Category Archives: Picture Book

329J: Science Fiction picture book for kids from the late 80s early 90s

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When I was somewhere between 9 and 11, I checked out a book from a library in northern California that was a picture book that came with a cassette tape. It was a science fiction story about a kid that went in a robot spaceship that traveled the universe and back. Along their journey they visited multiple space phenomenons, including visiting Alpha Centauri, almost getting sucked into a black hole, and searching for life in deep space by looking for radio waves/signals that may be nearby. They actually found a radio signal, but when they tuned in, it turned out that the radio broadcast of “Howdy Doody” from 50 years or so prior had made it out that far and that was what they were picking up. The whole story was geared toward education of different types of stars, galaxies, space phenomenon, etc., for a child, and most of this “tour” through space was narrated by the robot/spaceship that the child was a passenger in. It was VERY entertaining, with great pictures and I’m surprised that I couldn’t find it with a quick google search!

329I: Picture Book about a Cherub Genie in a Gumball Machine (Solved!)

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I believe this book is from the 60’s or 70’s. I read it around 1993 so it certainly is earlier than that. The illustrations have simple cheerful pen/line work. My recollection of the plot is a kid puts money in a gumball machine and is granted wishes genie style and/or it releases a cherub who just decides to make fun things happen. There may or may not be three gumballs. At one point kids are skipping with a very long piece of licorice or some other candy.

I recall the flying cherub is just a white body (as white as the page) with a black outline. He may or may not have curly hair. I also think that the page backgrounds are all white. The illustrations do have colors though, but there is not much visual texture – it is very flat with black line outlines on everything.

That is all have. I read this book only once and have been collecting picture books for years now and have never seen anything even close. Thank you so much! I’d be thrilled to find it.

328Z: Animal Entourage And A Big Tree

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I am looking for a picture book I read as a child in the 1970s.  Publication would have to be before 1978, no clue what decade.

A boy goes walking through a landscape (forest?) and comes upon different animals. Each one has a musical instrument and joins his entourage. It sounds like a parade, but it seemed more like a Pied Piper of Hamelin situation where he somehow got them all to follow him. At one point I remember a big tree. I don’t remember how it ended. The illustrations were line drawings in a style similar to Ernest Shepard (Winnie-the-Pooh).

IT IS NOT:
The Parade of the Animals by James Abell Wright
Sophie’s Animal Parade by Amy Dixon
Animal Parade by Jakki Wood
Animals on Parade by Molly Burke Hamilton
Animal Parade by Clare Youngs

Thank you for your help!

328P: Chicken Eats Way To Giant

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Hi there!

My brother asked me about a book my long ago boyfriend read to him and another brother when they were very young (I’d guess 3 and 5 yrs old). I have no idea! Can you help?

Here is his description:
“Do you remember the name of that children’s book that he read to us, about the chicken who ate all of the things in her way on her journey to go see the giant who was eating all the chickens eggs? And then she spit out all those things that she ate at the giant, including a fox, wolf, bear, and the sea?”

I’d love to find the book, as this brother is all grown up now and his first child will be born next month! Would love to get it as a present :).

Thanks for your help!

328A: The Little Girl Who Wouldn’t Go To Bed

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I’m looking for a book that I loved when I was little. I was born in 1981 and had the book when I was around 3 or 4 years old. It was called “The Little Girl Who Wouldn’t Go To Bed” or “The Little Girl That Didn’t Want To Go To Bed” maybe? Not sure on the title. But I remember a lot about the book …

Every page was illustrated. In the beginning of the book the little girl doesn’t want to go to bed and her mother says something like, “Very well then, but father and I are going to sleep so you’ll be all alone.”
The whole rest of the book has the little girl going to all these different spots in the house to play – on one page her doll is asleep, on another all her stuffed animals are asleep, she goes from room to room of the house but all of her toys are asleep. She goes to her dollhouse and the dolls in there are asleep too. After going from room to room to find all of her toys sleeping she gives up and goes to bed too. Hope you can help me to find this book.

327S: Snow sweep invited in from the cold for tea (?from Samova)

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This was a children’s picture book that I read in the late 1980s. I cannot recall the book title or story line but I can vividly recall one scene where a man (I think the protagonist) invites different people in for tea – from a Russian teapot I think (samova). Think he uses the line “Come in from the cold”. One of the people he invited in was either a snow sweep or street sweep. Any help would be much appreciated!

327Q: Glass/Crystal Palace

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I read this book in the late 1990s. It’s a picture book, with detailed illustrations. I remember rich colors, and I think they looked like watercolor paintings. What I remember of the plot: there are two princesses (maybe they’re cousins), and one lives in a castle or palace of crystal or glass. The other princess comes to visit her in her glass/crystal palace, and she arrives by boat—I think the illustrations are of a city similar to Venice, where the streets are canals, and I remember fun bridges with lots of stairs. I was intrigued by the details of the buildings in the drawings. Part of the story may have been that the princess who comes to visit lives in a palace made of some other specific material—brick, stone, wood—something like that, but I’m not certain. And she decides that she would rather go back to her palace of glass.

327M: Mouse Finds Friend In Hurt Bird

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I am looking for a children’s book that my mom read to me over and over again. It was about a mouse (?) that was trying to find a friend, when he encounters a hurt bird. The line “It was up to him to help the bird, he would have to find a friend another day,” is surely a direct quote from the book. There were strawberries involved and lovely woodland illustrations. Of course, the hurt bird became the friend the mouse was looking for all along.