Category Archives: 1970s

264A: Children’s fiction book about adoption

I’m trying to track down a book. It’s a children’s fiction book probably published before the 1980s about a couple who adopts children from different countries. They also have a biological son. One of the children they adopt is from Korea, and there’s a scene that describes their picking him up from the airport. The child only speaks Korean. I read this book as a child in the 80s, but I think it was published before then.

 

263H: A puppy waits for the perfect owner (Solved)

Probably considered a “first reader” though might qualify as a picture book. Read to me in the late 70’s but could be as early as late 60’s. The book is about puppies in a pet store window waiting for their owners to choose them. The cover (or an illustration inside if not the cover) is a view of the pet store storefront with two windows on either side of the door. Puppies on both sides. In the book people keep coming in and choosing dogs and they all resemble the person choosing them. A take on the dogs look like their owner concept. Tall skinny people with tall skinny dogs…etc. The beagle puppy is waiting and waiting until a boy in a baseball hat (red?) comes in for him. I think the boy had previously seen the dog and had been told he had to save his money.

The illustrations might be mainly line draws and are in yellow/brown/red tones as far as I remember. My mother belonged to a book club that automatically sent books so this may have been a book club selection. It’s so frustrating to be able to remember it so clearly but not be able to find it. Hopefully someone can help!

 

Thanks!

263G: Lonely kitten and sad duck become friends (Solved)

I read this in the mid-late 1980s, it was a paperback children’s book with soft purple cover, illustrations of cat and duck on front. I remember there were flap pages inside. The story was along the lines of a lonely duck and cat living in the same neighbourhood, I think a ball goes over the fence of one of their houses and they end up becoming friends. I think the kitten wore a hat? And the duck wore a dress? But I could be misremembering the clothing details. The cat was black/white and duck was yellow

263F: He slept on a bed of milkweed

Hi and thank you.  It is a children’s book that my mom read with me in the early 70s.  Its pages are full illustrations with a fair amount of text on each.  It is about an elf or fairy or pixie. . . my mom and I cannot recall anything else except that he goes to bed on a snowy night in a tree or nut on an amazing bed of milkweed.

Any help is appreciated.

263C: Fairy fantasy from the 60’s or 70’s (Solved)

I read the book around 1978-1983. It was a fantasy with a child who stayed with family and went into the woods and found a passage to a fantasy world of fairies which she ended up traveling to. The book had a title that was a play on Maestro or some other musical name. The cover of the book was brownish red with the face of one of the fairies. The face was very large and very round(side-wise oval) and with a very wide mouth. I was between 9-12 yo when I read it but this is what I remember.

 

263A: Old man with mustache tells grandson the story of how his hair turned white (Solved)

I would have read this book in the early to mid 90’s but I’m not sure if that’s when it was published. I remember that it was shelved with the Halloween books at my local library. An old man who has a white mustache is telling his grandson (may have been multiple grandchildren) about how his hair turned white. In his story he is pictured as a young boy but he still has the mustache, I remember thinking this was hilarious as a child. The gist of the story as far as I remember it is that when he was young he went into a haunted house or witch’s house on Halloween night and when he came out his hair had turned white. I have been wracking my brains for ages trying to remember the title of this book, I would love to read it again. 

262E: Welsh Coal Mine Ponies (Solved)

I loved this chapter book in the 1970s.  It took place during a much earlier era.   A coal mine in, I believe, Wales is closing which employs most of the people in the town.  The town children are afraid of what will happen to the ponies that work in the mine pulling the coal carts. They want to “retire” the ponies to a field.  The parents are worried about losing their jobs and don’t have the money to help the children save the ponies.  I believe the children make an appeal to the wealthy owner of the mine, who is sympathetic.  There may also be descriptions of the miners being sick, and of a canary dying from gas in the mine.  I remember this book having the same kind of feel to it as “The Wheel on the School.”  Thanks everyone for your help!