Category Archives: 1970s

242D: Bunny with large family (Solved)

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I’m trying to find a book that my daughter remembers me reading to her in the 80s when she was about 5 years old. In the book there’s a female bunny with a large family.  They annoy her so she runs away and creates her own house.  Eventually she realizes that she misses her family. It was illustrated on each page with small black and white illustrations.  It was also a small sized book, a little smaller than a trade paperback.  My daughter remembers it as a long book, but that is probably a kid’s impression.  Probably no more than 20 pages.

242C: Magic Carousel

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I read this book when I was around four or five, so it would have been 1969 or 1970. Two sisters were with their dad at Central Park in NYC and he took them to the carousel and to watch the ice skaters. They rode the carousel and the horses. The carousel and the horses became real and they rode them off the carousel and through central park, maybe this is when they rode past the ice skating rink. From my memory it was evening time. I remember the book as being in pinks, yellows and oranges and I think the illustrations may be similar to those of Alice and Martin Provensen. Here’s to hoping someone knows something about this book! I have never forgotten it.

242B: Caveman brings the first wheel to a birthday party

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A caveman is going to a party (I think a birthday party) and all the other guests bring typical cave man presents (bones, perhaps?). The protagonist brings a large round stone as a gift, and everyone makes fun of him. However, it turns out to be the first wheel and it proves useful in some way. This was from deep in my childhood, so it couldn’t have been published after 1990 or so. I believe the illustrations had line work and watercolor, though I’m not sure of that. They were definitely more cartoony than realistic, though. There is a possibility that this story was recorded on for video (I seem to remember an animated wheel rolling down a hill), but my friend who also remembers this story is convinced it is an actual book.

241D: 1970s Children’s Book

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My sister had a favorite book when she was about 3–1970. The book was thin and tall with a green cover and we think it was titled “The Two Little Princes”. The story is about 2 little princes who have everything in the world, but won’t share and still want more. Their nurse/ nanny decides to take away all of their toys and leave them in an empty room by themselves. Finally she brings in a basket with a single train track, one blue train and one red train. The have to work together to make the track and then play together with the trains.
The drawings were simple without much color and the nurse wore a white hat with an apron.

241C: A Boy and a Witch Named Gherkin

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The book in question is an older British book, I remember finding it around the mid-to-late 90s, about a young boy being raised by his “aunt” (I clearly remember that she loved taking baths with the Purple People Eater fragrance, which was used later in the book by a sewer-comber who knew where her house was because of the smell) who is approached by a young witch who thinks she’s an outcast because she isn’t ugly, whose name is Gherkin, along with a few other strange characters – including an animal from the island each of them is from that looks like a soft white seal, loves music more than anything, and emits a thick fog when happy. The boy is the lost son of the king and queen of the island, and is the only one who can help save them from some calamity.

241A: Chinese Dragons and Witches With Flying Hair

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A fantasy middle-grade novel I read in the mid-80s, with a green Chinese dragon on the cover. The dragon belonged to a Chinese girl who rode it in a circus and put on a thick Chinese accent for the punters, but could actually speak English perfectly.
She was one of the magical characters helping the two child protagonists on their adventure: another was a witch who had long hair which flew about when she was casting spells. She made an illusory double of one of the children (called a Semblance) so they wouldn’t be missed.
At one point the protagonists and their flying carpet were swallowed by some kind of evil spirit that had a dark stormy space inside it. They started calling the spirit the Glutton to make fun of it, and the witch put her head in her hands as if she was despairing so nobody could see her hair flying about when she used her magic to get them out.

240C: A family of animals underground (Solved)

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I was born in the late 1960’s. There was a children’s book that had to have been published before 1973 that I remember that had these illustrations it in about either a mole, a rabbit or a mouse whose family lived underground. The book had illustrated cut-aways that showed the ground above, the tunnels going down and their little house down in the earth (like a little kitchen, bed, etc.). For years it has been driving me nuts trying to find this book. So if you have any information please let me know.

Thank you!

239I: Photos of frolicking kittens (Solved)

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This book would have been published before 1978 but probably after 1960 or 1965. It was a children’s book with photos (probably black and white) of a pair of frolicking kittens. The kittens had black and grey stripes. There may have been short captions of the pictures. The pictures were of the kittens leaping and jumping in funny ways.

239H: Animal steals a cherry pie from window sill (Solved!)

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I was read this book by my mom when I was about 7 years old. It was probably published before 1995. It’s part of a collection of stories, possibly with the word “treasury” or “collection” in the title. The book was hardcover, a royal blue color, maybe a little bigger than a standard piece of computer paper, and about an inch thick. It may have been designed to be a bedtime book, but I don’t remember anything about sleeping.

I don’t remember anything other than a bit about one of the stories. I think they may have all been about animals, though. The one story I do remember involved a raccoon or black and white animal (but not a skunk) that steals a pie that was set to cool on a different animal’s window sill. I think the pie was cherry and had a lattice top crust.

Please help me find this book. I’d love to read it to my son.