Author Archives: admin

288C: Family of mice take a beach vacation

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I’m looking for a children’s book from the 50’s or 60’s.  I can’t remember the title.  The book is about a family of mice that ride a train to the beach for vacation.  They are dressed up like people (in clothes) for the train ride and I can see (in my mind) their little tails coming out of their clothes.  They love the sand, the beach and the creatures on the beach.

The illustrations are color but I’d say that they are pretty minimal – that is to say  – great illustrations but not a lot of extra stuff in them.

 

I sure hope you can locate this book.

288B: The fall of the house of something (Solved)

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Title was the fall of the house of something or the fall of something It starts off with the house finally being finished and a storm coming in. Main character is a guy who is an engineer, he has just completed a house and this group of people said it would have to be destroyed because it was forbidden. He said, okay but let me have a party in it first, you can be the guests. Then the people came to the party and he shows them the robots he made to look exactly like them. The entertainment is the robots being tortured and killed in awful ways. Each person of this committee kind of disappears until only one man was left and then he realized it was the people of the committee being tortured and killed and that it was the robots who are laughing and who he had thought were the people. And he is next in line to die.

287H: Rats taking Uncle Skinny somewhere on a raft down a river

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There are a family of rats that have to take their uncle named “Skinny” somewhere via a boat. I believe he may be sick and they go down the river to take him to the doctor. I also think he is wearing one piece pajamas with the button flap in the rear, and either he or the driver has on a crinkled top hat. I wish I could recall more about the story. I read this book as a child sometime around 1982-1985. I would really love to get this book for my daughter.

287G: Horse in Forest of Silver Trees

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My daughter (now age 20), has been searching for years to find a book she loved to check out from her elementary school library in first grade +/-.  She has re-searched the library many times, spoken to teachers, friends and has had no luck.  I remember her bringing it home, so I know it isn’t a figment of her imagination.

What she remembers:

— Picture book of a horse in a forest of silver trees, limited (if any) text

— Illustrations in black ink/watercolor style

— Limited color palette, black, white, gold and maybe silver

— Possibly part of a series/pack of picture books

— Horse is main character on some kind of quest or adventure, with many crystals in the forest, possibly gold

— Special lake in the forest, perhaps also a cave

— Likely blue hard cover, she thinks larger than 8.5×11

— Likely an “older” book, I’m guessing from 1960s or even older

 

287E: Children robbed in forest as they come home from a fair

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This was a hardback picture book we read in the library in the 1980s. Two or three children go to a fair. On the way to or at the fair they get some small items (possibly a gold star?), which are put in a ‘cornucopia’. I think this was pictured as a paper cone. On the way home through the forest, robbers steal their treasures. I think it had the line ‘what wicked robbers to steal such precious things’, the point being these are items of no commercial value, but things of wonder to the children.

287D: Dark YA book about a girl who befriends fairies

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I read this book in the early 1990s, but have no idea when it was published. The details I remember are that there is a girl who is for some reason befriended by fairies. She shrinks down and goes to visit them. Maybe she’s going to become their queen or something? For some reason she ends up with this necklace made of thorns that she can’t take off. The only other thing I remember is that the fairies would feed her nectar from a flower.

287B: Girl & Her Family Travel in a Motor Home in a World of Paved Roads

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No one can walk anymore.  They only drive in large wheeled homes and mobile offices.  They even have motorized vehicles in individual sizes for transporting themselves outside of these wheeled homes.

Everything has been paved over with roads, except a small area with a flower or a tree in it.

Fascinated by this unpaved area, the girl wheels over to it only to find her wheeled individual vehicle can’t go on the unpaved area.  She is forced to get out of the vehicle and make her way across the green space without motorized assistance.

287A: Children taking things literally (solved)

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It is a children’s book that is about the way children see the world literally.  One page says: dad left his blue prints in the snow and the picture is a blue prince in the snow with blue feet prints in the snow.  Another page says: dad said mom is playing bridge and not to disturb her and the picture is a female with her head on a chair and feet on a couch and the cat walking across her like she is a bridge.  Another page says: mom said that my sister has a frog in her throats and the picture is of a little girl with a frog inside her mouth.  Another page has a little horse with clothes on and the caption is: mom said my brother is a little horse.