A children’s book I read in the early 1970’s. a boy goes inside a tree and there is a long, long dark staircase inside it. He climbs it and I don’t remember what happened next. I think the illustrations were black ink sketches. Thanks!
Wow! I just read in the NYT that there is a possibility of finding this book that I remember ! I believe I read it in the 1970’s or 80’s. As I remember it, it is a Native American story. A father does many things for his child. The child says to the father, “when I grow up I will do things for you” The father replies,” when you grow up the important thing is not that you care and do things for me, but that you care and do things for your own children .” Or something to that effect. The moral of the story being that a parents actions are to teach a child how to be a good and loving person, a parent does not teach a child how to be good using the idea of reciprocity.
“Board book” from late 60s or early 70s about teddy bear family – photographs of teddy bears doing things like eating at a table, other everyday activities. The pages had a green background and were on glossy heavy cardboard with rounded edges.
I just read about your bookstore and the Book Stumper in today’s New York Times. Amazing! And I have a book: written perhaps in the 1970s or early 1980s, it concerned two kids, an old house, and a crystal or other glass ball on a pedestal in the yard of an old house, and the kids used transcendental meditation to perhaps travel into the ball, maybe solve a crime or something.
A book bought in late 70s Australia (possibly UK published) picture book about a kingdom in black & white & wizard. Under the direction from the king who decides to make it colourful, first turns blue and everyone is miserable, then red and everyone is angry, then yellow everyone becomes ill. Eventually the magic goes crazy and the colours mix to give full pallet and all ends well.
I was born in 1965 and remember this book from when I was around 5-7.
It was about a painter that lived on a houseboat and painted abstract paintings. For some reason he broke the painting up into a bunch of small paintings and a buyer flew to his houseboat by seaplane to buy them I think the houseboat was near San Francisco. It was a large book, hardback, and illustrated.
I read this book in the 1980s. I remember for sure that the girl’s name was Drucilla, spelled with a “c” not an “s.” I think she had long black hair and was tall and thin, and she was possibly magical, like a young witch. I think she was an outcast; maybe the story was about her finding a friend? Definitely NOT from The Worst Witch series. I remember it being kind of moody, with Edward Gorey-style ink illustrations.
This is a little (about 4-5″) square green book. I read it in the mid 1970s in the UK. It is about someone who goes around visiting. They visit a giraffe who is beating her rugs on a line with an old fashioned carpet beater. They have homemade lemonade.
I’ve been trying to find this book for years! I read it as a kid in the 80s and it was about a little girl and, I think, her father moving to a new house that seems at first to be haunted and scary but turns out to be homey and cosy. What made this book stick in my mind was the illustrations: really hauntingly beautiful large, rich watercolours. The new house was drawn on a hill and somewhat isolated and the little girl had long dark straight hair, looking perhaps Spanish. At first the new home is drawn very dark and spooky, but by the last page it is lit up and warm and the little girl is hugging her father, having come to love their new home.
When I was in second grade around 1980-1981, my teacher read a book to the class, and I’m 99 percent sure it was called Run for Your Life. It was scary and suspenseful and it was a chapter book. It took at least a week if not longer for her to read.
I’ve never been able to find this book. Can you help?