Category Archives: 1970s

259F: Girl Plants Magic Trees (Solved)

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A picture book that I checked out repeatedly from my elementary school library. No idea of title. I was checking it out 1986-1988ish, and I remember it being newer, so I’d guess printing would be late ’70s-early ’80s. The girl plants different things on one page, and then when you flip the page, the tree has grown from those “seeds.” I specifically remember her planting diamonds/gems and getting a tree covered in necklaces (I remember that tree as a shimmery blue-white). I feel like there was also a hat tree that grew. There were definitely several different ones. I also feel like there was an old man/grandfather character. I think the ending was some moral about planting love and getting a family, but I’m least certain about that.

 

Would love to get this book for my daughters. Many thanks for your help!

 

259B: Blind girl and a horse

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I am looking for the title of a book I read over and over when I was in primary school. I am 50 this year so around 40 years ago. I got the book from the school library and borrowed it over and over again. The book is about a Blind girl who befriends a wild horse, I don’t remember many other details but the girl has a operation to restore her site, the horse goes wild while she is away and I feel the horse was shot just before she returned, not the happiest story line but this book had a huge impact on me when I was young. Any help would be appreciated.

258F: The Servant’s Quarters

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I’m looking for a book that I read about 15 years ago that was already well aged at the time I read it, probably from the 70s or 80s. It was on a classroom bookshelf in my elementary school. It’s about a girl who I think moves… from the city to the country with her mother for sure, possibly her father has died. She isn’t too pleased about the move but eventually while exploring their new large country house she discovers the servants passage and a room where it appears an old lady used to live, I think. She also likes to play in the apple cellar, befriends someone at school, and there is a not well-liked older fellow who lives in a dark small house who I think may have lived in their house at one point? I may totally wrong on some of these things because I was young when I read it, but I think I’m right.

 

Thanks!

257D: Adventure at sea (Solved)

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Read this book in the late 1970s, but think it was written maybe in the 50s.  It was set after WWII, about an ex Navy LTJG who was salvage diving, came across a young stowaway and put the boy to work for him on his boat.  It was an adventure story, with a run-in with an octopus, storms and bad guys, but in the end they found the treasure.  Ring any bells?

 

Many thanks!

257B: Children’s bedtime story about a man called Harum Scarum

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The book was either published in the 1970-1980’s I believe, since late 1970’s was when I read it. It was a children’s story about Harum Scarum, an old man that was known by the children to be mean. Harum Scarum became nice and gave the children his candy. It was a beautiful short story about how the man was a good person, but just because the kids thought he was mean, they didn’t interact with him. They found out he was a nice person when he gifted them candy. If I’m not mistaken, the setting was a farm or the outskirts of town. The story was in a book that had several bedtime stories in it. I can’t find the title of the book or the name of the story. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

256F: Kids move away, create secret clues (Solved)

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This is a kids book I read in the 1970’s – paperback. It is about two families and one family with two children move away. The second family’s children are very sad. Suddenly, mysterious clues start appearing around and the old family has to decipher the clues. It leads them somewhere, like through the woods, to where the new family had moved to.

256E: Big book of fairy tales

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The book I’m looking for is definitely older. It is a large, aged, dull lime green or olive green hardcover. I can’t remember what’s in the front, but there is a picture of what may be a friendly green-faced (again, duller green) troll with a white wig and a red shirt doing a cartwheel on the back cover of the book, along with a short description below it.

It is about a foot tall, 8″ wide, and 3-4″ thick. It has 600+ pages, I think… definitely more than 300.

This book looked old to me back in the 90s, so I’m guessing it is from 1990 or earlier.

Looks like it might contain a collection of Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen tales as well as some other stories.

Some of the stories definitely include (from memory):

– The Nightingale (Aesop)
– The Water of Life (Grimm, German)
– Sinbad the Sailor’s 4th Journey
– Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves
– The Tinderbox (Aesop)
– The Emperor’s New Suit / Clothes (Aesop)
– Stone Soup
– The Pied Piper
– The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Grimm)
– The fisherman and his wife
– The Golden Goose (Grimm)
– The Princess and the Pea

There are illustrations in the book with the stories and it is done in a very old-fashioned art style… I would think to date it to before 1980, but I’m not an expert.

I know this is pretty hard considering the lack of detail. I’ve been looking for this book for a long time. =(