Category Archives: 1970s

271B: Child meets magical friend from a family of wizards/magic in secret garden (Solved)

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I have been looking for this young adult’s book for some time without success. I can’t remember any words of the title, it was aimed at 10-12 year olds. I read it in around 1990-1995, but it may have been published in the 1970s or 1980s. I’m pretty sure it was a British author, but it may have been American/Canadian. It was a slim paperback and I seem to remember that it came in a boxed set with a 3 or four other books, not necessarily by the same writer, but similar fantasy/magic genre. The story followed a young boy or girl who was staying with a relative somewhere, perhaps on holiday, who one day crawled under a hedge in the neighbourhood and into the garden/grounds of a wealthy and mysterious family, who turn out to be magical (possibly wizards). S/he meets and befriends the young girl who lives there who shows her various magical things but they keep their friendship secret as the other wizards/magical relatives would be angry if they found out she had come in to the garden. The family lives in a large and beautiful house and there is a magical lake in the garden which the two children sail across to an island in the center. They are later placed in danger when someone finds out the child is in the magic garden. I remember this being a wonderful story and would so love to find it! It is not Tom’s Midnight Garden or Timothy and the Witch.

269F: Girl Lost in Woods/Mountains with Man Chasing Her

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I read this book probably in the mid 1970s, may be from the 1960s or a little earlier. I checked it out from the library in what was then the Children’s section, probably considered young adult today.  I have no idea of title or author.  The girl’s name may be Gail, not sure, about 15 or 16 years old.  She is camping? with her family: mother, father and I think one younger sibling. She becomes separated someway and I believe she may be trying to get to a Ranger’s station or something.  Some weird guy is following/stalking her. I don’t remember if he is just after her, a young girl, or if she saw something he did & is trying to stop her from getting help.  That’s about it, not a lot to go on, but I remember the book and would like to read again if I can find it!  I was probably 12 or 13 when I read it and it was very suspenseful to me at the time, different from Nancy Drew & Trixie Belden books I read.

269D: Everyone wear Hats

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Looking for a children’s book I read around 1983 (possible a board book, it was small in size), about a girl in a house with her family and a poltergeist that plays tricks on them. Not scary. At one point the poltergeist shuts the lights out and when they come back on “Hat, Hats, Hats, Everyone wear Hats” or something like that.

 

266G: Color-based ABC books

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I am trying to find a children’s book probably printed in the 70s or 80s.

It was to teach children about colors. Each page featured a different color (I remember there were pages for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Brown, Black, and White). On each page the name of the color would be printed in that color, and there were various objects of that color illustrated (for example the Red page would have had an apple, a red barn, a cardinal bird, etc). Each page might have had ten or so illustrations on it.  The non-primary-colored pages of this book (orange, grey, pink) had a small illustration to show how they made those colors by combining others. The illustrations were circles…red circle + white circle = PINK, red circle + yellow circle = orange, etc.

I am having a great deal of trouble remembering the exact illustrations, but I’m trying. I think that (among other things) the Yellow page had buttercups and a canary, Blue page had bluebells, Pink had a rose, White page had baby’s breath and maybe a jug of milk, Black page had some sort of berry(?)

The art style definitely had a vintage look to it, like so:

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