Category Archives: Picture Book

309J: A picture of mother (Solved)

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There is a book from my childhood that I think about often. I would be forever grateful if you could help unite me with it. I don’t have a title for you, but here is what I know:
1) It is a picture book for children.
2) I read the book as a child in the early 80s.
3) Plot: It is a book about a child (might be an animal child, not sure) that wants to make a picture of his mother. He starts out making the picture on his own and feels he needs advice, so he  takes it to different animal characters to see what they think. Each animal looks at the picture and makes a suggestion to change it somehow to reflect a feature of that animal (for example: the elephant suggests that the nose be lengthened). By the end of the book the picture has a variety of different features that look nothing like the mom.
Sadly, I cannot remember much else. I have tried to imagine the title and the best I could guess at is “A Picture of Mother” or something of the sort. But I could be way off.
This books stands out to me now as a message about trusting your own judgement in creating art (or writing) and not allowing yourself to be so easily influenced by the opinions of others. Let your work be your own. I’m not sure if that was the message it had intended to give, but it comes to mind now as I pursue my own writing career. I’d love to have this message bearer as a tangible reminder of this lesson.
Please help me, for you may be my only hope. Thank you for your time and effort.

309F: Mouse’s House

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This was a book out in the early 1950’s. It might have been a golden book, but I could not find it in their listing. The first line was “This is the house of Mrs. Mouse and these are her children three.” It was book for young children; it had illustrations. I don’t remember anything else, but that first line has stayed in mind all these years.

308T: A boy and a whale (Solved)

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Here is the book I am looking for from my childhood. I was born in 1981 for reference.

Book is about a whale and boy. They travel down a river and as they go the whale changes colors from the surrounding areas. I know one page is a jungle with monkeys.  The last page of the book is the whale with the boy on top of him swimming out to sea. All the colors have been washed off of him and the water behind him is colored like a rainbow but the whale is white/gray.

308O: A shy lighthouse keeper

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I have a library customer searching for a children’s book, but she doesn’t remember the title or plot. She thinks the author’s last name was Harper. It was a hardback picture book about a lighthouse keeper who was a shy man. The cover illustration was of a man in a long yellow rain slicker with a yellow rain hat over his face. It was published around 1948 or so. She said that her grandfather, Alonzo Washington, worked for a family called Harper who ran a publishing business in the Greater Philadelphia (Chester County) area, and one of the family members wrote this book for her when she was a child. She’s positive it was actually published, not a one-off. Her name is Marcilene Brown, if that will help at all. I haven’t been able to find any ties between her “Harper family” and the NYC Harper publishers. I hope you can help solve this mystery! Thank you very much for your help.

 

 

308L: Mole in the hole (Solved)

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A mole is asleep in a hole but a bear (I think) thinks that he fell in and is hurt. He tries to get help but has to bargain with other animals e.g. horse has a rope but he wants a brush to swap, so bear goes to squirrel to get a brush but he wants nuts (I think) … eventually bear gets back to mole to find out he was only asleep

308K: Dear Brains Trust

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I am on a search for a particular children’s picture book. The description I can give is very vague, and I have no title or author name. It *might* be a foreign book translated into English, but I can’t be sure. I got a copy of this book in about 1986 – but it is probably a fair bit older than that. I’m guessing 1970s, but maybe even earlier.

Basically the book is about a naughty little boy who gets sent to his room. He is an angry young man and begins tearing up his room. The one specific thing I remember about the book was that the little boy tore all his wallpaper apart, and this separated the male shepherds from the female shepherds who were shown in the picture as very sad and crying.

The only other bit of information I can add is that I remember the illustrations were not very brightly coloured – they were pastel and had a sombre tone, but kind of brilliant (and a little scary when you’re 5 or 6).

I have googled my heart out with no luck so I’m hoping you can help!