I was in second grade around 1980-1981, my teacher read a book to the class, and I’m 99 percent sure it was called Run for Your Life. It was scary and suspenseful and it was a chapter book. It took at least a week if not longer for her to read.
I’ve never been able to find this book. Can you help?
I’m looking for a small bright blue hardcover book, at the end there is an illustration of a boy in a churchyard with a yew tree. Printed before 1980. Not sure if it’s an ABC book for children but the yew tree illustration is definitely at the end of the book. It’s a book for young children; there are only a few lines of text on each page. The boy is standing in the yard with the yew and there is also an old man in the illustration. The boy may have been lost or looking for something. Maybe the book is British because of the mention of the yew tree?
I am looking for a children’s book that I used to read in the late 1980’s – early 1990’s that includes multiple short stories. I remember that there was a short story near the end of the book that involved fairies and the aurora borealis. There was a fairy for every color and one dark/black fairy that would try to story the colors. Every night the color fairies would form the aurora borealis and the dark fairy would try to stop them. The story ends by saying that this repeats every night. The main focus was on the aurora borealis. Unfortunately, this is all that I remember. I do remember that the illustrations were very colorful.
I appreciate any information you might have!
I am looking for a book I read somewhere around 5th grade. The year was 1977-78ish. Everyone was reading Judy Blume. The book I’m looking for was about a girl who went to summer camp. I think the girl was overweight. My recollection is that the girl was shy for some reason, or maybe that’s how I saw myself. Maybe the girl just wasn’t happy with the way she looked. Perhaps Judy Blume or another author popular at the same time?
Hello, this is a middle grade paperback book I read in the 1980s. It had simple black and white pen-type illustrations. (I think. It’s possible there were no illustrations.)
A professor takes a select group of kids to live for the summer in a school bus near the beach. It is not magical. Everyone gets to choose their own bunk and decorate their area. They study nature like tide pools and write in notebooks.They have to write every day. The professor plays the guitar and write his own lyrics.
One of the songs goes something like this:
Yes is best, but next to that is maybe.
We’ll say can sometimes grow to yes,
but when they say I doubt it, you’re on your way to no.
I don’t think so, I don’t think so,
down, down, down,
there’s no where else to go
but frown and then say no.
They make a clam pit and have a clam bake. They go visit a mansion and everyone chooses a room and picks out clothes from the closet of that room to wear to dinner. One girl wears “paper ballet slippers” to the dinner and I have spent my entire life trying to figure out how that would work. Everyone suddenly sees her as beautiful.
There was also something about how they managed privacy and all the kids created their own outdoor “rooms” where they could be alone and undisturbed when they got over peopled.
I’ve been looking for the following for years with no luck. YA novel from possibly 1980-1990’s about a young lady (18ish). I cannot remember the title or main heroine name but distinctly recall her traveling to Carmel-by-the-sea and the white wicker furniture that she decorated with. Possibly summer time or just after graduation. Seems she ended up going to work for a lady in interior design. And of course there was a boy…
Possibly part of the just for girls series or similar to that.
Bethany, bethanyboster@yahoo.com
Seven years ago my (then) four year old daughter fell in love with a book from the library about colors. She is now 11 and a budding artist. I would love to find this book for her. The details I remember are sparse but do make this book a standout:
gorgeous illustrations – no cartoon characters or paint blobs. One particular illustration stands out; on the pages that discuss red, they compare that color to a bright warm kitchen full of copper pots boiling strawberry jam.
text – the words were beautiful and evocative, not your run of the mill, “The tree is green.” With each color they created a detailed scene (both verbally and pictorially) to help the reader feel the color.
As I recall, they did all the colors of the rainbow, so words like “rainbow,” “prism” or “color” are likely candidates for the title.
The book I am searching for is an anthology of stories that include fairy tales and legends such as Tales of Robin Hood which covers his death, The Waterbabies, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Longshanks, Girth and Keen, I think even Aladdin, to name a few. It was at least 8×12 red and probably from the late 50’s or before, it had fallen apart by the 60’s. The collection was eclectic to be sure but it obsesses me. Any help would be greatly appreciated!