Category Archives: 1970s

331R: Sabre Jet Pilot

Leave a reply

This book is autobiographical. I read it somewhere between the fall of 1973 and summer of 1976, acquiring it from my junior high school library. As I recall, the book is about a young Canadian who becomes a Sabre jet pilot and becomes stationed in West Germany during the Cold War. It covers the missions he flew, but it is also about what led him to flying and his engineering education and career. At one point during college he builds a small hovercraft using a vacuum cleaner motor. Of course, that intrigued me, a teenage boy with an interest in science and engineering. I’ve Googled and googled, but while there are lots of books about men who flew the Sabre, I can’t find this one.

331M: Deathwatch meets The Most Dangerous Game

Leave a reply

I read this YA book in the mid to late 70’s. It is definitely NOT Deathwatch or The Most Dangerous Game but it has similarities to both.  A man is being hunted by another man – I think simply because the hunter enjoys it.  I’m not sure if the hunted man has any weapons or vehicle.  The setting may be Africa or the southwest US.  There are a couple of plot twists.  The hunted man meets someone who offers to help him, but then it turns out that person also wants to kill him.  And then in another twist, maybe that turns out to be a mistaken impression. Or maybe the first guy ends up helping the hunted man because it turns out the second guy is the real bad guy.  The question of who he can trust is a big part of the plot.

331A: Russell Raccoon Discovers Wonderful World Of Daytime (Solved!)

3 Replies

This was a favorite book of my children in the 70’s and 80’s and I made the motherly mistake of giving it away, so would dearly love to find a copy.  I don’t think Russell’s name was in the title.

Russell Raccoon was not like the other raccoons.  He couldn’t sleep in the daytime and fell asleep at night when his gang was out scavenging  One day when he couldn’t sleep he wandered out of his home to discover a whole wonderful world of daylight.   He met a little boy with whom he became friends.  There was a delightful picture of Russell riding on the back of the boy’s tricycle.  When the boss of his raccoon gang, Emma Jean Smudge, found out what he was doing she hit him on the head with her purse and told him to stay away from humans.  Picture of that was very funny.  One day when Russell went to visit his friend, the boy brought him inside his house and showed him the bedroom that had been made for Russell, complete with a little bed with his name on it.  Russell decided to move in with the boy.  The last page of the book shows all of Russell’s group including Emma Jean standing in line outside the house door at night as Russell hands out fig newtons.

330N: Krakatoa Survivors Stories

3 Replies

I read a paperback in my parent’s basement about the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa. This would have been in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Although factual, it was an easy read as if historical fiction. It described how the politicians delayed evacuating the island because there was an election coming up. It also talked about a guy put in jail who was one of the few survivors. It described the pyroclastic cloud and flow. There were a couple of other people who survived that is focused on, one a baby, I think. All I can find is Winchester’s book, which I have read. It’s so long ago, I can’t recall the title or author. Do you think you can help?

330M: Hibernating Animal behind a Red Door

Leave a reply

This book was one my sister and I read in the 1970’s to early 1980’s. I recall that there was a forest creature (cannot remember what kind) who possibly (moved?) to a new house in the forest with a red door. I think his friends were supposed to wake him up for some reason but then they couldn’t find his house with the door, because it was covered with a fallen tree (?) or maybe snow(?). I think they kept finding red things that didn’t turn out to be the door. It would have been a shorter children’s story with a lot of pictures. We read it in English.

330A: Scarecrow Soldier

Leave a reply

I am looking for a children’s picture book possibly printed between 1930’s/1940’s – 1980’s.  Not sure when it was printed.  My husband remembers reading it when he was a kid at his grandparents in the 1980’s.  My guess is it’s from the 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s.

The book takes place on a farm or in a large garden.  One day the animals notice a stranger (the scarecrow) on the farm or garden and get scared.  The weather elements try to get rid of the scarecrow.  The wind blows as hard as it can at the scarecrow.  The rain pours on it, the sun beats its heat on it, until one day there’s nothing left of the scarecrow except maybe the pole he was on.  My husband remembers the scarecrow looking like a soldier, or at least having an old uniform and a sword.

I believe he said the cover was blue with the scarecrow on it?  Not really too sure on that.

I appreciate any help in finding this book.

329W: Caribbean Island Adventures With Photos

Leave a reply

I am looking for a book that I think my parents must have brought back from a Caribbean vacation in the 70s. It was the story of a bunch of island kids, boys and girls of different ages, maybe set in the Bahamas, or maybe not that specific, but definitely in the English-speaking Caribbean. Any adults were marginal background characters. There was a hand-drawn map of their island that showed beaches, caves, meeting places, shortcuts, etc. It was essentially a picture book, but scenes from the story were illustrated with black-and-white photographs of black children (actors? the author’s kids and neighbors?) and island scenes. The combination of an exciting adventure story with actual photography was wonderful.

329R: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Space Exploration Picture Book

2 Replies

I’m trying to track down a book I read a lot as a kid.

It was a large picture book, maybe 8×10 inches. Probably hardcover. Full-page color illustrations. Not very long, if I remember correctly.

It was choose-your-own-adventure style. You were an astronaut/space explorer who landed (or crash-landed?) on an alien planet.

There were mild role-playing game elements to it. For example, you selected a couple pieces of equipment at the beginning of your adventure, and there was a part where you turned to the back and studied a xenobiology index for exactly 2 minutes and then weren’t allowed to reference it again.

You navigated the dangerous alien planet and tried to avoid toxic atmosphere, poisonous plants, and dangerous creatures.

I would have read it (from my school’s library) sometime between ’91 and ’96. I’m guessing it was published in the 80s, but it technically could have been the early 90s or maybe even the 70s? Just feels like an 80s thing.

Would love to track this down. It had a big impact on my imagination and creative inspiration over the years, I’m sure.

Thanks!

329O: Time Traveling Girl Becomes Subject In Colonial Sampler

1 Reply

My search is for a children’s book, probably in the 1970-1997 time frame.  The book was a time traveling mystery involving a shy, loner-type girl who escapes to sit in a nearby very old tree.  On rare occasions, while in the tree, the girl time travels back to colonial times where she meets two girl friends in the tree.  At this point, the tree is much younger.  The colonial friends remark about the traveler’s shoes and how different they are.  The shoes are modern sneakers.  On a subsequent meet up, the time traveler brings an alphabet book which shows a picture of a giraffe listed for the letter “G.”  The colonials have never seen a giraffe.  At some point, the time traveling stops and the loner girl wonders what became of her colonial friends.  On a library day, the loner looks up colonial samplers.  She finds the sampler her colonial friends made when they couldn’t find her in the tree anymore.  The antique sampler is of the alphabet with a giraffe for the “G” letter and a stitched picture of the modern girl with her sneakers!  The title of this book is not known to me and i remember it had nothing to do with the possible subject matter of the book; therefore, not colonial samplers, mystery, time travel, etc.  The author was a woman, but I don’t know the name.  Please help locate the title and author of this book.  I am sure my two grand daughters would love this book, which  my daughter read years ago in Virginia.  Thank you!

329I: Picture Book about a Cherub Genie in a Gumball Machine (Solved!)

2 Replies

I believe this book is from the 60’s or 70’s. I read it around 1993 so it certainly is earlier than that. The illustrations have simple cheerful pen/line work. My recollection of the plot is a kid puts money in a gumball machine and is granted wishes genie style and/or it releases a cherub who just decides to make fun things happen. There may or may not be three gumballs. At one point kids are skipping with a very long piece of licorice or some other candy.

I recall the flying cherub is just a white body (as white as the page) with a black outline. He may or may not have curly hair. I also think that the page backgrounds are all white. The illustrations do have colors though, but there is not much visual texture – it is very flat with black line outlines on everything.

That is all have. I read this book only once and have been collecting picture books for years now and have never seen anything even close. Thank you so much! I’d be thrilled to find it.