Category Archives: 1950s

246J: Stories for Girls to Live By

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I read a book of short stories in 1963. My memory is that the title or description following the title was “stories for girls to live by”. I believe one of the shorts was by Betty Cavanna. I do remember one of the stories had an excerpt about a girl on a sandy beach applying nail polish (crazy fragment to remember, I know). I have been searching for this book in vain forever. I lent it to a girl friend in 1964 and never got it back. If you can help me I’d so appreciate it as I would love to find a copy.

Thank you
Mary

246F: Children’s Book about How to Drive a Car

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My dad said he used to read a book that “taught him how to drive a car.” He was born in 1959, so I imagine this book was published in the 60s or maybe early 70s. It was a children’s book. That’s all I have to go on for now, as I hope to get him this as a surprise Christmas gift. I may ask him to provide more details if this doesn’t ring a bell with anyone.

Thanks!

243I: Isle of Capri (Solved)

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Children’s fantasy book from the 50s, 60s or 70s, something about “the Isle of Capri”. I think the cover was basic – black and white, or dark green and white. Perhaps there was a butler and a big house…there was some sort of magic going on, I think. The Isle of Capri might have been spelled “Capris.”  I remember that a child goes to a big house, a mansion, to live and there are mysteries and strange things going on. That’s all I can remember!

243H: Young Adult Book Based on Ancient Mythology

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In late 1950’s, early 60’s, I read a book from the Young Adult section of the library.  It had a dust jacket that I recall as darkish, perhaps blue or purple with people, maybe the children of the story.  The story was about a boy and girl (siblings?) who spied a wooden door in a culvert as they were passing by in a (carriage?).  They return on foot and upon entering, find Vulcan at his forge.  Reluctantly, he directs them to Pegasus.  They climb upon Pegasus’  back, and he flies to the Elysian Fields.  There is an illustration of Pegasus stretching out his dainty hoof to land gently with the children on his back.  I believe they meet other gods and goddesses also, but I do not recollect the specific incidents.

Thank you for any assistance you and your readers can share.

243B: A Picture Book of Color Photographs

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When I was a boy growing up in Farmingdale, NY (Long Island), I attended a primary school (Parkway Oaks) from 1973-1976 and there was a picture book that I used to take out of the school library all the time.

It was full of color photographs of objects. I believe it was an object book or visual dictionary of some sort. However, I also vaguely remember that it was organized by color so that green objects were together, etc. I could be misremembering this, though.

It was not a very thin book; I think it was reasonably thick, chock-full of photos. It was smaller in dimensions (WxH – not an oversized book).

I remember the color being red, but I could be wrong, and that could simply be an artifact of edition. This book appeared to have the style of a book from the 50s or 60s. I cannot imagine a book from the 40s having this much color photography.

I remember being fascinated by all the color photographs (rather than illustrations, which were more common in the other children’s books), and I would love to find this book again.

Thanks!

242I: Pumpkin patch family trip (Solved)

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From the 50s/60s. A family and the neighbor boy take their station wagon to a pumpkin farm. There are lots of pumpkin displays like a scary pumpkin witch and some horses made of pumpkins pulling a wagon. They head home with the back of the station wagon full of pumpkins, and the son and the neighbor boy carve jack-o-lanterns while the mom bakes two pumpkin pies and sends one home with the neighbor. The neighbor boy may or may not have been black.

242G: Hats!

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I’m looking for a book, could be from any time before 1975 or so.
It was a big picture book for young children which I think was primarily about different hats. The main thing I remember is that there was one spread with a woman wearing a fancy hat with netting on it, and there was a fish design in the netting such that the fish went right over her eyes.
My mom thinks it was called something like “My Aunt’s Hat” but isn’t sure. I haven’t had any luck googling that.
She remembers it as being about an older woman, sort of crazy, with “old lady tight curly hair”.
She remembers the image as being “big, falling off the page” and there may have been a tiny little fishing line on the page.

Pretty sure it is not:
Jennie’s Hat
Aunt Lucy Went to Buy a Hat
Aunt Flossie’s Hats
Caps for Sale
Cat in the Hat or any Dr. Seuss including Bartholomew Cubbins Old Hat, New Hat or any Berenstain books

Although if there is a spread with the fish hat in one of these, that’s probably it.