Category Archives: 1980s

244C: Richard Scarry-ish Book from mid-80s

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I’ve been trying to figure out how to go about locating a book from childhood. It was in the vein of Richard Scarry as far as similar illustrative style though it wasn’t focused on learning individual words. (The age range was basic reading level, thinking somewhere between 5-9?) There were descriptive informative blurbs/individual paragraphs and corresponding artwork. The one illustration I remember in detail pertained to what happens when you cut your finger (or maybe just get a cut anywhere). The red vs white blood cells fighting it out, etc. I vaguely recall it being oversized with a sky blue base color and variously illustrated on the covers. The overall theme seemed to be life/the world/perhaps how things work? I was reading this somewhere between 1986-1990. I fear this is likely not enough information though I appreciate the effort to help solve this book hunt.

243G: Children Speak to Trees

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I’m hoping you can help me find a book that I’ve been trying to remember for years.

I can’t remember the name at all, but it’s a fiction book in which children still have a natural ability to speak to trees, but adults have all forgotten how to (around puberty) by losing their belief in childish things. There are rowan trees, elder trees, ash trees and many others but they are the main trees I recall being part of the story.

I’m an eighties kid but it could be an older publication, I used the public library a lot and had a teacher who lent me her favourite childhood books too.

I think the cover had a colour pencil style drawing on it, mostly green in colour, but this is hazy so could be mixing up a memory.

I also can’t remember the children’s names or the story arc so I realise it a long shot!

 

243C: Busy Busy Port (Solved)

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I am looking for my son’s favorite book when he was a small child. He was born in 1982, and the book dates from early to mid eighties in publication. Its title is “Busy Busy Port”, but I have no idea of the author. It’s a picture book.

The book is essentially nonfiction; there is no plot, nor are there characters. It’s just a picture book close-up of all the activities and the boats, ships and navigational devices and trains that center on a big city port.

The book is a small book, maybe 10 x 8, and nothing like Richard Scarry-type books with lots of flashy colors

242D: Bunny with large family (Solved)

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I’m trying to find a book that my daughter remembers me reading to her in the 80s when she was about 5 years old. In the book there’s a female bunny with a large family.  They annoy her so she runs away and creates her own house.  Eventually she realizes that she misses her family. It was illustrated on each page with small black and white illustrations.  It was also a small sized book, a little smaller than a trade paperback.  My daughter remembers it as a long book, but that is probably a kid’s impression.  Probably no more than 20 pages.

242B: Caveman brings the first wheel to a birthday party

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A caveman is going to a party (I think a birthday party) and all the other guests bring typical cave man presents (bones, perhaps?). The protagonist brings a large round stone as a gift, and everyone makes fun of him. However, it turns out to be the first wheel and it proves useful in some way. This was from deep in my childhood, so it couldn’t have been published after 1990 or so. I believe the illustrations had line work and watercolor, though I’m not sure of that. They were definitely more cartoony than realistic, though. There is a possibility that this story was recorded on for video (I seem to remember an animated wheel rolling down a hill), but my friend who also remembers this story is convinced it is an actual book.

241C: A Boy and a Witch Named Gherkin

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The book in question is an older British book, I remember finding it around the mid-to-late 90s, about a young boy being raised by his “aunt” (I clearly remember that she loved taking baths with the Purple People Eater fragrance, which was used later in the book by a sewer-comber who knew where her house was because of the smell) who is approached by a young witch who thinks she’s an outcast because she isn’t ugly, whose name is Gherkin, along with a few other strange characters – including an animal from the island each of them is from that looks like a soft white seal, loves music more than anything, and emits a thick fog when happy. The boy is the lost son of the king and queen of the island, and is the only one who can help save them from some calamity.

241A: Chinese Dragons and Witches With Flying Hair

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A fantasy middle-grade novel I read in the mid-80s, with a green Chinese dragon on the cover. The dragon belonged to a Chinese girl who rode it in a circus and put on a thick Chinese accent for the punters, but could actually speak English perfectly.
She was one of the magical characters helping the two child protagonists on their adventure: another was a witch who had long hair which flew about when she was casting spells. She made an illusory double of one of the children (called a Semblance) so they wouldn’t be missed.
At one point the protagonists and their flying carpet were swallowed by some kind of evil spirit that had a dark stormy space inside it. They started calling the spirit the Glutton to make fun of it, and the witch put her head in her hands as if she was despairing so nobody could see her hair flying about when she used her magic to get them out.