I read this book in South Africa as a setwork book in the 70s . I’m sure it was in Afrikaans about a young girl growing up in a very orthodox home, never saw a picture of herself until late teens. She falls pregnant to either a young traveling salesman or her father, I cant remember the fine details but she somehow gets away, with the young man I think.
A large size paperback, 1970s comprehensive instruction manual for growing a kitchen garden and orchard by the small-space, French-intensive method. It had realistic line drawing illustrations (looking as if the source of the drawings was photographs. ) Also appeared to be UK English in origin as illustrations showed brick walls around the garden as if it were on an estate. Instructions for annual and perennial vegetables, as well as fruit shrubs and trees were included. Specialty techniques such as espalier were shown.
A girl stains a carpet and moves all the furniture into a big pile in the middle of the room to hide the stain. I vaguely remember her name being Harriet but I could be wrong about that. A 70s book for young kids, illustrated.
I would have read this book in the mid to late 1970s and I am pretty sure it was published around then. It was about a woman who owned a diner, but she was a terrible cook. Her customers all complained about the horrible food — I remember one diner saying, “This tastes like a burnt tire!” Somehow she finds (traps? meets?) a genie who promises to help her. He makes delicious spaghetti and meatballs that everyone loves, but the magic he used to make it goes out of control and fills the diner with spaghetti and meatballs until everyone floats away on a river of pasta. I seem to recall that the illustrations were primarily in black and white with splashes of color. The drawing style was sort of crude and comical — heavy, rough lines and the faces of the characters were somewhat grotesque. The main character’s name could be Frieda? Possibly. Also, this is definitely not Strega Nona which has a similar magical spaghetti pot.
I do not remember the title, it is a novel about 30-40 years old by a popular writer.
The story is that a Jewish doctor is called to treat the Pope who has a heart problem and in the first 20 pages or so follows a full and complete description about the treatment and how the Pope will feel and react following the procedure.
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.
As a child, back in 1981, there was a book at the library that I used to enjoy looking at and even attempted to draw from. [elephant, hippo and bear illustration]
Because it was an expensive and rare book it was stored in the reference section of the library and I wasn’t allowed to check it out. I could only view it at the library. I went back to that library as an adult and found out they no longer have that book, and I nor the library could remember the title or artist of the book.
It was an oversized large hardback book. I only remember the outside of the book being tan in color. Some illustrations were black and white and others were in color; I believe all were of animals.
Any idea of what book this was?
The book I am looking for should have perhaps been called “The Happy Mountain” or the “The Jade Mountain” but nothing seems to match the google search of that.
I think it was a tween book from the 70s maybe earlier, but a young girl is staying with a much older aunt or grandmother. The older woman had, I think, lived for some time in her own youth in China, but was forced to leave with her family quite quickly. When leaving the country the older woman’s father gave her an ugly home-idol to carry with her to safety, an item she had always hated, but kept for years anyway as a memento of her father. Towards the end of the book, she discovers with the help of a out-of-favor nephew (I think) that inside the ugly idol was a jade village or jade mountain that she had loved as a young girl, obviously hidden in the hopes that she would find it sooner.
I’m looking for a chapter book in which a father amazes his son by seeming to do a magic trick on a city block, involving a building which is either being built or torn down. The father doesn’t really do anything magical–he just has information that the son doesn’t, so he can frame it as something enchanted. The son totally believes the illusion and is in awe of his father. This episode, which extends over several weeks, is a plot point in a book that I don’t think was aimed at kids or YA but involved children. It was written, perhaps, in the 60s or 70s? I thought it was by William Goldman, but I haven’t been able to find it.
The book I am looking for is about the oceans. I read in in the late 1970s. It was written by a man who was participating in an ocean voyage aboard a research vessel. I think he may have been a Canadian, and the book may have been published via McGill University. He described the oceans as having four levels, each level’s current went counter to the level above or below it.
Thanks and good luck. I would love to read this book again.