Category Archives: 1970s

321L: Amnesiac Girl Buys Horse (Solved)

I am looking for a 1960-1980 era book, about a girl with amnesia that ends up working on a horse farm, buys a horse from going to slaughter, and then discovers she used to be rich and jumped show horses. Her step parent [I want to say father] ended up being the culprit. The point of view was from the girl, and I want to say the book starts with a car accident, which causes the amnesia.

320Q: Fairy Tale Book(s?) From 70’s Or 80’s

I am trying to identify one or two books from the following two images (I cannot remember if they are clues to two books or if they are both from the same one.)

I remember a rather thick book with a mix of fairy stories, myths & legends from around the world, probably printed in the 1970’s or 1980’s. (I was born in 1981.)

The first image is of my Grandma reading us a book, although it is blurry.

The second image, is a sketch by me of a calligraphy detail in the book, on a title page, I think, which I loved to trace as a child.

I am trying to identify the book(s) represented in each of these photographs, whether they are one in the same or two similar books with collections of stories.  If you could help solve the mystery, I would be much obliged.

Please find the two picture clues below:

320O: Animals’ Body Parts Switcheroo

Have fun with this one. I'm taking a shot in the dark here that anyone knows what I am talking about, because my mother doesn't. It is a children's book from as late as probably 1982. Guessing possibly around 1975-1980? Literally all I can remember is an image of animals with switched body parts. Not sure how many animals or how many different body parts were switched. Could have been only 2 animals. Different heads for sure. One might have been short with the head of a taller one and vice versa. They might have been barn animals. And something about one of them getting stuck under a fence. Because he was too fat maybe? Like a chain link fence. And that's it. A flash of a memory of one page of a book that, if I can figure it out, is for sure my first identifiable memory.

320N: Toy Store With Trains

I am looking for a children’s book about an old man who had a toy store. It may have been toy trains. They had pneumatic tubes. I remember a picture in the book where the man and a young boy are looking through a big window at a miniature city of toy trains. My guess on publication date is the 1970’s.  I've thought a lot about it and maybe the old man was a banker.

 

320J: Fold-Out Illustrated Pig’s Adventure Series (Solved)

I’m looking for a book about a pig (or some animal, but I am pretty sure it was a pig) who goes on adventures. The books were a series, and were all fold-out books, with illustrations only, no text. The books were wider than they were tall, to accommodate the fold-out pages, which were flaps that unfolded to the right. One that I remember involved the pig going camping and getting rained on. I read them in the early ’80s, so I imagine they were published in the ’60s or ’70s.

320G: Sci-fi about a seductive green vine

This book was probably from the 1970s or 1980s (I read it in the 1990s), and its hardcover was entirely covered in green vines (from what I remember). It was about an (alien?) plant that grew really fast and completely covered a family’s house. The members of the family are totally entranced by the vine, which seems to cast a kind of spell over them (and maybe even speak inside their minds?), until it is almost too late to do anything and they’re entirely trapped.

 

319Z: Turn, Turn, Turn

This young adult book from the 1960s or 1970s was set in the Southwest, maybe Arizona or New Mexico. A girl's parents have divorced so she is sent to live with her father, I think. The song "For everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn" is featured in the story somehow. Some of the characters in the story are Native American but I'm not sure whether the girl and her father are, or not.

319O: Little Boy Turns Into Tiger

Looking for name/author of a kids book from early 70s about a boy who dresses up as a tiger, but the book is written like he IS a tiger. He lays "on a tree branch" (actually the back of the sofa, I think), scares his sister, etc. At the end, he finally takes off the costume and goes to sleep. I think the artwork was pen and ink and the cover was orange, but I can't be positive after all this time.

319L: Short story sci-fi, mutants compete to cause most suffering

From 70s or 80s.  Group of normal seeming people can influence others to violence.  Once a year they get together with scrapbooks and show how much war and death they have caused.  The worst one “wins.”  Protagonist is one of them but tired of hurting and killing.  She refuses to use her powers.  They gang up on her and the new contest is who can eliminate her.  Her trusted butler tries to kill her under their influence.  Sorry, I know this one is kind of a downer.

319K: Daughter of Veterinarian helps rescue hoarded animals (Solved!)

Paperback, probably from Scholastic in mid-70s.  The veterinarian’s daughter helps rescue a trailer of hoarded animals.  Her father’s girlfriend helps and gets completely overwhelmed by the suffering, which makes the girl like her more.  The girl refers to herself as an iron hand in a wool mitten.  She dates a boy who likes Bartok.  Any help appreciated.