Category Archives: Picture Book

337L: Picture Book Featuring Pink Cat And Blue Dog

Back in 2001 (I am 23 now, I was about 4-5 years old at the time), I recall picking out this book from my old preschool “library” that I borrowed for a weekend that I can’t remember the title of. However, I remember the character designs spot-on and I remember some vague idea about the subject that the book covered.
I don’t know if it’s much to go off of, but what I do remember is that it was definitely a children’s picture book about rain (or weather in general as the topic, this memory is very fuzzy for me) and the two main characters in this book are an anthropomorphic light pink cat (female) with yellow, almond-shaped eyes that wore either a raincoat or a fishing vest with a wide-brimmed hat of some sort and an anthropomorphic baby blue dog (male) that may or may not have had a raincoat on as well. I also remember that he either had a droopy or gruff-looking face while the cat had a more cheerful disposition. The dog was much taller than the cat in height and I think they were both weather reporters? Or maybe the cat was a weather reporter? Again, I’m not entirely sure.
The book itself was hardcover and looked relatively old and worn out at the time (keeping in mind that again, this is around 2001). So I’m assuming its older than that. The cover had an illustration of the female cat character and the male dog character standing beside each other in their raincoats, under an umbrella, while rain fell from the sky. (Again not entirely sure if this is what it was, my memory is fuzzy.)
This is all the information I have to go off of. I don’t remember the title, the author or the illustrator. Just what I mentioned above.
I tried googling this book for years with no luck whatsoever, but the closest I came was running into the phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs” when browsing children’s books and thinking that the book I’m looking for was either called that, was a twist on this phrase or maybe the characters I talked about were based off that idiom since the plot/subject of that book was about either rain or weather.
I’ve been looking for this book for so long with no success and I’m honestly starting to think that it never even existed. Maybe it’s just a false memory or a fever dream or something? If someone here knows what I’m talking about and could point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it! Thanks.

337F: Search and Find Book with Modern Items in Ancient Times

I am looking for a Search and Find book that my daughter-in-law had when she was little (she is now 23).  The book had pictures of ancient Egypt, possibly Rome etc. and you had to search and find the items that didn’t belong.  For example – someone wearing a wrist watch or carrying a modern ladder in ancient times.
There may have been a time travel mistake or something like that.

337B: Dream Drawings

I’m looking for an illustrated book my grandma read to me in the late 80’s/ early 90’s. It is stories of a family where every night the parents ask the kids what they want to dream about, and while the kids are going to sleep the parents use their fingers to ‘draw’ the subject of the dream on the kids faces. Then they have the dream they asked for.   If I remember correctly it’s always a different animal the kids want to be in their dreams.

 

336Z: Deflated Teddy Bear

The book is about a child and I think his baby cousin comes to visit. The cousin gets peanut butter all over the snout of the child’s favorite stuffed bear.

The child’s grandparent comes to the rescue and cleans the bear. To do so, the stuffing has to be pulled out and there are adorable pictures of the deflated bear before it gets washed and while it is drying.
The story ends with the grandparent saying they would take the child and the bear out the next time the baby comes to visit. The book is probably from the 1980’s.

336R: Large painted picture book with little people at war in forest (Solved!)

I read this book in the 80’s in my elementary school library. Large, detailed paintings, rendered realistically, of little cartoon-ish humanoid people dressed in WWI type clothes and gear. They lived and fought in the forest and used animals as we would use machines. I remember the pictures always showing both sides trying to get the upper hand on one another in each picture, and one wore WWI German type gear, while the other side wore British.
One picture was a guy riding a sparrow, dressed as a fighter ace, the sparrow having a intricate harness to hold the rider and two maxim machine guns mounted to its back. He is looking behind him, or below at the opposing Sparrow pilot.

I have included sketches of what I remember.

336P: Girl with tangled hair and a fat uncle barefoot in a mudpuddle (Solved!)

Seeking a children’s book about a slight girl with very long, slightly tangled dark hair, illustrated in realistic colored pencil, maybe?  On one page, there is a very affable, very fat uncle-type character, with his trousers rolled up, no socks or shoes on, and he’s in a stream or a mud puddle.  I feel like the girl has to be patient with her uncle(s) because he/they are very scatterbrained. 

336N: Reincarnation theme with lovers

This children's picture book was likely published in the 70's, probably before 1978. It was set either in China or Japan and centered around a loving couple who died and then kept reincarnating as adversaries (like a fox and a hen) until they both reincarnated as swans. Loved getting this book at our local bookmobile from the Montgomery County public library system in Pennsylvania.

336K: Confused Woman Wants To Know Where Her Daylight Went

I am looking for a book. Here are the details I can remember:

1) The book is about about a woman who is desperately hurrying to bring sunshine/daylight into her house so that she can save it for later, she uses things like pans and jugs to trap the daylight and carries it into the house, but is then confused when she gets inside and there isn’t any light (her house may not have had windows).
2) It is a children’s book
3) I believe the main colors in the illustrations are yellow, brown and black
4) I read it as a child in the late 1980’s, but it was likely a hand-me-down book from my sister who was born in 1980

336I: Confused Bird of Paradise

We are looking for a book that we had when we were children. We think it might have been published in Australia, as it was a gift from family there, and must have been published before 2004. We can’t remember the title but it was about a bird of paradise. We think that the book started when he falls out of his nest or something and then asks lots of animals one by one what animal he is, until one animal tells him that he is a bird of paradise, and we think the last page was a double page spread of a picture of a bird of paradise.
We have been trying to find this book for years and had no success, so if you think you might know it I would really appreciate your help!

336H: A unique, darkly humorous children’s picture book

Looking for the title of a picture book I had when I was a child–and absolutely LOVED.
Clues:
1. I know I possessed it at least as early as 1960/1961, and it was a used book when I got it. So my guess is that it was published sometime in the 1950’s, or even the late 1940’s.
2. As I recall, the book had an unusual shape. The top edge was curved, rather than straight across. I’m not 100% certain about this, but it is my strong recollection. It was taller than it was wide, giving it a much more rectangular shape.
3. There were both stories and poems in the book.
4. This was definitely not a sweet, endearing, Beatrix Potter-type book. The stories had a slightly darker edge to them. One of the poems was about a big, creepy tree, and the drawing of the tree scared me silly–but I loved it!
5. One of the stories was about a mischievous boy (it used that word specifically–it had to be explained to me) and one of the naughty things he did in the story was take piano keys off the piano and stuff them down between the crack in the floor boards.
There you have it…that’s all I remember. I sure hope someone can track this one down!