Category Archives: Picture Book

293Z: Rabbits on the Run – NOT Watership Down

Leave a reply


Picture book – published prior to 1985
Rabbits in jeopardy. Little (young) rabbit wants to escape. Persuades old, previously resigned-to-his-fate rabbit to escape with him.  Big rabbit is scared out in the larger world, returns to his fate where they began.  Little rabbit goes on to other adventures alone.  Could be related to Watership Down – maybe a chapter of that turned into picture book.  Illustrations were beautiful, and NOT clips from the cartoon movie of that book.

293V: A little zebra gets lost

1 Reply

I am writing a memoir and am trying desperately to identify a children’s picture book that would have been published around 1948 – 1953.  It is a story about a little zebra that gets lost.  The only vivid image of it I remember is the little zebra encountering a senior Zebra who was wearing reading glasses on his nose.  The elderly zebra helps the little one find his mother (I think).

I do not remember the title except that I’m sure Zebra was in the title.  It is a picture book.

293I: A colorful board book

1 Reply

It is a kids cardboard picture book that each time you turn the page all the objects are in a different shades of a single color and one object is of a different color. There are words on the pages like rhymes that highlight the object that is of a different color (for example a gray umbrella among a bunch of yellow items). The title might have rainbow in it. On the cover I think there are circle cutouts that get wider and wider that hint at the colors featured.

292Y: And The Sun Came Up

3 Replies

My grandfather read this book to me over and over, probably around the early 1950s, so it may have been published as early as the 1930s. It was a children’s picture book, and all I can remember is the last page read, “And The Sun Came Up.” That phrase was most probably used throughout the book.  I loved it and have looked for it all these years, at antiques stores, rummage sales, etc. I would love to know the title and see if it is still around somewhere, so I can read it to my own grandchildren.

292M: Flying dog

2 Replies

A little flying dog delights its little girl owner. It’s a picture book but I only remember little girl sitting in a big armchair with the dog perched on the back or maybe it was flying. I think the dog looked like a  For context, I’m 54 and would have been a little girl when I had this book.

292J: Wise Old Owl (Solved)

2 Replies

I don’t know the title or author; it was a children’s book for preschoolers that was read to me more than 80 years ago. One of the characters was a wise old owl who sat in a tree, saying, “I am thinking important thoughts I didn’t have time to think yesterday.” this line has been quoted in my family ever since to anyone who was staring into space, daydreaming.  I have long wondered what the book was.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

292H: The Weiry Wax

1 Reply

I am looking for  a children’s book . . .

Title:      (not sure)     The Weiry Wax         Alternate spellings: Wiery, Weary       Wacks

Approx publication dates:   older! I read it sometime between 1945 and 1950. It could have been a 1930s publication. I’m born 1941. Been seeking this book for 60+ years, for my grandchildren, and myself. Contemporaneous with PING, the Chinese duck and the junk boatman.  I mean, I was reading these books at roughly same time. Also that Brownie book, of 1930s or ’40s.  Barbar….that era.

Description:  children’s book, roughly that picture book format/size, glossy cover, with the 30  or so pages of text and  art.

The main characters, I believe on the cover, were the Weiry Wax  (or ___ Wacks, or Weary ___), but I think the spelling was like a ‘weir’ (low dam) They were roundish, something like a mummer meets a sea urchin. Black.  A coal-black snowball, with spines.

I’m reminded of them whenever I see the soot sprites in Miyazaki’s TOTORO–the little black dust balls. These guys were bigger than that, but not more than knee or waist high on a child.

I can’t remember the other characters….was there a human? don’t know. It’s just that the Weiry Wax themselves scared me mucho, but they weren’t too evil, I think, and I came to be fond of them. Wanted one for a pet.  (They may have been dreadful: I was a weird kid, only child, active imagination.)  Pretty sure they had eyes, like the Miyazaki sprites, and not much else.  Stubby legs/feet maybe. Like a Shmoo, but definitely in the dark part of any shmoo universe. I don’t think they were there to help.  Guess they lived in a forest. They might have carried a staff or spear, ergo hands/arms.