Category Archives: 1960s
299W: 1960s book, cat with artificial leg (Solved)
I am trying to locate a book from the 1960s or before about a cat with a wooden leg. It was very important to me because I grew up with a walking disability so the book meant great deal to me.
Someone threw it away, unfortunately, after my husband just died suddenly!
Could you possibly help me locate a copy or at least the name?
I would be eternally grateful!
299N: The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cooky
I am looking for a children’s poetry book published early 60s or maybe 50s. It had a purple hardcover. I believe a girl was on it. Maybe she was swinging?
Three poems I remember are the moon’s the north wind’s cooky , Tyger Tyger and the mock turtle song.
299L: A girl is given the power to swim underwater
I cannot remember the title. All I can remember is it was a fantasy book involving a girl who was given the power to swim underwater where she befriended a whale, a dolphin, and it involved rescuing her friends at the bottom of the ocean who were trapped there underneath a bubble. One key character that I remember was a “dimity bird” that was enchanted to move about. Presumably published in the ’60s, early ’70s.
298W: Rebuilding cars, girls, and all things teen
A teen series of short novels/stories about rebuilding cars, girls, and all things teen. They were published and stocked in public school libraries late 50s early 60s.
298U: Look at me, Mama! (Solved)
The book I am looking for was published in the early 1970s or possibly late 60s. It was a large format children’s book (probably around 15″ tall by 10-12″ wide). If I remember right, it had a black and white checked border on the cover, similar to The Real Mother Goose. It was an anthology of children’s stories. There was a story about a little girl who picks her neighbors flowers, and her mother explains to her that she shouldn’t do that and they plant a garden for the little girl so she has her own flowers. There is another story about a little boy picking huckleberries and pretending to be a bear or maybe running into a bear in the woods. There is another one about a little girl who reads The Little Red Hen and then she pretends to be the red hen. There is also a poem called “Look at Me, Mama” wherein a bunch of different bugs do things and tell their mothers to look at them – there is a line that goes something like “And when a little water bug sticks his face – his WHOLE FACE – into the water and says ‘look at me, mama!’, she does!”
The graphics in the book are all very much straight out of 1968 – 1975.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what this book was called and I’ve not seen a copy of it for years. I’ve been googling everything I can think to google. It was one of my favorite books when I was a kid and I want to share it with my son, who is now about the age I was when my mom used to read it to me.
I hope you can find it – thank you!
298S: Picture book where a bird eats too much grain
A 1960s (?) children’s picture book about a little bird who eats too much grain that it found in a railroad car. Bird got too fat and could not get off of train (I think). Bird could have been a sparrow. Beautiful illustration. Winter setting?
297Y: Incompetent burglars and a streetcar/diner
In the early to mid-60s, I read a hardcover library book that I guess was published either late 50s or early 60s. It was about a boy, I think his name was Charlie. He lived in a town where an old streetcar had been turned into a restaurant, so you could eat your meal while riding around the town. And somehow he got mixed up with some incompetent burglars, who couldn’t get the slang term for “gun” right; instead of saying “gat,” they would mangle it somehow. I’m pretty sure Charlie had a large dog.
297X: Secret Code, Tunnel To Underground Station
I read this in the late 1950s or early 60s. Two or three children are sent to stay at a relative’s or ancestor’s house. The plot involves solving a code in which vowels are rearranged or relocated so that “Underground Station” encodes as something like NDRGRND STTN. The message and the plot involve a tunnel, the ends of which are called underground stations.
297V: Two Boys and a Sailboat, Dangerous Situations
This was not a children’s book; more of a youth read. I read it in the late 1950’s or early 60’s. It involves two boys sailing, or learning to sail. One chapter was titled Never Swim From a D___ B___. The boys learn through experience that it is a very bad idea to swim from a drifting boat.