1960s? children's book, full-page B&W illustrations except for red dragon, boy feeds dragon with big appetite with coal, possibly takes place in UK or Wales.
353I: Coal Eating Dragon With Big Appetite
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Category Archives: 1960s
352W: Late 50’s early 60’s space fiction
Late 50’s early 60’s space fiction about a boy on a planet (possibly mars) with his pet. The boy needs to get to different city/friends home. Walks via an old highway but the temperature dips extremely, causing the boy to find refuge in a giant cabbage like plant that closes at night, saving him.
Read this from the 5th grade 1961/62 Ellis Elementary School library in Sunnyvale California.
352V: Little Bit
I have been on the search for many years for a book I loved as a child. I was born in 1959, it’s possible the book was written in the 60’s.
The title is “Little Bit”, about a young mouse and his family, having struggles in life for being so small.
Having Grandchildren I would very much like to find this as my copy has been lost in the shuffle throughout the years.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
352R: Horse novel from the 60s or 70s (Solved!)
I got a Penguin boxed set for Christmas one year … included an anthology of horse poems, stories and excerpts from novels etc. The Brumby and THIS book that I cannot remember. A young woman in, I think Wales, buys a mountain pony and trains it with the help of a gruff but caring veteran horse owner. The girl is very compassionate about her horse and takes it to a pony club day and gets a ribbon for being so patient with her green mare. There is a ring of sheep rustlers going around and they surprise them in the act one night. The girl and the horse are injured but they survive and the last line of the book is “You will know us by our limps” or something like that. It’s driving me mental not being able to find it. There is a line in it when she thought her horse had died and it is something with the sentiment that she mourned her horse not just for her loss but for her horse’s life in the world … that she loved living so much and now she wasn’t … I would love to read it again and really want to get that quote correctly.
I’ve posted on some book finder blogs and no luck so far … unfortunately my parents’ house flooded in 2008 and they had to throw out a bunch of stuff from the basement … up until then this boxed set would have been there. Sigh. And original editions of The Black Stallion, a large picture book on the creation of the Misty of Chincoteague series etc. etc. I try not to think about that too much.
352F: The Nonsense Book
The book I am looking for, a book I read at my elementary school library quite often, is a children’s book, maybe aimed at the 9-12 year old set. I suspect from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. It was a book of self-proclaimed nonsense, with riddles and jokes and poems and shaggy dog stories, with surrealistic drawings and text. The sense of humor was counter-cultural and a bit Monty Pythonesque. I seem to recall that it had the “As I was going to St Ives” riddle in it.
It was a larger format book, 8.5”x11” or larger, and around 80 pages. I think the cover was a brownish green. The drawing style was in a similar borderline grotesque line-art mode as the illustrations for Shel Silverstein or Roald Dahl books, but with a significant amount of clip art and a throwback-y quality to it. I think the title itself had the word nonsense in it, or a word with a similar meaning.
I’ve been racking my brains trying to recall more about it, but that’s all I can seem to manage.
352C: High School French Textbook From 60s
I’m looking for a high school teaching French text probably published during the first half of the 60’s. I remember it as having a plain teal cover and being entirely black and white. It contained paragraphs to translate that were folk stories. The sunken city of Ys- you can still hear the bells beneath the waves- the storks of Alsace. I lost it in a flood.
351W: 11 Year Old Girl Rehabilitates Horse Named Black Baldwin (Solved!)
I am looking for a children’s/YA horse story from the late fifties or early sixties. It features a somewhat broken down horse named Black Baldwin, who was bought/adopted by an eleven year old girl desperate to have a horse. She rehabilitates him and eventually wins second prize in some kind of horse show event. The book had small pen and ink drawings throughout. I don’t remember the book jacket though, I believe it had one.
I searched for a long time thinking the horse’s name was the title of the book. Either it is and every copy is long gone, or there is some other title.
351S: Book about a girl with a delightful long string of names (Solved!)
I am searching for a children’s fiction chapter book that I think I read around 1969 or 1970 when I was in fifth or sixth grade. The primary detail that I recall about the book was that the main character was a girl with a really long name of multiple first/middle names. I believe she was a pioneer girl, and I definitely am sure that her names were old fashioned type names, such as Samantha, Jane, Emily, Sarah, etc. though my examples here may not have been the ones. I almost think I remember that the first sentence of the book opened with “My name is . . . . .” The character’s last name may have started with Mc or Mac. I have zero recollection as to what the title or author of this book was. I have some vague memory that the illustration in the book showed her as having braids.
I would absolutely love to re-discover this book and share it with my daughters (who are now in their twenties, but would still get a kick out of it!), and I appreciate any help you may be able to offer.
351P: Fire Chief vs. Student in Spelling Bee (Solved!)
I’m trying to find a children’s book for a friend in which a fire chief or some other first responder goes up against a student in a spelling bee. One of the words they have to spell is barbecue. The book was probably published between the 1960s and 1980s.
351O: Mr Widdle and the Sea Breeze? Woman Builds Odd House
I have a children's book stumper to solve. I remember a book from my childhood (born in 67, so the book must've been published before 1977 or 78). It was about a woman who built a house and painted it gray with pink shutters. Or maybe pink with gray shutters! For some reason I associate this memory with Mr. Widdle and the Sea Breeze by Jo Ann Stover, but I don't have a copy to check if it's the one. Thanks for any help!