Author Archives: admin

165F: Asian illustrated Mythology

Large format hardcover book. Between 1970-80.

Asian myth?

Little text, large illustrations cover each page.

Man had these magical sticks.  I believe 7.  I think called talents. carried on back.

Each had a unique oriental character.

When thrown did magical things.

had? Dragon, whirlpool, creation

 

165E: Old aunt becomes young again

This book was a short picture book that I read in the 1970’s.  I am guessing it was published late 1960s to mid 1970s.

A girl visits her great aunt or similar relative, who is bedridden and lives in a room upstairs in a beautiful old house.  When the clock strikes the old lady turns back into herself as a young girl and the two girls play together and have a great time.  Then the clock strikes again and she turns back into an old lady.  The girl is dressed in what children would have worn in the 1890’s or thereabouts and I remember she had long black hair with a ribbon tied in it.

 

165C: Three little kittens jumping in pie with juice squirting out

The book I am searching for is a book my mother has looked for for years. She remembered it from her childhood so it would have been a book from the 30′s. It was a 3 little kittens book- possibly oversized and longer across the top than the length of the binding. The pictures she remembered were one of the cats in the snow with a lighted house in the background (maybe at night?) and picture of them playing with yarn balls, a picture of the kittens stepping in pie with juice squirting out, and picture that showed the kittens with just the legs of the adults showing. Since there are so many scores of books about the three little kittens, it may be hard to find, but I would like to surprise her with it if I could! She is 81 years old.

 

165B: The Other Treasure Seekers (solved)

This is a book I borrowed from the library at school in approx 1970.  I remember the title as The Treasure Seekers, or something like that, but it is not the classic by E Nesbitt, and also I may be completely wrong about the title!   The story, as I remember it, involved a family of children who lived with their mother in a big old house, they were facing financial ruin, and there was an evil landlord (or similar) who was threatening them with eviction.  The children get wind of a rumour of hidden treasure, and the story follows their attempts to find the treasure in the house and grounds.  I am not sure of any of these details, but the one thing I remember clearly was that the plot came to a climax when they found a missing clue pasted to the walls of the dolls’ house in the nursery.  This is one of the earliest books I can remember reading independently and the sense of being completely gripped by the developing story contributed to my life-long love of reading.  I would love to find out what the book was, and perhaps share it with some of the children in my life now to see if it stood the test of time.

 

164E: an animal book, an abc book and a seek-and-find book all in one

I am thinking of a book that I checked out from the school library about 100 times in the mid-late 80’s
It was a picture book and each page was fully illustrated with animals. There was one page per animal, and went from A to Z. Some if not all of the animals were exotic. I remember wondering “what the heck is an ibis?”
So the pages went from A to Z. Each 2-page spread would name one animal that starts with that letter. The pages were covered densely from edge to edge with drawings of that animal. There was also one example of the animal illustrated and you had to find the matching illustration on that page, which was quite challenging. So it was an animal book, an abc book and a seek-and-find book.
I remember each page being colored background (maybe different colors for each animal, seems like mostly dark, rich colors like crimson), and the print might have been black only but I am not certain about that. It wasn’t white pages though, I am sure of that. I am almost certain it was a hardcover book too.