Category Archives: 1960s

351J: Large Red and Yellow Kid’s Storybooks

Looking for info on 2 books from my childhood. All I can remember is one was red and one was yellow. They were both large, like 12×16 maybe. The content was mostly stories and nursery rhymes accompanied by artwork and maybe some general science for kids. The covers may have been embossed. Mid to late 60’s is when i was reading them. They may have accompanied the My Book House series but don’t count on that. I just remember those at the same time perhaps. Any help would be appreciated. fiosco@bell. net. Thanks, Scott

350Y: Salami Racing cars!

Large watercolor book about a girl whose family owns a salami or sausage factory? They have a parade or race where they build things from the salami. They may be inventing machines? Can’t remember exactly. Would have been in English. Amazing illustrations of contraptions made from salami and shoes and all sorts of items.
Protagonist was a small girl. I read it late 80s but the illustrations were quite psychedelic so could be 60s or 70s.

350S: Out of Print Witchcraft Book

The details of what I’m looking for are as follows:
– I’m looking for a book on witchcraft that is almost certainly now out of print, having been published between the 1960s and the 1980s.
– The cover is solid pale pink with some black illustrations. I believe that there is a clothed pre-Raphaelite woman on the cover, and an image of her nude appears a few pages in.
– The title did *not* explicitly mention witchcraft, Wicca, magic, or spells. It may have used the word “potions” but I believe the title only referenced the making of natural cosmetics and/or other natural goods.
– I borrowed this book from the Hillsborough County (FL) library system in the late 90s or very early 2000s, but after searching their catalog I do not believe it to still be in circulation.
– I specifically remember one spell from the book, that prescribed eating an apple with your back to a mirror to discern your future lover. Unfortunately this is a commonly published spell so it may not narrow it down.
I think that is all I have to go off of, but would be more than happy to answer any further questions.

350E: Supposedly Heroic Girl Dies in Apartment House Fire (Solved!)

Looking for a 1970s ya fiction book about a girl who died in an apartment house fire. Everyone thought that she was a hero because she alerted the other tenants to the fire so they could get out. Actually, it was her brother who had done the alerting while she went back to her apartment to get her shoe box of paper doll families. This was a much darker sequel to a book about a brother, a sister and another girl. Think the title may have been something like “The truth about (girl’s name)”, but not positive. Don’t remember author but know I read it right after it came out somewhere between 1969 and 1980.

349V: Spun around and upside down

I am trying desperately to find a beloved book from my childhood.  I do not remember the name, but I do remember a few details.

It had to be spun around and upside down as it was read; the characters were on some sort of adventure.
The characters to best of my memory were pink or purple blobbish type things…
It was a hardback book
I was born in 1967, so this could have been a 60s or an early 70s book.
I have looked and looked for the book to no avail.

349L: Scaring Moose by Yelling in French

In the early 1960s we had a picture book that was probably published in the 1950s. It was about a man and boy walking through the woods, possibly in Canada. The man was likely a lumberjack.

At the climactic moment, they encounter a moose on the trail. The man scares it away by yelling “Marche donc!”
This is all I remember about the book.

349H: 60s or 70s Black and White Silhouette Book

I’m trying to find a book for a friend and wanted to see if you might be able to offer any advice. My friend’s late father was a photographer and had a black and white nude silhouettes book published back in the 60s or 70s. Unfortunately, my friend’s copy was lost many years ago and never found. I don’t have the title, but it would have been published under Bill Coco or Francis V. Coco. Any advice on how I might be able to try and find it? All suggestions are welcome! I’d love to try and make my friend’s holiday by finding this! I hope you can help. 

 

349G: Selfish Witch, Disguised as Regular Girl, Does Selfless Favor

Looking for a beautiful line-drawn picture book from earlier than 1975, about a witch and her daughter who live beyond the seven valleys and the seven seas. The daughter witch is selfish, and does not come home to her mother on time. Her mother sends her away until she can do a selfless favor for someone, while disguised as a regular girl. She is dropped off outside a village. Eventually, she finds a little boy who is also being punished, and helps him peel mounds and mounds of potatoes. She falls asleep doing this, and her mother comes to collect her. Ends with a line something like, "but she could never stand the sight of another potato."

349F: Boy with gigantic tall spoon catching clouds

I am seeking a vintage children’s anthology possibly printed somewhere between 1940s-1960s. Possibly earlier.
The main clue is an illustration of a boy holding a huge spoon, (tall like a ladder) scooping up clouds.
The featured poem with the illustration is
CLOUDS
 by Dorothy Aldis
If I had a spoon
As tall as the sky
I’d dish out the clouds
That go slip-sliding by.
I’d take them right in
And give them to cook
And see if they tasted
As good as they look.
I’ve searched other books and I can usually find this poem, but I cannot find the right illustration of the little boy holding the tall spoon catching clouds.
The book was a hardcover cloth-like blue,  with faded letters embossed on cover. There was no dust jacket.
I thought maybe the book was “Here, There, and Everywhere” by D. Aldis, but as it turns out, it is not the right book 🤔
Size of the book was approximately
 8″ x 11″x 1″ thick.

348Y: The Magician’s Windows and Other Short Stories (Solved!)

Seeking a collection of magical, short stories for children illustrated with grayscale sketches. I believe it was one author. The edition I read in the earlier 2000s was older, maybe 60s or 70s, and had black and white sketches for each story. The stories I remember include one of an acrobat who had never touched the ground since the day they were born, and it ends sadly when their lover is hurt and they fall from the sky?; a magician who had different colored window panes in each room of his house, and to the children who visited each window looked out to a different world, a yellow desert, a green jungle, a blue Atlantis; and two sisters whose parents each separately made deals with the sun and the moon so the babies would live – when the girls were grown they were light and dark, life and death. The light girl was always singing and keeping the parents happy, but the dark girl never sang until the parents were tired of the light girl’s songs – then the dark girl sang her only song, a song of eternal rest. Mostly what I remember from the book was how mystical and melancholic it felt.