My brother and I have been searching for a picture book that we were particularly fond of as children. I don’t remember the title but it would have been published in the late 60’s or early 70’s. The story is about a boy (possibly named Keith) who has his father help him built a fort in a large tree in his back yard. Some neighbor children come by to play, and they end up adding their own structures to the tree. I remember one of the friends puts a big wash tub up in the tree and pretends to be an astronaut in a ship. Some girls bring their dolls up in the tree and make a tent with a blanket or some kind of hammock. There’s also a plank that they stand on that is supposed to be a raft? Maybe one of the kids was a pirate? Not sure, but before you know it, all the neighborhood children are playing in the tree. I can still see the illustrations in my mind’s eye and and would recognize it if I saw it. Thanks!
Category Archives: Picture Book
342C: A house with a magic door
342B: Racist picture book from mid-century about trip to Africa
Some children go on a travel adventure – at one point they are being chased by a lion while driving in a sort of Land Rover and someone throws a shoe at the lion and hits him on the nose – illustration shows lion knocked on his butt with a swollen nose.
341P: Boy finds flint arrow head
Children’s picture book available in 1990s. Boy finds a flint arrow head in his garden. Somehow (that night?) he is magically transported back to the time that indigenous First Nations people lived on the land - he sits around their camp fire with them.
341L: Little girl’s doll makeover at her father’s Doll Hospital (Solved!)
Looking for a child's fiction/picture book circa 1950's-1960's, maybe even 1940's -Hardcover - Colored pictures drawn like doll wigs of different colors, new clothes in tissue paper, clothes accessories, etc. Pictures are not 'cartoony'; more true to life.
Story: Little girl has been asking her father to fix her doll but he has been too busy at his shop. Finally, on the little girl's birthday, he closes his doll hospital early and dedicates the rest of the day to fixing up her beloved doll with new eyes, face and clothes that she gets to pick out all by herself.
341K: 70s-80s Book About Colors
I don’t remember if there were characters or much of a plot, but what I do remember is that it had lushly illustrated two-page spreads where each spread was devoted to a single color. I think yellow was a picnic in a wheat field with buttered bread…I also think there was a spread that depicted the beach (not sure what color it might have represented). Also, I think in each spread there was a teaser color spot or object that represented the next color’s scene. I think the book ended with a scene of all the colors. I would have read this in the late 80s, but it might have been 70s etc. It was certainly bigger than a Golden Book or board book.
341I: Generations of Sleep Rituals (Solved!)
341G: Mix and Match Animals
Children’s book pre-1965. All animals drawn to same size – page is then cut in half. A description is on the opposite page and is also cut in half.For example, you could end up with the top half of a giraffe on the bottom of a beagle with the appropriate description.
341D: Early Reader Vocabulary Picture Book (Solved!)
341A: Boy Lost In Fog
- it is a children’s picture book, written in English, with black and white illustrations
- I read, or the book was read to me between 1980 and 1988, no clue as to the publishing date
- there is something in there about a small boy leaving home, perhaps on his own
- there might be something about him being on or following the sidewalk
- there is something about fog, or getting lost in thick fog temporarily – this is the main thing I remember
- there might be something in there about encountering a stranger in the fog, or someone who helps or scares him
- there might be something about a lighthouse