Category Archives: 1980s

340N: Fairy Tale Anthology, Blue Cloth Cover, 12 Dancing Princesses

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I had a collection of fairytales in 1990-1995, though it may have been published prior to that (c. 1980-90).  It had a royal/dark blue cloth cover with a small, embossed-gold pegasus in the center of the cover (possibly with children riding the pegasus).

The collection was rather thick (perhaps a half inch) and contained at least 20 stories.  Each story was illustrated with at least one color illustration on each page (some small alongside the text and some full page). There were different illustrators throughout.  The text was regular-sized font.

I specifically remember these stories, though there were more (I’ve listed the more rare first):

  • The Twelve Dancing Princesses (I specifically remember the exquisite illustrations of the prince breaking off a branch of the silver tree)
  • The Snow Queen (illustrations of Kay and Gerta with the penny on the window, the snow queen in her carriage driving away, the garden of flowers Gerta visits, and her red shoes)
  • The Water Babies
  • The Little Match Girl
  • Cinderella
  • Rapunzel (an incredible full-page illustration of the witch’s garden)
  • The Sleeping Beauty (illustrations of thickets of thorns, sleeping kitchen maids)
  • Rumpelstiltskin
  • The Frog Prince
  • Hansel and Gretel
  • Jack and the Beanstalk
  • There may have been some Aesop’s fables as well, but there my memory gets hazy.
Thank you for your assistance in finding this book!

340F: Outdoor Toys and Playsets

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I am hoping you can help find a book for me. It is a book about outdoor toys and playsets. It is a large size book with a couple of pictures on the book cover. The main picture I remember is of a young boy sitting in a wooden old time looking brass era car on the left side of the cover.The body was green and the hood was made of a galvanized steel trash can, maybe chrome. In the background, I believe there was a yellow covered sandbox with a couple of kids playing in it. In the foreground on the right, there was a kid on a pair of tin can stilts. The title was above. The background was white with a red border, maybe green. Most of the book cover I believe was green with the white background main pic on the front. The contents of the book involved plans for and pictures of various outdoor toys and playsets. I believe it may have been published by Better Homes and Garden, but it could have also been published by Popular Mechanics, Home Mechanix, Mechanics Illustrated, Readers Digest, Southern Living, Blizzard’s or any sort of DIY or home repair/decorating magazine or book series. I believe the book was published in the 80’s. It was a pretty good size book, maybe 14 inches tall, 9 inches wide and decent number of pages but not super thick. Probably less than 200 pages. I am including a rough drawing of what I remember it looking like. Thank you for any and all help.

340C: Old Children’s Storybook: Hot Water Williams, Over-Fishing Fishermen, and More

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When I was a child we had this big storybook with a red cover that must have been published sometime between 1960-1990. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere on the Internet by searching details that I remember and I can’t remember the title. The first story I remember was about an old grumpy man whose bathtub begins to overflow because the bathtub knob gets stuck and he needs the help of the whole community to turn the knob. Everyone comes together to help him even though he is so grumpy and mean. I believe this story was called Hot Water Williams, but again this search phrase pulls up nothing for me on Google. The other story I remember is about a boat of fishermen who overfish and their boat starts to sink. The illustrations were very 70s-style. There were several stories but these are the only two I remember. If anyone can help me find it I would be so happy because it was one of my favorite books ever. I’ve been trying to find it for years.

339Y: YA Girl falls in love with military guy

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Genre Teen/YA? Military Romance
Approximate publication year rough guess late 1987-1988.
Read between 1987-1991
Title Guesses: Beyond the Sunset(no clue really. ?????)
Character names-unknown
Plot description: A girl meets a military guy at/or outside of a USO. The guy either leans on a car or out of a car window and they talk, the guy smokes cigarettes, they end up in a relationship… possibly WW2 era themed.
Cover:  Very plain with no graphics or calligraphy, San Serif style font for title/author, deep purplish sunset.
Setting: Mainland US maybe East Coast
Publisher:  I don’t believe it was Sweet Dreams/Wildfire/Crosswinds/Sunfire.  It might have been Point Romance(Scholastic). The book was in a display with these types of paperback books.  A librarian told me once that sometimes these books were purchased in a display set but I do not believe that this book was part of a series and was a stand-alone book.

339Q: My House is Cozy – Bedtime Poem (Solved)

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I was born in the late 70’s and my mom used to recite a bedtime poem to us each night. I can remember three different verses:
Opening verse:
My house is cozy warm and wide.
It has the nicest things inside…
A knife, a fork, a yellow cup,
For drinking all my cocoa up…
Closing verse:
Outside my window I can see,
The moon and stars shine down on me.
Basically the poem was a tour of a child’s home. I believe there was a stop in the kitchen, bathroom then finally the bedroom. I don’t believe it was an original work, and seem to recall my mom saying that she got it from a book, although I don’t ever remember her reading it to us. She was born in the 50’s, so it could be from her childhood. My uncle (her youngest brother) was 10 years older than me, and it may have been a book from him that arrived in disrepair and so she memorized it to recite. My thought is that it is from a compilation/treasury of bedtime poems/rhymes/stories between 1950 and 1980. Googling hasn’t yielded anything. On a whim, I recently purchased Rene Cloke’s Bedtime Book to see if it was from there, but it wasn’t.
Thank you for any help you can provide! We lost our mom 4 years ago and I would love to find the source of this to share with my brothers and sister.

339M: OLD book with uncolored illustrations where a girl saves 3 other girls from a dragons belly

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I’m guessing it was from the 70s or 80s, maybe earlier. softcover, fairly thin, and beautiful uncolored illustrations inside. From memory, it was about a girl who lived out of an old single carriage (starts with an illustration of her standing next to it) and traveled, with short stories of her adventures.

The one I remember best is her going to three towns, singing in one and being told singing is banned because a dragon took the towns best singer, dancing in another town and being told the same, and (I believe) telling a story in the third town? Later on, she finds the dragons cave where he has the three stolen girls in his stomach, and from the best of my memory, the three girls in his stomach tell him a story and sing him to sleep, then dance in his stomach until they’re spit up, and the main character saves them? I perfectly remember there’s an illustration at this part with all 4 girls escaping on a horse together, and I used to stare at that page for so long.

Later on in the book, all I can seem to remember is another point where she’s in a forest and meets some kind of shapeshifter / kelpie or similar creature… but that’s all I’ve got. I believe the girl is on the cover, and I seem to remember the cover art being very neutral/earth toned. I re-found this book on amazon years ago, but now I can’t find it again and cannot for the life of me remember the title or author. It was my absolute favorite book and i’d love to be able to find it again.

 

339F: Baby Girl Cries Out For Her Big Old Cat

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The book I am looking for is a children’s book that I had when I was about 5 or so and I am now 40.
The book is about an old big cat that would sit with its owners baby girl and push her in a swing daily and the baby loved it.  Then one day the baby girl’s mom sent the cat to go live somewhere else (I think that the cat went to a farm, it was not a huge part of the story at all, so I am saying a farm, it could have been somewhere else, the cat was definitely sent somewhere)  The baby would not stop crying for the old big cat.  Nothing calmed the little baby girl down.  So the mom got the cat back.  And the baby was happy again.
The front cover of the book is a cat pushing a baby in a swing.
It is a hard cover book.
I think the title may have been the cats name or the name the baby girl called the cat
I appreciate your help with this, I have been trying to remember the name of this book for a long time so figured I would try this way out.

339D: Richly Illustrated Science Book

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I am looking for a children’s book from the 1980s.  It was an over size, hard cover book, (not Richard Scarry, but illustrations remind me of him).  It was a science book for children – it contained information about the human body (reproduction, digestion, etc), also information about the earth and was richly illustrated.  I also remember on one page there were pictures of the sign language for the letters of the alphabet.
I would absolutely love to try and find this book for my own kids now.

339C: Lost Maiden Wanders Castle

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Looking for a peek through picture book. I owned this book as a small child in the 80’s or early 90’s at latest. My family lived in both Europe (Italy) and US, and the book had English text. The book wasn’t aged, so the printing must have been recent to the 80s.

Story: minimal text and background. A beautiful young girl is lost or just wandering in the woods. In the forest she comes upon a seemingly abandoned castle or ruin. She wanders through halls and grounds covered in vines with broken branches. She meets no one but passes a suit of armor, an owl, possibly a fancy clock (may be confusing clock with The Last Unicorn). There might be a wizard or something in the background, but not sure. The page cutouts are windows or broken walls showing part of the next page. The book has a somber, ominous tone but she finally finds a way out.

Character: Not sure if she has a name, maybe Elsa, Ilsa, Ella Beautiful maiden with dark flowing hair. Wearing a simple dress, maybe white dress. See examples: storyberries. com/fairy-tales-little-snow-white-by-brothers-grimm/ pookpress. co. uk/shop/beauty-and-the-beast-john-hassall/

Book: a gorgeous picture book with intricate cut outs or peek throughs. The top of the pages form a layered forest of trees, ruined walls and arches. Think something like A Walk Through The Woods by Louise Greig barnesandnoble. com/w/a-walk-through-the-woods-louise-greig/1127544173 Thicker pages to support the cut outs. I’d think the book was intended for 4-9 years old

Illustration style: Vintage fairy tale. Limited color palette: black hair, white dress, cream/tans/brown/gray walls, green vines and leaves I’d love to figure out this book. I had a number of well done peek through books and panorama books as a child. It doesn’t seem like there are as many of these books available today.