This book would have been published before 1978 but probably after 1960 or 1965. It was a children’s book with photos (probably black and white) of a pair of frolicking kittens. The kittens had black and grey stripes. There may have been short captions of the pictures. The pictures were of the kittens leaping and jumping in funny ways.
Category Archives: 1960s
239F: Fuzzy Shoulder Friends (Solved)
I need help finding a children’s book, I can’t remember what it’s called!
It’s about a little village where all the people have little fuzzy creatures that sit on their shoulders. They look like fuzzy balls with eyes, and come in all different colors. These creatures make the people happy and build their self esteem. Then the people get greedy and start taking each other’s creatures to the point where the whole village is unhappy. They realize this and begin to share the creatures, the village is happy again. Moral of the story: when you take someone else’s confidence, you feel worse too. Published in 1960’s – 1980’s, perhaps.
Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!
238A: Benjamin B., who is he?
Taught myself to read in first grade with a book of forgotten title. The main character is Benjamin B. (or Benjamin B––) (not Bee or any other variation). The book was published before 1966, which is when I read it. The book was not new when I read it, so possibly published before 1960. It is my faint impression (which could be incorrect) that he was a British boy, so perhaps written by a British author. I’m sorry, but that’s all I have. I have been looking for this book for about a decade, so any help appreciated.
237F: A girl tries out for cheerleader (Solved)
This is an older book from the fifties or sixties. A girl tries out for cheerleader at her high school. The school colors are navy blue and white and on the day of tryouts she realizes she is wearing a white shirt and navy skirt that looks almost like the cheer uniform. She is embarrassed about that. She later makes the squad.
237D: Aliens with moss-like reproduction
This was a novella contained in a large edited volume of Sci Fi short works. Since I read it in the mid 1960’s to 1971 time period and it had a library binding, it probably dates from early 1960’s.
The plot is as follows:
Humans underwent a diaspora throughout the local galaxy; then at some point colonies lost contact with each other and with Earth and cultures evolved on their own pathways. At the point in time when the story takes place, an interplanetary Human government is trying to locate old Earth colonies to bring them back into the fold. This is apparently a very desirable event for the other cultures, as they get all sorts of economic benefits by being in the human club. Thus, many civilizations of near-human look-alikes also try to get into the human federation (Yes I know, what are the chances? Convergent evolution can only do so much. )
So inspectors investigate new applications to the federation to determine if the people really are descended from ancient earth colonists. The lead character in the story is an inspector/investigator. He is following up on the investigation and mysterious disappearance of an earlier investigator. He has a copy of the previous investigator’s rather cryptic journal, which mentions “Musci” in relation to the people of the planet. Musci? Is he talking about houseflies (Muscidae)?
Turns out, the people look much like humans, but clearly are not; they reproduce by alternation of generation, like mosses and all other land plants (though it’s only really obvious to the naked eye in mosses and ferns). “Aha! Not houseflies, but mosses!” the narrator of the story thinks. (“Muscinae” is an outdated name for the mosses, now called Bryophyta.) There is a diploid generation that gives birth to a batch of haploid babies (plants do it with spores). These babies are spirited away (out of sight of nosy humans), and grow up to be either pure haploid males (one set of chromosomes plus a Y-chromosome) or pure haploid females (one set of chromosomes, one X-Chromosome). The author describes them as very handsome/beautiful, the essence of the ideal male or female. These people have sexual reproduction, give birth to diploid babies, and die. The diploid adults raise the diploid babies (if I remember correctly) and the haploid people raise the haploid offspring of the diploids.
I really would like to locate this work, to use as a side note in teaching introductory biology lectures on plant reproduction and how strikingly different it is from animal reproduction.
236H: Tipi (Teepee) Hippy Birth
Varied birth story collection from 60/70s. Featured a picture inside of mom and baby outside their tipi. Not a children’s book, but here’s hoping. Thank you!
236G: A collection of sports biographies
Trying to find book I was given as a kid around 1960-1963(?) with short bio’s and drawings of athletes; I remember bio’s included Babe Zaharias, George Mikan, Jesse Owens, and Mo Connelly. It was a book for kids along the type of format as “Two Flags Flying” or “Illustrated Minute Biographies” with a bio and drawing of the person in each case.
235A: A young girl shares her weathervanes with her neighbors (Solved)
I was born in 1953 and think maybe the book was for 8-10 year olds so, if it was newly-published, maybe it was from the early 1960s? I have only vague memories of it, of course. The story of a girl who has moved somewhere new–a place that, to a kid like me from Los Angeles, stuck with me as exotic, like maybe Florida? I think the plot is that the girl has this collection of weathervanes and, when family relocates to a housing development where all the homes are identical, she gets this great idea of giving each neighbor one of the different weathervanes to make life easier for everyone! (The movie “Inside Out” made me think of this book–what happens when a plucky little girl moves?)
234C: A book on record
The book was either from the 50’s or early 60’s. A children’s book with a 45rpm. Featured a mouse telling a story. At each page turn “turn the page, turn the page, turn the page please.” Often said “More Cheese Please!”
234B: A witch flies on a vacuum
A children’s book about a witch (probably with red hair) that befriends a young girl next door. The book has illustrations that are very bright. The witch dresses like a gypsy and flies on a vacuum. Only the girl knows she’s a witch. It’s not The Wednesday Witch, The Witch Next Door or The Witch Down the Hall. The witch is friendly. The book is 15-20 years old. It was a large book probably 10cm wide and 30cm tall.