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!

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.

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!

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.

297S: Star-Shaped Key (Solved)

I am looking for a book targeted at, I think, 10-to-12-year-olds, which I suspect was published between 1965 and 1980.  I think the protagonists were a brother and sister who for some reason were spending some months (summer vacation?) in a remote location, which I believe was mountainous.  The permanent inhabitants were faced with a problem that I do not remember but which I believe involved water.  A recurring plot point was that the young boy was taught to play draughts and was challenged to improve–this name for the game may mean that, though I read the book in a U.S. library, it was a British book.  The problem was solved through the use of a key with a star-shaped end which was inserted into a rock face and turned.

As a final detail, I believe the cover of the book was mostly a picture, drawn in blue and white.