Looking for children’s book from 1950s. Kids move to Florida into rooming house. There is a mysterious friend named Don who lives in their shed. Little sister plays under a “biscuit” (hibiscus) bush. A hurricane reveals all when Don’s father is revealed.
This was a children’s novel about a advanced human society living separate to an abandoned post-disaster world.
The inhabitants now live in a peaceful and educated way, having somehow atoned for the previous mistakes. Everyone wears a bodysuit that changes colour dependant on the mood of the wearer. One scene describes a young girl’s family living room where the children ‘paint’ an image on a kind of computer screen that is displayed as an artwork.
In another, the children visit the old city, a chaotic abandoned world. My memories are sketchy but I think they find something there and the protagonist – I think it was the young girl – must walk through a super modern hall, a busy public area, with her bodysuit flashing colours wildly. The bodysuits glowed gently when the wearers were calm, and most were calm, so it was obvious to all when one was upset or aggressive.
Really quite incredibly prophetic as it must have been written before 1985. I borrowed it from a library in Australia in the early 1980’s.
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.
Here’s what I can tell you about the book: It was published in or before 1988; which was when I read it in paperback. It was intended for young adults or children. The story is about a girl who either moves in with a farmer/shepherd and his family or she goes to live with them for an extended period of time (possibly a summer). I think it may be her cousin and his family. While there she gets into a great deal of mischief. She climbs into the rafters inside the house and is afraid to get down. She tastes fresh milk for the first time while it’s still warm. She learns to ride a horse and won’t get off when they tell her she should and then she’s so sore that she can neither sit nor stand comfortably. There is some sort of celebration she’s to attend – she goes into her room to see lots of colorful skirts laid out for her. She wonders which one she should wear and is told to wear all of the skirts.
I genuinely appreciate any help you can give me. My mother and I read this book together and laughed until we cried over parts of this story. I’d love to find it again.
I’m trying to hunt down a series of nonfiction young reader picture books from the 80s. My family had 12-15 of them when I was growing up, and I recall them all having the same pattern on their spines – muted stripes of yellow, green, red, and blue. I’m under the impression that each book in the series had a different author/illustrator. Unfortunately I can’t remember any specific names or titles, but there are certain books from the series that I’ve tried to pinpoint:
Book 1: An instructional book on how to make costumes for various magical creatures and characters. There are instructions on how to make fairy and pirate costumes, among others I can’t recall. Vignette illustrations of fairy cakes and mushrooms are placed throughout. In the last spread, all of the magical characters have a feast.
Book 2: Title something along the lines of “On the Go” or “On the Move”? A more cartoonishly illustrated book on the progression of vehicle technology. Double page spread of horses and wagons mired in mud, illustrating life before the invention of roads. Some very 80s illustrations of sports cars. An image of a very nervous man in a tiny sedan being sandwiched between two Mac trucks.
Book 3: An instructional book on caring for pets, including detailed illustrations on how to build aquaria for turtles.
That’s pretty much it! I hope something rings a bell for someone. Good luck, everyone!
Collection of children’s stories containing Mr. Apple’s Family and also a story about a little girl and a goat who live in a house with a roof made of grass. I think the goat gets into mischief? The edition we had was an orange hardcover.
Additional info: This was a book at my grandmother’s house, and she is a big second-hand shopper, so I have no idea on original publication date, etc. I was enjoying this book in 90s, and it was in relatively good condition at that time. The illustrations were not very colorful, mostly black and white I think with a few splashes of color here and there. The above stories are the only two I can remember for sure being included in the book, but there may have been one about pancakes(?), and maybe also some poetry.
A boy and girl find themselves in a town/city with beautiful windows. The residents ask them to go on a quest to find a type of tree so that they can help the town get rid of ghost/monsters that are only afraid of that certain kind of tree. All the trees around the town/city had been cut down for fuel to make glass windows etc. Only one quirky resident had a small piece of wood from that kind of tree so he was the only one who could “fight” off the ghosts/monsters by touching them with the wood. I think he wore a cape and a yellow/orange outfit… not definite though. The monsters were formless so I’m not sure if they were called “ghosts.” I forgot why the ghosts/monsters were so troublesome, and when they came out, but there were more than just one of them.
The Children agree to go look for the trees, not sure if one of the children is a resident, and not sure how the protagonist found the town/city. At one point, the children encounter a wizard who squeezes the boy’s hand/foot turning them into gold or some kind of metal. At another point, they reach a mountain range, but the mountains move like waves so if they sleep on the bottom, they wake at the peak. So at first they were very disheartened as they tried to cross the mountains by scrambling to reach the peaks before getting tired.
I don’t remember anymore plot points because the teacher didn’t finish the book. So I don’t know how it ends. It took her a few sittings (3-4?) to get through the plot points above, so I guess it’s quite a thick book.
I don’t quite remember the design of the book either, but I think it was hard back, with some watercolor drawings? I can’t remember if it was a picture book or a more text-based book because the teacher was the one reading it. I don’t think there was a drawing for every scene though.
I’m wondering if you might be able to help me track down a book that my SIL vaguely remembers from her childhood. The main character is surrounded by people who have magical gifts, but he (she?) apparently has no gifts. Then he/she gets his/her braces removed, and it turns out that the silver was inhibiting the magic, and he/she actually does have magical powers.
She read it in the mid-80s, and the fact that there were braces in it leads me to believe that it wasn’t written too much earlier than the 70s or 80s.
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.
Girl has always loved hanging upside down, manages to join circus and be trained as a trapeze artist. Her trainer (and later love-interest & husband) catches her flying with her eyes closed and after much convincing, they turn it into a blind-folded act with silver dollars against her eyes and then covered by a blindfold. One mayor of a small town does not believe they are really blindfolded and arranges an accident. One of them is sent off course and the other must hurtle himself into her at an angle that will bring her into the net rather than a deadly impact.
In looking for this book I wondered if my adolescent self could have misunderstood the gender and relationship but MZB’s the Catch Trap doesn’t seem familiar enough.
The book was near Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters in my small middle school library so I believe the author’s name likely started with either an H or a nearby letter.