Category Archives: 1970s

141G: Babies Grow from Pods

I read a book in the mid-1970’s about a large family. The babies all came from a plant in the backyard which grew pods. When a pod would get ripe, there would be a human baby inside.  I cannot remember if there was a science fiction element or not.  Does anyone remember this story?

139A: frog’s birthday party (solved)

This is a picture book from the early seventies featuring, I believe, a frog who invites people to her birthday party but no one ends up coming. I think this is because she holds it in the water and serves foods that only she likes.  I have a distinct memory of an illustration in which the frog is sitting alone on a lily pad with a party hat askew on her head.  She has prepared many gelatin molds with flies and they are beginning to melt.  She ends up arranging a different party with food to suit her guests and everyone comes.  Please help me!

 

131A: little gnome who scents the flowers

1960’s/1970’s storybook- This was a short, very colorful story within a book of many stories. It was about a gnome/ old bearded man who scented and colored the flowers. One day he was carrying his glass bottles filled with his potions and they fell into the stream. Some fish tried to help him and there was a young girl/ fairy type character who was with him. Her named could have been Melinda or Belinda. There also may have been a part to the story about some matches getting wet.. It was written in a comic book strip style ( at least that is what my mother recalls.) I feel like the book was red and white and don’t remember the other stories.

 

127H: 70’s Young Adult Novel – Parents send teens to Camp not to come home

A group of teenage outcasts believe they are being sent by their parents to an OutWard Bound type boarding school. They come to realize that their parents have decided they would rather have them dead and the “teachers” are out to get them. Coming together, they attempt to cope with this fact and escape their fate.

127E: Boy builds plane from vacuum cleaner

A boy builds an airplane from a vacuum cleaner and flies off to rescue his dad. I think it’s to get him home for Christmas. On the way back home they stop off to buy presents for each other, and they buy the boy’s mom some perfume from Paris.

Addition: It’s a picture book – a fairly short story on large, colourful pages. I read it in the 1970s and it seemed of its time. Borrowed from my (then) local library, in fact. Would it help to mention I’m in the UK?