Category Archives: 1960s

296N: Cristobel and a tinkling Christmas Tree Fairy

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Hi. I am trying to remember and locate a book that I loved as a child – possibly published between 1956 and 1961, in which the centrepiece was a Christmas Tree with a fairy that every now and then tinkled. In any memory the tree stood on the landing at the top of the stairs in the house.  It may have involved a girl called Cristobel /Christobel/Christobal.

Was it the same or another book in which there was a character, a girl, called Aurora. In this book there seemed to be a grove or woods.

Both were well-written and may have been Australian prize-winners from the Children’s Book Council or similar. However they do not seem to me to have been particularly Australian in flavour. Possibly English.

296M: A machine called a “Spindizzy”

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1960’s/70s cheap science fiction. It involved a colony that had female creatures who had evolved pink skin, and tails. Several of these creatures were featured in what appeared to be a painting on the cover of the mass market paperback I had. The main male character was sent by his company to check up on/audit the colony in some way. The female creatures were a second class of citizens who had small tattoos who indicated the type of work they did at the colony. The main male character falls in love with one of the female creatures and they attempt to escape the colony. Their attempt to escape involved a machine called a “spindizzy”.

 

295N: The Lonely Doll meets The Curious Clubhouse (Solved)

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I read a juvenile novel in the 1980s (from my school library). It may have been from the 1960s or 1970s about a very lonely girl who moved to a new house in the country, and while exploring, she found a secret playhouse that had dolls and teddy bears in it, and I think they came to life. Kind of like The Lonely Doll meets The Curious Clubhouse, but definitely not either of those! It had illustrations, maybe an orange cover, and I feel like Secret may have been in the title, and the author’s last name began with G or H?

295J: He tries to introduce her to the skeleton

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Please help me find a childhood book probably written in the late 50s 60s or early 70s. Similar to The Secret Garden, it was a weird tale of a boy named, I believe, Micah who gets lost in the woods and he’s gone for such a long time he has to learn to survive eventually he finds an old moss covered skeleton that he befriends similar to that movie “Castaway ” where Tom Hanks befriends a basketball. Anyways, the boy is all alone. I think he builds some sort a little hut and learned to survive on his own. I think, he’s about 12 or so and eventually someone finds him like a little girl or something and he tries to introduce her to the skeleton and she freaks out and runs away so the boy’s left alone again in the forest with his skeleton friend and I don’t remember the dénouement but it’s kind of sad. Eerie yet beautifully written and haunting tale. It wasn’t very long but I think I was about 10 when I read it and it transfixed me.

295A: Plants feeling pain

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Looking for paperback science fiction collection of short stories (probably from about 1958-65) with a story about plants and trees being able to cry out (at a pitch not audible to humans) when they feel pain. A scientist, who devises a way to convert the sounds to those audible to humans, goes mad when he is able to “hear” the effects of mowing a lawn.

294N: Boy with Toy Boat in Central Park

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I’m searching for a children’s chapter book that I read and loved when I was about 10 or 11 in the early 1970s. All I remember about it is that it was about a boy who lived in an apartment building near Central Park, and in the afternoons he and an older man (perhaps his grandfather?) would sail his toy boat in Central Park. (I’m not thinking of Stuart Little!) I think the apartment doorman might have been a character as well. My guess is that the book was written sometime in the mid-1960s.

294A: Boy’s adventure in the Northwest

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This was a hardcover chapter book I read in the ’60s. Don’t know when it was published, but it felt like contemporary writing, though the story was set in the early 20th century. No illustrations. A very young man lives with his mother in a small town- the nearest city is Spokane, I think. Possibly his older brother is missing. He goes to the ice cream parlor and has a pineapple ice cream soda. There is some sort of quest, some railroad tracks. He fights a cougar or puma, and is wounded, and emerges scarred but triumphant. He gets the girl.

293D: Friendship in a treehouse

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I would be so grateful if you could find my favorite chapter book as a child! It’s about a friendship between two girls, perhaps a summertime friendship. They spend time in a tree house together. The paperback cover painting was in browns and greens of the girls in the tree house. Likely, I bought it through Scholastic Books when they had those mini-catalogs sent to schools. It came out in paper sometime in the mid 1960s.

292U: Mr. Down Stomps the Keystone (Solved)

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A children’s book from the 1970s or earlier. I am not sure of the title but it might be ‘Mr. Down’ or include the words ‘Mr. Down’. The setting is possibly medieval England. Townspeople are trying to build churches to pray in but every time they complete one, Mr. Down (a little troll-like guy or gremlin type character) comes in the night to stomp on the roof and destroy the church. They go through several designs all of which Mr. Down stomps on until they finally design an arch with a ‘keystone’ at the top. This is a classic Gothic style arch and no matter how much  Mr. Down stomps, it will not collapse. I used to check this book out of a small Methodist church library in North Carolina every single summer of my childhood.  It would mean the WORLD to me to find this book again.

 

292Q: Little girl moves and leaves doll behind

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I read/was read this book in the 60s.  It is the story of a little girl who leaves a doll behind when her family moves. I believe the doll is left on a shelf in the closet. I think they are moving from the city to a house in the suburbs, but the focus is on the loss of the doll. I don’t think she ever recovers it.