Category Archives: 1970s

203E: Surrealist landscapes for kids

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I’m looking for a picture kids book from probably the 70’s or early to mid 80’s. It was like traveling through surrealist or magical realist landscapes. Lots of architecture, like archways and pillars/columns, and far off landscapes, lots of lavender and greys, maybe had a feeling of Magritte paintings with lots of sky in the pictures, and men in suits, and some flat water.

I think it had a landscape orientation. It might possibly be one that has those weird half pages inside of it that show the picture in a different way when you turn the page, similar to Jacko, but it was much larger than that, and I’m not sure. I mostly remember the feeling of the images — surreal and weird landscape. Rob Gonsalves art somewhat reminds me of it: http://bit.ly/1CI0Xyu
Might have even had a man in a suit or bowler hat, maybe a weird statue garden. or an angel or woman.

Not sure if this is enough to go on.  Very cool site, hope you can help me as this has bothered me for decades!

 

198C: The Changeling (I think).

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I read this book in the 70s. It was a chapter book. I’m a little vague on the plot, but I think a few kids get sent away to the country (might have been England wartime a la Lion Witch and Wardrobe). They go outside, and they are in a different world. There are SO many books named Changeling that I’ve been unable to find it. It is NOT the Snyder book.

196B: P.S. I Hate You (?) (SOLVED)

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I read a young adult fiction book when I was about 13, probably published in the 70s. I was certain it was called PS I Hate You, but can’t find anything on Google with that title. It was about a teen girl, possibly named Marley, who leaves a note on the kitchen table, closing with P.S. I hate you and runs away to her father in the city. While living there, she falls in love with her English teacher when he introduces her to the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay (the same poem used in The Outsiders). She is also insulted by another teacher, who calls her “plain, plump and pimply.”

193D: Young adult book with boy hero chasing spies

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Kids fiction. I probably read it in the late 1970s. A boy is worried that he’s discovered a spy or crime situation. One memorable scene: he and his grandmother (I believe he lived with her) are talking about it and he’s afraid their room is bugged so he makes them sit under a blanket to talk. There were simple line drawing illustrations which didn’t concern themselves much with actual human proportions.

192A: Where’s Charlie (We think)

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It is a hardback children’s book that we read to our now 36 year old son in the late 70’s to mid 80’s.

It is about a little girl who has a pet mouse. One day she could not find him. Page after page, room after room she lloked for him; in the stove, refrigerator, closets, microwave, etc. . . . . NO CHARLIE! she finally found him asleep in the be in her doll house.

Please confirm the title and author for us so we can purchase them.

190B: Schizophrenic Teen

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I’m looking for a book that was probably from the mid to late-1970s. It was about a high school girl, and I believe she was schizophrenic. There was a pond involved, and at one point she had her face down in the pond and was only saved when her older brother’s friend saw her and intervened. It was probably a Scholastic Books offering.

189B: Children Abandoned on farm (solved)

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Oldest sister (story is her perspective) of I think 3 siblings keeps up appearances – keeps everything running so they can stay together. Careful not to let neighbors know they are alone, they make excuses why their mom has not been seen. They stretch the money they have, sell what they can, order clothes from Sears Catalog. The Story ends when the mom comes back. And although oldest is angry, she is relieved she is back in the end.
Young adult / teen coming of age fiction book, I read in the mid 70s.

187A: “Ghost”

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This was a paperback book that I read in the late 1970’s. I believe the story took place in the 1960’s or 1970’s. The cover of the paperback was white and a teenage girl’s face was looking out a window that had lacy curtains and I believe the curtains had daisies or flowers on the bottom of them. The picture on the cover had a sort of lacy dream look to it. The title of the book was “Ghost” or “Ghosts”, I do not know who the author was. Despite the title of the book, it had nothing to do with ghosts, the supernatural, or hauntings. It was a story of a teenage girl’s coming of age with her first high school boyfriend. The girl’s mother does die of pneumonia in the story, but again that is not the main storyline. In one part of the book the girl and her father go put to eat at a diner and the father kills a cockroach that crawls across the table with his thumb (Yuck!). Towards the end of the book the girl decides to stay overnight with her boyfriend and he gives her what is described as a “shy new bridegroom smile”.