I am hoping you can help me with the name/author of a book that I loved as a kid in the 1970s – I think it was called “Girls and Boys and Boys and Girls” or something like that. It was a color, picture book probably aimed at 5-7 year olds.
The format was basically “Lee A. (who was a boy) likes to color and Lee B. (who was a girl) likes basketball” and so on – I think all of the kids in the book had names that were gender neutral – Lee, Chris, Jo, etc.
It is a “scary” children’s picture book about a woman dressed in all black and she kidnaps children. She has a black hat with a black veil, yet has yellow eyes that can still be seen. She carries an umbrella and a bag of bricks. She has pilgrim buckle type shoes. She can run really fast and creates a black streak as she passes. As she kidnaps more kids, the parents of the remaining children send them to school with protection. The zookeeper’s son arrives with a boa constrictor around his neck, the beekeeper’s son wears a beehive, the military kid rides up in a tank, etc. The lady in black even takes a teacher. They eventually catch her and she leads the police to a cave where the children and teacher are kept, unharmed. The lady then slips out of the handcuffs and escapes. The book was written in English and had colored illustrations. I read it in Minnesota, USA in the mid-to-late 90s. I remember a specific illustration in which the lady is hiding behind a pole at a bus stop, just before she takes a kid.
My daughter (now age 20), has been searching for years to find a book she loved to check out from her elementary school library in first grade +/-. She has re-searched the library many times, spoken to teachers, friends and has had no luck. I remember her bringing it home, so I know it isn’t a figment of her imagination.
What she remembers:
— Picture book of a horse in a forest of silver trees, limited (if any) text
— Illustrations in black ink/watercolor style
— Limited color palette, black, white, gold and maybe silver
— Possibly part of a series/pack of picture books
— Horse is main character on some kind of quest or adventure, with many crystals in the forest, possibly gold
— Special lake in the forest, perhaps also a cave
— Likely blue hard cover, she thinks larger than 8.5×11
— Likely an “older” book, I’m guessing from 1960s or even older
This is a hardback picture book we read in the 1980s from the library. One garden is transformed (I think topiary is involved), then gradually other gardens in the town. Drawings are like wonderful aerial maps of the transformation. I recall streets being very rectangular and regular in shape.
This was a hardback picture book we read in the library in the 1980s. Two or three children go to a fair. On the way to or at the fair they get some small items (possibly a gold star?), which are put in a ‘cornucopia’. I think this was pictured as a paper cone. On the way home through the forest, robbers steal their treasures. I think it had the line ‘what wicked robbers to steal such precious things’, the point being these are items of no commercial value, but things of wonder to the children.
No one can walk anymore. They only drive in large wheeled homes and mobile offices. They even have motorized vehicles in individual sizes for transporting themselves outside of these wheeled homes.
Everything has been paved over with roads, except a small area with a flower or a tree in it.
Fascinated by this unpaved area, the girl wheels over to it only to find her wheeled individual vehicle can’t go on the unpaved area. She is forced to get out of the vehicle and make her way across the green space without motorized assistance.
It is a children’s book that is about the way children see the world literally. One page says: dad left his blue prints in the snow and the picture is a blue prince in the snow with blue feet prints in the snow. Another page says: dad said mom is playing bridge and not to disturb her and the picture is a female with her head on a chair and feet on a couch and the cat walking across her like she is a bridge. Another page says: mom said that my sister has a frog in her throats and the picture is of a little girl with a frog inside her mouth. Another page has a little horse with clothes on and the caption is: mom said my brother is a little horse.
I am hoping you can help me find a children’s book we used to get from the library in the late 1990’s and maybe early into the 2000’s.
It took place on a farm in the grain belt and one day the animals started floating up, then the tractor, then the whole farm separated from the ground and they were hovering in one spot, but not attached to the ground. In the end grandma got out her needle and thread and sewed the land back down and they ate a dinner of white food (white rice, white potatoes, white bread and milk).
Sorry this isn’t much to go on. I was hoping to get it for my daughter’s birthday as a surprise, but if you need more info I can ask her for more details.
This was a kids’ picture book from the late 70s or early 80s (probably 4/5th grade reading level, 32ish page length, not just a simple picture book but not chapter or young adult) level. The premise is that two friends (I think they were two girls, might have been just one) show up at a house for a Halloween party, They think it’s the right house, but upon getting inside, are met with another girl who I *think* was wearing some kind of a spider costume – she might even have been named “spider”. They proceed to go to the basement (which I don’t remember being a scary development). At some point they swap costumes (possibly against the will of the girl who showed up to the house). The girl who came to the house doesn’t want to be there, and eventually finds a way to escape/leave. Important to underscore that even though it sounds a bit this way,the tone of the book isn’t scary or sinister – more just a vibe of “strange” and “oddball”. A fun little Halloween story that I vaguely remember and am desperate for help locating!
This book was a children’s early reader book from 70s/80s with scenes from a park (which had a pond in it, I think, and possibly a duck in the pond), classroom, hospital room, etc. In the picture of the classroom, for instance, it said “paint” next to where the paints were, and “chair” next to the chair in the picture. No plot, just labels for items in the pictures. It is *not* a Richard Scarry book (which sometime label individual items as well).