Category Archives: Picture Book

339M: OLD book with uncolored illustrations where a girl saves 3 other girls from a dragons belly

I’m guessing it was from the 70s or 80s, maybe earlier. softcover, fairly thin, and beautiful uncolored illustrations inside. From memory, it was about a girl who lived out of an old single carriage (starts with an illustration of her standing next to it) and traveled, with short stories of her adventures.

The one I remember best is her going to three towns, singing in one and being told singing is banned because a dragon took the towns best singer, dancing in another town and being told the same, and (I believe) telling a story in the third town? Later on, she finds the dragons cave where he has the three stolen girls in his stomach, and from the best of my memory, the three girls in his stomach tell him a story and sing him to sleep, then dance in his stomach until they’re spit up, and the main character saves them? I perfectly remember there’s an illustration at this part with all 4 girls escaping on a horse together, and I used to stare at that page for so long.

Later on in the book, all I can seem to remember is another point where she’s in a forest and meets some kind of shapeshifter / kelpie or similar creature… but that’s all I’ve got. I believe the girl is on the cover, and I seem to remember the cover art being very neutral/earth toned. I re-found this book on amazon years ago, but now I can’t find it again and cannot for the life of me remember the title or author. It was my absolute favorite book and i’d love to be able to find it again.

 

339L: Three Days Turns Into 30 Years

I’m having trouble locating a children’s book. Here’s everything I remember:
Picture Book
I first read it in the late 90s so definitely published before 2000
A girl ends up in heaven/utopia for 3 days and when she returns to her mom 30 years have actually passed. Her mom has aged significantly.
She might have been fleeing from a war.
That is all I remember and I am completely stumped. Hoping you can help since google was unable to.

339F: Baby Girl Cries Out For Her Big Old Cat

The book I am looking for is a children’s book that I had when I was about 5 or so and I am now 40.
The book is about an old big cat that would sit with its owners baby girl and push her in a swing daily and the baby loved it.  Then one day the baby girl’s mom sent the cat to go live somewhere else (I think that the cat went to a farm, it was not a huge part of the story at all, so I am saying a farm, it could have been somewhere else, the cat was definitely sent somewhere)  The baby would not stop crying for the old big cat.  Nothing calmed the little baby girl down.  So the mom got the cat back.  And the baby was happy again.
The front cover of the book is a cat pushing a baby in a swing.
It is a hard cover book.
I think the title may have been the cats name or the name the baby girl called the cat
I appreciate your help with this, I have been trying to remember the name of this book for a long time so figured I would try this way out.

339C: Lost Maiden Wanders Castle

Looking for a peek through picture book. I owned this book as a small child in the 80’s or early 90’s at latest. My family lived in both Europe (Italy) and US, and the book had English text. The book wasn’t aged, so the printing must have been recent to the 80s.

Story: minimal text and background. A beautiful young girl is lost or just wandering in the woods. In the forest she comes upon a seemingly abandoned castle or ruin. She wanders through halls and grounds covered in vines with broken branches. She meets no one but passes a suit of armor, an owl, possibly a fancy clock (may be confusing clock with The Last Unicorn). There might be a wizard or something in the background, but not sure. The page cutouts are windows or broken walls showing part of the next page. The book has a somber, ominous tone but she finally finds a way out.

Character: Not sure if she has a name, maybe Elsa, Ilsa, Ella Beautiful maiden with dark flowing hair. Wearing a simple dress, maybe white dress. See examples: storyberries. com/fairy-tales-little-snow-white-by-brothers-grimm/ pookpress. co. uk/shop/beauty-and-the-beast-john-hassall/

Book: a gorgeous picture book with intricate cut outs or peek throughs. The top of the pages form a layered forest of trees, ruined walls and arches. Think something like A Walk Through The Woods by Louise Greig barnesandnoble. com/w/a-walk-through-the-woods-louise-greig/1127544173 Thicker pages to support the cut outs. I’d think the book was intended for 4-9 years old

Illustration style: Vintage fairy tale. Limited color palette: black hair, white dress, cream/tans/brown/gray walls, green vines and leaves I’d love to figure out this book. I had a number of well done peek through books and panorama books as a child. It doesn’t seem like there are as many of these books available today.

339B: Children’s picture book about girl who turns into a tree at the end

I was obsessed with this book from approx 1998-2004. I lost the outer cover of it so all I remember was a large bright green hardcover with a tree embossed on it.

It starts off with a little girl who plants a tree. The tree grows quickly and the girl shrinks and meets all the animals of the tree, like squirrels. She experiences all 4 seasons in the tree and at one point I think she hibernates with a bear inside the tree during winter. The best part is at the end she turns into the tree! There is an image of her body and face drawn into the trunk of the tree as part of the bark. Then her mom calls her name (might have been Emily?? Might not) and she wakes up next to the small tree she was planting. It was all a dream!

I’ve been looking for this book for many years with no luck, thank you in advance for any help!

338Q: Following the Mysterious Red Thread

The book I want to find is a children’s book. I am guessing it was published between the 1980s and early 1990s. The plot of the story is that these two girls (likely sisters) that are princesses and they find this mysterious red thread in their kingdom or castle. They often repeat “What is it? What is it? What could it be?” as they follow this red thread. Eventually the story ends with them finding where this red thread originated from, it was a large cat playing with a giant roll of red yarn. All pictures are cartoon drawings. I think it was a small hardcover book bound by that gold or silver lining.

338J: A Day at the Beach

I’m almost certain the title of the book was either “A Day at the Beach” or “Beach Day” or some such thing. It was a children’s picture book that looked like it was from the mid to late 1980s or early 1990s. It was about a group of dogs who spend a day at the beach. They drive a (red?) car to the beach with a beach umbrella, there’s sand in one of the dog’s sandwiches, a crab pinches one of their toes, and then they pack up, shake out the sand from the blanket, and head home. The colours were kind of muted, there weren’t a lot of words per page, but it wasn’t quite on the level  of “See Spot Run” or anything.
Any help or leads would be greatly appreciated!