I am looking for a childhood book my mother read to me around 1954 when we lived in Virginia. It was about fairies and lavishly illustrated. My favorite was the center fold illustration of fairies in the forest dancing under a moon that had a gauzy ring around it. It was not Golder Books Treasury of Elves and Fairies by Garth Williams. Any ideas?
Thanks.
Description: This book would have been published before 1954, probably in the 40s. (I checked it out of a public library, children’s section, several times between 1949 and 1954.)
A girl and a woman (the girl’s mother?) who live (as slaves?) in a harem know the mood of the master by the color of the horse he rides that day.
I can’t remember the title, but The White Horse comes to mind. (Not The Little White Horse.) The girl was probably European or American, and I can’t remember how she came to be living in a harem. The Arab master’s mood was demonstrated to his slaves by the color of the horse he rode on a given day.
This was not an easy book. It was longer and harder than Estes, e.g., or Streatfeild, etc. It was a novel, really, with an (obviously) advanced theme. I can’t remember anything else about it. I don’t know if the girl and her mother were rescued at the end.
I am looking for a children’s book that I read when I was in grade 3 in 1955 in Toronto. C. 1953? American? It was a small short picture book/easy reader chapters 5.5″x5.5″, black and white illustrations and hardcover.
In the attic, in a trunk there is a doll (old) who wishes that a little girl will find her and play with her. Emily? is playing one day and wanders up to the attic of her house and discovers a small trunk. I can still feel the hope and excitement of the doll (Henrietta?). Emily opens the trunk to reveal a beautiful doll with a complete wardrobe of clothes and a parasol.
Thank you so much for searching for this book for me.
p.s. I named my daughter Emily after the little girl in this book!
The story of a carver who made a duck decoy with a heart anchor held by a string. When he’s in the water a fish, or crab or something snips the string and his heart falls to the bottom of the lake. I read it in about the late 1950s. I remember the hunter using the decoy part was disturbing.
Thank you. I hope someone else remembers this book.
My 4th grade teacher in 1958-59 read us a chapter-a-day in a children’s book about a group of kids trying to solve a mystery. While trailing a bunch of crooks, the smell of the kids’ mosquito spray (quinine) gave them away. Calpurnia was the housekeeper.
Looking for a picture book, early 1940’s, about a Chinese doll floating down a river, perhaps Yangtze. Definitely not The Story of Ping. Black/white illustrations, red cover.
The book I am eager to find is about elephants and titled, I thought, Where the Elephants Go. I was around 8 to 10 when I read it, so 1942-1944 would be the date.
The book lovingly described an older elephant going out alone into the forest to die, with the herd respecting that but coming to mourn when death occurred.
I’d be so pleased to find it again. At our age my husband and I are being encouraged to move into this and that retirement community – all with Meadow Something in their names. They remind me of Where the Elephants Go.
I am looking for a book which was the first full length read I had, which was
in about 1955. I believe the book was written in the 1940’s or 1950’s, not sure.
It concerned a group of creatures, a squirrel, elf, bird, maybe others, who were
comrades, and hung out either by an old abandoned mill, or big oak tree, by a
river or stream.
At the end of the book, something caused this group to break up, and some of the
comrades to have to leave, travel, wander. ( I was shattered)
I have tried ABE books, not much success, just saw you bookstore & service in
Book Review / NY Times, “Authors Note / sarah manguso” Sunday March 8.
The longing she describes about a “lost” chidren’s book is all too familiar to me.
Like most people, I have suffered partings, endings of life eras, but nothing so
deep as the loss of these characters & the world they inhabited.
I think ABE suggested, maybe, Dorothy Clewes as author, but when I reviewed
various contents of books, did not seem right. If any, might be: The Wild Wood 1945,
but I really have little idea.
HELP ! & thanks
I read these stories as a young teenager in the early 1940’s. I think they were probably intended for boys. I remember the author’s last name as French. One story was set in West Africa, another in southern Patagonia.
This book is probably from the 40s or 50s. It was a series of stories that taught children how to make good choices. One story featured a greedy little boy who always grabbed the biggest cookie or cupcake for himself. To teach him lesson someone makes a nice spread of food featuring one very large muffin or potato etc. but something is always wrong with the biggest piece. For example a large pie has almost no filling inside! When he grabs the biggest one he always gets disappointed.