Category Archives: 1990s-

275A: Using Thinking Cap to get to Imaginary Lands (Solved)

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Three? children are gifted (by a scientist /older man?) magical thinking caps, which increase their capacity to imagine. They use these hats to create/connect to and explore a magical world. I remember the antagonist wanting these hats so that they can free themselves and enter the other world. The children are careful to only go to the land together for safety. The antagonist has an agent that can move in between the worlds, a Slinky/Shadow/Sneaky Cat. This cat convinces the girl to come back alone with him to it’s yarn house. The other two? children go on a rescue mission with the scientist? who has his own hat, but because he is an adult is not able to use is as well as the children.

I read this book with my elementary school class around the time when we transitioned off of picture books to shorter novels, so I would expect this book to either be the latter, or one of those children’s novels with some pictures. It would have been published no later that 1998.

I appreciate any and all help! I will mail a check to you all tomorrow.

274F: Wordless series of holiday books featuring rabbits

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The books I have in mind are a series of wordless picture books that were probably published in the 80s or early 90s. While they weren’t graphic novels or comic books per say, the images were arranged in panels on each page and you’d “read” it by following the story from left to right, top to bottom. The stories centered on a family of rabbits (or I’m pretty sure they were rabbits, they might have been mice) and there were books for each holiday—the ones I remember most vividly was the Halloween book and the Valentine’s Day book. The rabbits were anthropomorphic and were shown putting on coats for fall, trick or treating in a neighborhood, and so on.

I can still picture the books in our elementary school library and so the author’s name must have come closer to the end of the alphabet, since I remember them being nearer to the end of the shelves—possibly in the R, S, T section?

274C: Children’s Book About Pelicans (Solved)

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I am looking for a hardback book I read to my daughter in the early 90s.  It was about a family who visited a place and the child (boy, I believe) watched for a pelican.  I am fuzzy on the plot, but the most distinctive feature of the book is that every other page was a half sheet vertically, so that the illustration and text would change when turning the half page.  I would love to find this volume and purchase for my grandson.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

274A: Female character called “Thingy” (Solved)

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This is a fantasy book from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.  The story centers around a young girl who is raised as a servant by a witch.  The setting is the swampy area near a river.  Because the witch has told the girl she is ugly, when the girl comes in contact with other people (which is rarely), the girl wears a mask to hide her ugly face.  The witch calls the girl “Thingy.” In the story, the girl accompanies a stranger in a boat on the river.  She is escaping (?) the witch or acting as a guide(?) for the man.  During the journey, the girl learns her true identity and the truth about her appearance.

273D: Ethereal Little Mermaid Illustrations

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I’m looking for a Hans Christian Andersen collection of fairy tales from the early 90s. I read it when around 1994-6 but it could have been published a little earlier. I remember it for its Little Mermaid illustrations. They were so beautiful and seemed to glow. Lots of pale mermaids with long blonder hair. Like angels. The pages I remember most are the pictures where the Little Mermaid’s sisters are hoisting each other up out of the sea to hand her a dagger to kill the prince. The last page is the Little Mermaid floating to the sky as an angel after she kills herself to save the prince. It was hardcover and I believe it also had The Princess and the Pea and The Tin Solider stories in it, but I think different illustrators worked on them.

 

Hope this was enough to be helpful. I tried to look up books published in that time frame with Hans Christian Andersen author credits, but couldn’t find a comprehensive list.

273A: A thrilling debut (Solved!)

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Looking for a book by a first time author, Harvard grad. Outstanding effort. I believe it was a political or medical thriller. A car (limo or cab) explodes in an assassination attempt but there’s no debris, just vapor or dust. That’s one scene, not sure it’s the actual plot. Late 1990s.

272F: Picture book about pesticides/food chain

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This was a picture book from my childhood (so, early 90s). The kingdom wants to rid itself of some kind of insect (I think), so they spread pesticide or dust which I believe was purple all around. I think everything up the food chain starts getting purple spots, until the princess ends up with a purple spot on her nose and they realize the error of their ways.

271B: Child meets magical friend from a family of wizards/magic in secret garden (Solved)

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I have been looking for this young adult’s book for some time without success. I can’t remember any words of the title, it was aimed at 10-12 year olds. I read it in around 1990-1995, but it may have been published in the 1970s or 1980s. I’m pretty sure it was a British author, but it may have been American/Canadian. It was a slim paperback and I seem to remember that it came in a boxed set with a 3 or four other books, not necessarily by the same writer, but similar fantasy/magic genre. The story followed a young boy or girl who was staying with a relative somewhere, perhaps on holiday, who one day crawled under a hedge in the neighbourhood and into the garden/grounds of a wealthy and mysterious family, who turn out to be magical (possibly wizards). S/he meets and befriends the young girl who lives there who shows her various magical things but they keep their friendship secret as the other wizards/magical relatives would be angry if they found out she had come in to the garden. The family lives in a large and beautiful house and there is a magical lake in the garden which the two children sail across to an island in the center. They are later placed in danger when someone finds out the child is in the magic garden. I remember this being a wonderful story and would so love to find it! It is not Tom’s Midnight Garden or Timothy and the Witch.

269E: Greek mythological mash-up

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This was a YA or middle-grade novel that I read in the late ’90s. It was a very loose Greek myth retelling that mashed together many familiar mythological elements into an original plot. Possible characters: Perseus, Medusa, Pan, Echo, Iphigenia. Some or all of it took place on an island which had a network of caves. One of the characters–maybe a plucky young girl–was stranded(?) on the island and encountered someone who became a friend/ally while exploring these caves. I also remember music magically wafting through the caves. Maybe that’s where Pan comes in?

The copy I had was paperback with some blue and purple on the cover. The physical book and style of writing didn’t strike me as “old-fashioned,” so I’m guessing it had been published in the ’80’s or ’90s…but I could be wrong about that.

I’m fairly certain the author was a woman.

Thanks so much for helping me solve this mystery! I remember absolutely loving this book.

269A: Fairytale Compilation from 70s or 80s (Solved)

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I was born in 1985 so I must have had the book in the late 80’s early 90s, My mother purchased it from ToysRUs and it was a hardcover book with what I believe was a blue and white dust jacket. It is not the blue book of fairytales or the Richard Scarry book. It included Henny Penny, The Princess and the Pea, I believe also Anasi the spider and a story about a jackal or fox. There were about twenty stories in it. Please help! Thanks!