Category Archives: 1980s

208C: little girl that goes to a fairy or elf wedding (Solved)

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This will be fairly vague (sorry!) When I was little (late 70s/early 80s) I had a book that was about a little girl that goes to a fairy or elf wedding. The things that stick in my mind are that it had these really amazing illustrations and a Lupine Fairy who had blue hair that swirled all around her head, there were also fairies who were parachuting in on milkweed fluff. The husband fairy (elf?) had long pointy ears and a crooked nose… Unfortunately that’s all I can remember, none of the actual story except that it is all about them getting prepared for the wedding but it’s one of those things that pops into my mind occasionally and I’ve never been able to figure out what book it is. Any help would be amazing!!

207H: Children’s book about being afraid of the dinosaurs at the museum?

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I am searching for a children’s book I enjoyed as a kid. I believe it would have been available by the late 70’s/early 80’s.

I don’t remember the title, but I remember it had to do with a kid who thought he/she wanted to go to the museum, but then when they got there, was scared of the giant brontosaurus. I remember an image of her pulling on her mom’s hand to get away from the dinosaur. I don’t really remember what else happened, but the book might have been about saying no to things, or getting over fears. The images were quite simple, I think.

207F: A Medieval king who may or may not live in a castle or something (I think) (Solved)

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I’d like to identify and locate a favorite from my childhood but, as I enjoyed it before I was literate, can’t recall the title. Here are the details:

• I’m guessing it was published between 1970-87.
• It is set in the middle ages.
• The hero is a king who lives in a castle.
• There are multiple very short stories, the total being the average for a picture-based pre-literate children’s book.
• The title has a phrase like “…and other stories,” “…other tales,” or “The adventures of King…”
• Arrows and fire feature prominently in some of the multiple stories.
• It was from a popular, prominent kid’s book publisher; I don’t think it was a Little Golden Book, but could be wrong.
• To the best of my knowledge, it was not based on a prior story/book/legend/film/TV show.

That’s all I can remember, but I would recognize the cover if I saw it and hope this evidence is sufficient.

207D: Dell Yearling paperback from the 80s

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I am looking for a blue paperback yearling book that was published between 1980 and 1984. The book is about a girl (possibly named Adelaide) who lives with her spinster aunts in a big old house. She and the house girl go up in the attic and find a trunk belonging to the girl’s dead mother and there they unravel the mysteries of the mother’s past. Throughout the book, the main character has memories or possibly fantasies about her mother’s life.

The cover was blue with a picture of two girls in an attic. One girl was caucasian with black hair and a dress. The other girl was African American and and had some type of kerchief in her hair.

205C: Teens Abandoned at Camp

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I am looking for a book from the 1980s. It was a chapter book about a group of children who were sent to a summer camp, but discover while there that their parents were planning to abandon them there. They were a mix of troubled kids and good kids who had made mistakes or let their parents down recently. My copy was a mass market paperback that was green.

203F: 80’s Haunted House book..Scholastic or Dell/Yearling? (Solved)

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I’m looking for a kid’s/teen book from the early 80’s. I believe it may have been a Scholastic or Dell/Yearling book, and if I remember correctly it had a yellow cover. It was about a family that puts on a haunted house at their home, and they have the customers put their hands into a hole to feel things (grapes are peeled eyeballs, spaghetti is brains, etc.). I also think they may have hung sheets up to divide the house into walking areas. There is a similar, newer book I found called Tuck’s Haunted House, but the character in that is a pig, and this was definitely a human family. For some reason I remember the name as being like ‘The Millers Haunted House’ or ‘The Wilsons Haunted House’, something with a surname in the title, but I could be wrong. I read it around the same time that I was into Choose Your Own Adventures and Encyclopedia Brown. Thanks for the help 😉

203E: Surrealist landscapes for kids

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I’m looking for a picture kids book from probably the 70’s or early to mid 80’s. It was like traveling through surrealist or magical realist landscapes. Lots of architecture, like archways and pillars/columns, and far off landscapes, lots of lavender and greys, maybe had a feeling of Magritte paintings with lots of sky in the pictures, and men in suits, and some flat water.

I think it had a landscape orientation. It might possibly be one that has those weird half pages inside of it that show the picture in a different way when you turn the page, similar to Jacko, but it was much larger than that, and I’m not sure. I mostly remember the feeling of the images — surreal and weird landscape. Rob Gonsalves art somewhat reminds me of it: http://bit.ly/1CI0Xyu
Might have even had a man in a suit or bowler hat, maybe a weird statue garden. or an angel or woman.

Not sure if this is enough to go on.  Very cool site, hope you can help me as this has bothered me for decades!