Category Archives: 1980s

304M: British gang of dogs vs. rival cats

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I am trying to find a book or possibly a series that I read as a child in the mid 80’s. Must have been published 70’s or 80’s.  Definitely a British book, and very detailed illustrations. It’s about a group of dogs that go around a seaside town. The walk upright, wear clothes and talk (possibly some of them even smoke cigarettes?) There are different breeds and I think the leader is a black and white dog. At some point there is an altercation with a rival cat gang.  I can’t remember title or author.

303G: 80s Children’s Chapter Story Anthology Big Book (Solved)

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I think from the 80s, it was an anthology with chapters of different kids stories in it. I think there was a Judy Blume chapter (Fudge), a story about a boy picking between a blue or red toothbrush, a story about a kid not wanting to touch the gunk in the bottom of the sink that is left after the dishes, maybe the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle story about the kids not hearing their parents so they put powder in their ears, maybe a Wayside story chapter. I think it was a big white book (hardcover with a white jacket).

303C: Beauty and the Beast fiction anthology (Solved)

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I’m hunting down a fiction anthology that involved “Beauty and the Beast” riffs. One of the riffs involved a perfect couple (I think New Yorkers) with a perfect life–and the wife was slowly beginning to think that her beautiful, flawless, successful, doting husband had a terrible double life as a beast in a city reeling from a series of bloody, violent attacks. I’m fairly sure it was published in softcover in the late 1980s to mid 1990s. One detail that really stands out to me is that when the husband came home late one night, the wife noticed a drop of blood on his cheek and realized that he was the beast–which left her in a whole bunch of serious dilemmas, most of which were left as cliffhangers. This was only one of many stories in the book, but it really left an impression. If I recall correctly, most of the writers in the anthology were women. I was way into Sheri S. Tepper and other female authors at the time, if that helps, but I don’t think it was her story collection “Beauty.” I hope you can find it! Thanks 🙂

302Y: Strange “activity” book

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I’ve posted about this elsewhere, but there’s a strange book from my childhood that both my sister and I remember.  I say activity book, but it wasn’t really an activity book. There was no place to draw or anything in the book. Here are some details:

*It was probably published around 1980-1985, I would have read it from 1987-1991, and I believe it was my sister’s before I got it. It was about a 2nd to 5th grade reading level. Some pics, some text.

*The cover was a dark blue/teal, the title was a garish reddish color, and there was a knight on it

*I remember the title being kind of long, and ending with the words “…for kids!”

*The book was really non-sequitur, and went all over the place. One page might be a math puzzle, the next might be a story about baseball.

*There was a recurring theme of a medieval knight throughout the whole thing, and he would just pop up randomly to comment on stuff

*There were a lot of jokes about “the author/publisher of this book blah blah blah” and “the editors of this book blah blah blah.” Probably way over my head at the time.

*The last page was a memorization game

*I believe there was one page with a large blue square on it, and a paragraph talking about the significance of that square.

*There was at least one math word problem, and I believe it involved crickets or grasshoppers

*There was a story about baseball, maybe about the history of baseball?

*There was a brief page about lead in pencils, and how it’s called lead, but it’s really graphite

 

As for the style of the book, it’s almost as if a bunch of people with a similar sense of humor got together and decided to make a kids book, but not talk to each other about it. It was that bizarre. Almost every page was a different subject, and the only recurring motif at all was the random knight. The book constantly broke the fourth wall, and the writer(s) would make fun of the characters on that page, or the random knight would make fun of the author(s). Someone stated that it sounds like Monty Python, and it was a lot in that same vein of humor. If Monty Python made a kids book, it would be very similar to the one I’m looking for.

It’s entirely possible that it was written by a group of people, and possibly as a joke.

For what it’s worth, my grandmother lived in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina during my youth (the 1980’s). She had moved there from northern New Jersey in the late 1970s. She was a kindergarten teacher for most of her life.  Furthermore, her sister (my great-aunt) had actually published a few books (one of them a children’s book) during the 1960s, and lived in Washington DC until the mid 1980s. So there were strong ties in those places. The book could have been published by a small publisher in any of those places, and somehow made it’s way to my grandmother.

Again, thanks for your help!

302R: Monsters in Rain (Solved)

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This children’s storybook is no later than late 70’s or early to mid 80’s, it had pictures. There were some evil monsters or something that hated rain and were vulnerable to water, so some people went out to confront them during a rainstorm by putting their coats in jars to keep them dry. The people then put on their dry coats when they approached the monsters, and when the monsters asked why the people weren’t wet, the people said they were able to move between the raindrops without getting wet. The people told the the monsters how they could do the same, but when the monsters tried it the water got them.

300H: Best Friends

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The book is a juvenile chapter book from the ’70s or ’80s. Called something like _Best Friends_. It’s about a girl who loses her best friend to another girl. I remember that she eats Chinese food with a new friend at the friend’s restaurant. She also participates in a puppet show from Alice in Wonderland and she is the Red Queen. The former best friend comes crawling back after a fight with the new girl but she realizes that she likes having lots of friends vs. exclusive to one best friend.

299Q: Chased by geese trying to get gooseberries

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Kids book from 1970s/1980s. Kids solve a mystery based on hidden clues they find – at their grandparents house maybe? I forget where the first clue was or how it started. The second clue (maybe?) is found in a loose stone of a stone fence. Then there’s something about kids being chased by geese trying to get gooseberries. The last clue is found tucked in an Indian Headdress socket where feather would fit in. Thank you! Been searching for years.

299D: An illustrated non-fiction book of dog breeds from the 70s or 80s

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This was a perhaps slightly oversized paperback book with illustrations of different dog breeds.  I believe the cover had a green border. I’ve been been poking around online to see if I could find an old copy with no luck.  So far the closest thing I’ve found that’s similar are the illustrations from How Why Wonder Books Dogs Wild Animals Irving Robbin Martin Keen, 1962.

The illustrations were grouped in a certain way on the page, similar to these (but it wasn’t these books):

 

It’s not impossible that our paperback was a reprint of a 1960s book.  There were no photographs in the book, and very little (if any) information about the care of dogs.  It wasn’t very wordy.  We got it at a garage sale in Michigan in the 1980s.

298T: Family takes a trip in a loaded up station wagon

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I’ve been looking for a picture book about a family that goes on a road trip (I think).  I remember the pictures being detailed, I think the family had a loaded up station wagon with many things tied to the roof.  They go to the beach, I think,  among other places.  I was born in 1974, , so it might be late 70’s, early 80’s?  The illustrations almost had a Where’s Waldo look to them, though NOT a find and search book.  I think there was a baby in the family, maybe three kids.  I remember winding roads and color illustrations.