I have a very fond memory of a book I had as a child where the owners of their dogs looked like their actual dogs. Example: scruffy hair, unkempt, curly hair.
339T: Dog and Owner Similarities (Solved!)
11 Replies
Category Archives: 1960s
339Q: My House is Cozy – Bedtime Poem (Solved)
I was born in the late 70’s and my mom used to recite a bedtime poem to us each night. I can remember three different verses:
Opening verse:
My house is cozy warm and wide.
It has the nicest things inside…
A knife, a fork, a yellow cup,
For drinking all my cocoa up…
Closing verse:
Outside my window I can see,
The moon and stars shine down on me.
Basically the poem was a tour of a child’s home. I believe there was a stop in the kitchen, bathroom then finally the bedroom. I don’t believe it was an original work, and seem to recall my mom saying that she got it from a book, although I don’t ever remember her reading it to us. She was born in the 50’s, so it could be from her childhood. My uncle (her youngest brother) was 10 years older than me, and it may have been a book from him that arrived in disrepair and so she memorized it to recite. My thought is that it is from a compilation/treasury of bedtime poems/rhymes/stories between 1950 and 1980. Googling hasn’t yielded anything. On a whim, I recently purchased Rene Cloke’s Bedtime Book to see if it was from there, but it wasn’t.
Thank you for any help you can provide! We lost our mom 4 years ago and I would love to find the source of this to share with my brothers and sister.
339P: A Girl, An English Boy, And Plaits
Looking for a children's/middle school age book from 1960s about a girl. A boy from England moves in next door. I think the setting is rural/farm community. She likes the way the boy says bath (baahth). For a special occasion she "plaits" her hair more loosely than usual so the plaits will lie flat when she wraps them around her head or pins them up. She leans over kettle/ pot of steam to create tendrils. That's all I can remember. My mom got it for me from the local public library in Chicago.
339O: Children’s Book of Short Stories Published in the 1960s or early 1970s
Hello. When I was around 5 or 6 years old (1972 to 1973) I loved a book of short stories. I think it contained around a dozen or so stories.
One of the stories was about a lost cat (or kitten). The cat is lonely, cold, and hungry. The cat wandered around and found a pond with a fish in it. The cat tries to grab the fish, but is pulled into the water. (I think there may have been a fishing pole, and the cat got tangled in it.) When the owner of the house heard the ruckus outside, he went out to retrieve the fish and cat. The cat then lives happily thereafter with the owner, and the owner cooks the fish for the cat.
Another story was about some people who went for a short boat ride on a lake in a rowboat. To make sure everyone person was accounted for, the organizer of the voyage had everyone wear a similar hat. Her plan was to count the number of hats before the journey, and then afterwards. If the number matched, then everyone was accounted for. I recall the voyage had some problems. I think the boat started to sink because someone forgot to install the drain plug. But it wasn’t dangerous because the lake was very shallow. At any rate, at the end of the voyage the organizer was worried & upset because the number of hats she counted afterwards was one less than the onset of the voyage. But someone pointed out that she forgot to count the hat on her head, and everyone laughed.
Thank you
339I: Children’s book about a Southern girl who wants to be a doctor
I was eight or nine, and this was in the early 1960s. The book opens with a wedding; the girls’ sister is marrying a Mr. Quackenbush. It’s a big Scottish American family in the South. Later her brother is bitten by a copperhead snake, and the servants’ children—I am ashamed to say they called them pickanninies-and one goes blind. It’s the first time I read the verse “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”
Ideas?
338U: Civil War Fiction From My Childhood
I found this book in the used bookstore when I was in middle school (1984).
It was already older (published in the 50s or 60s, I suspect). It had a orange/rust colored cover with a very impressionistic sketch of a military scene.
The story follows an orphan who runs away to join the army. He is befriended by a soldier (the name Mr. Putnam stands out) who protects him in camp and on the battlefield. Either the boy or the soldier is wounded (fairly certain it is the man).
Of all the details I remember, there are young girls who makes silk beads that supposed to help quench the soldier’s thirst if they run out of water.
338O: Girl searches for spinet-playing doll (Solved!)
I’m looking for a book that was written probably in the 1960’s, possibly early 1970’s. I think the title contained the words “secret friends”. It is about a girl and her best friend who stumble across a mystery involving 2, or maybe 3, mechanical dolls. Her father owns an antique store. He has one of the dolls, a girl sitting at a desk who dips a pen in an inkwell and writes. The other is a girl playing the spinet. I remember the clue to the mystery was found inside the doll.
338M: YA fiction Ruby Cross of Acapulco (Solved!)
I’ve been searching for this book for years. I read it in the 6th grade, twenty-one years ago. My old teacher didn’t remember it, and I don’t recall the title or author. It seems that it was an older book, possibly from the 50s or 60s. There were a couple black and white sketches in it.
I remember most of the plot. A girl named Samantha lived in Boston with her mother (father deceased), who then died, leaving her an orphan. Her mother’s dying words were something to the effect of keeping the family heirloom safe. A ruby cross stolen from Acapulco.
Samantha is sent to live with her relatives in Hawaii (during the life of Princess Liliuokalani – I think she even had tea with her, or met her in the story). She has a cousin her own age and she experiences lots of new things there, but trouble turns up as men seeking the ruby cross, which she hid in a cave. She ends up kidnapped and having to show them where it is, but is rescued my a family friend, Andrew. All ends well. She ends up marrying Andrew, and they return the cross to Acapulco at the end of the book.
338G: WWII Bookmobile (Solved!)
This is a YA book. A recent library school graduate (or Lib. School student doing internship) wants to work in big public library but is assigned to rural bookmobile. Set during WWII. Published: 1950-1980s??
337U: Young cat fights the ocean (Solved!)
A tiger or lion cub fights the ocean and makes it retreat, but it was only the tide going out. This might be a folktale or fable in a child's anthology or scholastic services book circa 1965-69. Young protagonist may have had elevated opinion of self.