I'm looking for a humorous non-fiction children's book, with accompanying cassette, about camels. I read it sometime between 1987 and 1995, likely closer to the earlier range, and it was probably published no later than 1975: it felt "modern" at the time. I recall the book being slightly larger format, softcover, and fully illustrated in a semi-cartoony style - and that it also had an audio cassette version which I believe was just the narrated book, without music. The conceit of the books may have involved a kid secretly adopting a wild animal as a pet: it introduced animal facts to explain how the animal's adaptations could help the child keep it hidden from their parents. One specific detail I recall is a fact that camels can close their nostrils to keep from breathing in sand - "or your dad's cigars!" as they illustrated by showing an unfazed camel in a living room where a man in a green armchair was smoking heavily. I'm fairly sure the book was part of a series, including one about penguins (where the kid tried to fill the bathtub with ice for them,) but I don't recall any other books in the series.
Category Archives: 1980s
353D: The Adventures of Thistle the Raccoon (Solved!)
353A: Painting the Rainbow at the Flour Mill
352Z: Jazz Musicians Guide Boy Falsely Accused of Theft (Solved!)
352U: Beast Prince and Locked Door
It’s a children’s book from around the 1990’s. The main heroine travels to cure the curse of the Beast Prince. I think he had the head of a pig/boar. The plot is similar to East of the Sun, West of the Moon but that is not the book. Near the end the heroine must unlock a door but lost the key. She must cut off her finger and use it as the key instead.
352K: Twins Megan and Morgan Share a Horse (Solved!)
I’m looking for a book I loved when I was in later elementary school in late 1980s about twin red headed girls named Megan (sp?) and Morgan who shared a horse and went to their first horse show. I think their horse was a palomino but am not positive. I think it was a chapter book and possibly part of a series.
352J: Pizza grows on trees?
I have a memory of a children’s book from the 80s — it was interactive with flaps and things you could pull. I have two clear memories of it. One page had a tree with lots of foods you could pull out — like a slice of pizza and an orange. Another page had little doors you could open for each letter of the alphabet–each one had a name starting with the letter from the alphabet (I remember Quentin and Xavier) and when you opened the door it would either say “Quentin is in” or “Quentin is out”). I believe each character was a mouse and if they were in, you would see them in their little window. If they were out, it would be empty. I think, actually, that the whole book might have been themed around these mice and that it might have been called something like “Mr. ____ Mice.” But even though I’ve tried to search for it many times, that clearly hasn’t been enough info to turn up the book I want! It seems to me like it might have been a Dr. Seuss knock-off, one of those books that sort of looks and sounds like Dr. Seuss but isn’t. Don’t know if that’s enough to locate a book! But grateful for any help you can give me.
352I: Boy Performs Appendectomy in the Deep Woods
I’m looking for a book I read in the late 70’s or early 80’s, about a boy who was deep in the woods with a man, maybe a relative, for an extended period of time. It may be a Canadian book. The man develops appendicitis, and instructs the boy how to cut out his appendix, to save his life. The boy does it, and it works. The boy must be at least 10 years old, he may have been a young teen, I’m not sure.
352E: Pig has fun at amusement park (Solved!)
This is a 80s/90s picture book with no words or few words. A female pig runs wild at an amusement park, it could be a department store rather than an amusement park, trying on hats and eating lots of ice creams and rides the rides and possibly gets chased by a policeman (for having no money to pay for ice-cream?) before finding true love with a wild boar and having several piglets at the end of the book.
352D: Girl in the 40s or 50s Who Can’t Draw Wants Her Teacher to Hang Her Picture In Front of Class
I’m looking for a chapter book I read probably in the mid to late 1980s. My guess is that it was published in that time frame. It was set in the 1940s or 1950s and was about a school-aged girl. The main plot point I remember is that every week her teacher put one of her students’ paintings on display at the front of the class. The girl wished that her picture would be chosen, but she was not much of an artist. She finally convinced her father to draw a picture of a child ice-skating for her, and she colored it with watercolors. Her teacher selected this drawing, but not because of the drawing of the ice skater. She was drawn to the girl’s use of color and the many shades of blue she used, which was how the sky really looked, rather than just one single shade.
I also remember that a ballpoint pen was a plot point in this book — the girl really wanted a ballpoint pen, which was new and cool, but I think the ink may have kept clumping up and she had to warm it up on the radiator. (Or maybe that’s what was happening with her fountain pen, and that’s why she wanted a ballpoint pen.) I also remember the name Molly, but I could be mixing it up with the American Girl doll from the same era.