Category Archives: 1980s

361I: Colorful Girl Spooks Monsters in Haunted House

1 Reply

I wonder if you can help me find a book!

Here’s what I can recall:
– A children’s book with a cover that, I believe, featured a pretty girl in a bright pink dress, cool 60’s cat-eye sunglasses, and perhaps a head scarf to cover her blond hair, driving a convertible into what looks like a dark tunnel in a mountain.
– I want to say the main character’s name is Lydia but I’m not certain
– She ends up in a dark, spooky house and freaks out the people? monsters? living there because of all of her bright colors
– She doesn’t seem scared of any of the spooky details, and she tries to turn their house into a nicer place with bright colors
– It’s not a spooky book, it’s silly and light, probably designed for readers in the 6-10 years age range?
– Based on the way she was dressed I’d say it was set in the late-60s but can’t be sure that that’s when it was written. The colors felt more 80s or 90s to me (lots of hot pinks and neon greens).

361A: Amazing Looking Witch

1 Reply

I am looking for what I think was a weekly reader or Scholastic book from late 70s or 80s. It was a Halloween book with a witch. I actually can’t remember a ton about the story but the graphics were amazing. The witch would fly on her broom and there is a distinct image of her in front of the full moon about halfway through the book. I would love to share with my kids!

360Z: Elephant looking for a kite

1 Reply

I am looking for a children’s book that was a lift-a-flap book. I read it in the 80s. I think the main character was an elephant and he was looking for a his missing kite in his house. He sees small glimpses of things that look like the tail if the kite but when he looks under the flap it’s something different. He looks under a pink bed skirt and to find it was the tail of a toy wind up mouse. He opens a closet but it was a cord to a vacuum. I think I also remember a toy chest and behind a curtain where he looks. I believe there is another book with the same character and I remember a picnic basket full of colorful berries.

360X: Children of Chicagoan Drug Addicts

1 Reply


I'm looking for book that I thought was called "The Little People". I don't know what year it was published, but I read it somewhere about 1985-86. I thought the book was set in Chicago, but not certain. It was about the children of drug addicts. I don't remember for certain if it was fiction or not. I think I got it from our school library.

360U: Prehistoric fiction book from 5th grade

1 Reply

My book was read to our 5th grade class on 1989-1990 It is set in prehistoric times in either North America or Europe. The protagonist is a girl. She is somehow separated from her hunter-gatherer tribe and survives on her own, basically developing the historical advances that made it possible for humans to settle in one place, such as planting crops. I think she befriends a boy partway into the story but she’s mostly on her own. At the end her tribe is passing through and they meet. The tribe is starving and she invites them to join her, with the last line in the book somewhere along the lines of “Come in. We have fire, and food in plenty.”
There is no romance, no science fiction, no fantasy element. It seemed to be geared towards children and possibly published for use in a classroom setting to teach prehistory, but it was fictional. A novel or novelette. I have asked my elementary school library, my elementary school principal, my city library, Google, reddit, Facebook, a list of over 300 prehistoric fiction books on Goodreads, Name That Book, and Amazon. I also tried the Scholastic archive, but the one I found doesn’t go back far enough.
I’m really desperate by this point and want to find this book to read to my own kids.

360Q: Picture Book about a farm with huge vegetables (Solved!)

4 Replies

This is a larger-format picture book, in full color, with illustrations that cover most/all of each page.  I read it in the early- to mid-80’s.  There’s a farmer who grows vegetables and something happens to his farm where he starts growing GIGANTIC vegetables.  There’s a bad guy (I think he’s dressed in a black suit and might have a black top hat?) who wants to get his hands on the farm or the stuff that makes the farm miraculous.  I can’t remember if the thing that makes the vegetables big starts to affect the farmer’s kids or not?
Thank you for reading!

360K: Last blue canister plagues cop

Leave a reply

Book is from the late 70s/early 80s, I think, because I believe I read it in high school or college. Paperback. Author name was something ridiculously simple that I was sure I would remember. I was naive in that assumption. Many thousands of books later, I still remember this as worthy of re-reading.
Plot: cop searching for a serial nerve gas bomber. Four blue canisters of gas in total, first attack was on a subway or train, with nuns and children among the victims. Cop eventually finds the culprit, but not the last canister. We, the reader, know it’s hidden in the desert and unlikely to ever be found. Last scene in the book is the cop in bed with his honey, unable to sleep, and she asks what he’s thinking about. Answer of course is the location of the last canister he’ll never find.
I remember thinking someone ought to alert the authorities that such a terrible plot was now “out there” for people to see. Again, naive, but it was a very different time than we know now.
I was reading a lot of Robert Ludlum and Jack Higgins at the time, so someone of the similar mindset might remember this one. Great writing, engaging characters, enough plot twists and storyline development to be worth trying to find.  I have googled “blue canister nerve gas fiction book” so many times I’m surprised the authorities aren’t looking for me. Oh well.

359Z: Christmas activity book

2 Replies

This is a book my family and I have tried quite a lot to find, but with no luck. It had fallen apart when I was a kid and I still had pages but no cover or publishing information. What I remember about it:
-It was all illustrated and most pages didn’t have color. It was kind of a taupe color, not black and white drawings.
-It was a kind of activity book, but there were also recipes and information about Christmas traditions.
-It was probably from the 1980s, maybe 1970s.
-The characters in the book were a family that all had Christmas names (Noel, Holly, etc). There was a son, daughter, baby, parents, and maybe a grandma and grandpa. Their last name might have been Kringle, but I’m less sure about that.
-I can remember the pictures pretty vividly, but have no idea what the cover looked like or what it was called.
I think that’s all I’ve got. Thank you for any help you can provide!

359S: Spoiled Girl Takes Out Frustrations on Poor Girl Nicknamed “Safety Pins”

1 Reply

I am trying to find the title and/or author of a paperback book bought at a book fair from the late 80s early 90s.

Here is what I remember of the book:
It is about a girl named Patty or Patti whose parents were just divorced. She is living with her mother and because of the divorce, money is tight and her mom cannot afford a lot of basic things for the girl. The girl wears old clothes/an old bathing suit that is falling apart and gets teased by other girls who call her “Safety Pins” because she wears a bathing suit or clothes held up with safety pins. She volunteers or goes to some stables to help take care of horses, and cares for them, but cannot afford to ride them. There is another girl there named Stacey or Stacy who is rich, spoiled, and mean to Patty, and also treats her own horse badly. Stacey throws a tantrum because her horse doesn’t get a fancy twisted bit for her bridle, but a plain one, and screams at Patty for this oversight. I believe (this may not be correct) that Patty earns her lessons to ride a horse because she works hard at the stables and takes good care of the horses there.
The other thing I remember about this short paperback is that it had very simple black and white line drawings in it–maybe one in every other chapter or so.
It was written for kids in elementary school, I believe.