In my school library, early 1960’s 2nd grade, it was about a poor family of four who bought a run down house and fixed it up, added a pond, and either the stars fell from the night sky into the pond, or they were reflected there. I think the cover was blue.
I’m looking for children’s picture book from the 90’s about a child’s visit to the beach for the day and going back home at the end of the day. It explored the sights with realistic pictures and a simple narrative.
Looking for an old children’s book that has the words “you’re my (little) boy, my pride and joy” after each page or section.
My sister in law remembers her mom reading it every night to her little brother. Her mom passed away over 20 years ago, and the book is MIA. She always looks for it whenever she’s in thrift stores, or used book stores… we’ve searched for the keywords of the book on google and can’t find the title of it.
My SIL grew up in Northern British Columbia if that helps – might have been a small/remote publishing company?
This is a tale of a boy who pulls his wagon around his town, looking for bottles to collect and redeem. There is a map of the places he visits on the inside covers.
I am trying to find a children’s book probably printed in the 70s or 80s.
It was to teach children about colors. Each page featured a different color (I remember there were pages for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, Brown, Black, and White). On each page the name of the color would be printed in that color, and there were various objects of that color illustrated (for example the Red page would have had an apple, a red barn, a cardinal bird, etc). Each page might have had ten or so illustrations on it. The non-primary-colored pages of this book (orange, grey, pink) had a small illustration to show how they made those colors by combining others. The illustrations were circles…red circle + white circle = PINK, red circle + yellow circle = orange, etc.
I am having a great deal of trouble remembering the exact illustrations, but I’m trying. I think that (among other things) the Yellow page had buttercups and a canary, Blue page had bluebells, Pink had a rose, White page had baby’s breath and maybe a jug of milk, Black page had some sort of berry(?)
The art style definitely had a vintage look to it, like so:
I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me find a picture book from my childhood that I have been searching for for years. My mum borrowed it from our local library (in Victoria, Australia) sometime in the 90s, perhaps any time from 1997 onwards. It was a dark (both in theme and illustration style) picture book with detailed illustrations similar to those of Gary Crew’s The Watertower. I think it was designed for older readers (8-12 years). I used to think the title was Is Any Body There?, but I’ve searched so many libraries, bookstores and databases for it that I must have got the title wrong.
In the book, the protagonist is walking through different landscapes that have recently been destroyed by something or someone. The protagonist walks into the woods and says “Is any body there?” (or something along those lines). The wood’s inhabitants reply something like “Yes, somebody was here”, and the trees say something like “It took our branches”. I think other animals in the woodland also said that they had parts stolen from them, but I can only remember the trees.
The protagonist continues journeying and reaches a lake, where they also say, “Is any body there?”. The inhabitants of the lake also respond “Yes, somebody was here”, and say that something stole their body parts too. I can only remember the fish saying “It stole our eyes”. The illustrations very vividly depicted the fish under the water, with empty eye sockets.
The protagonist follows the trail of destruction through several other landscapes (sorry, I can’t remember them) and arrives at a house in a forest (I think). The protagonist makes their way to the basement, where they say for the final time, “Is any body there?”. A response comes from the darkness: “Yes, some body is here”. On the final page, there is a detailed illustration of a monster that is clearly constructed from all of the parts stolen from the animals, trees and environments.
The illustrations were in dark, earthy shades and I think it’s possible that the narration was either first- or second-person to heighten the immersion, but I can’t remember much more about the book than that. I’ve spoken to several librarians (including one who worked at the library we borrowed the book from originally) and booksellers, and no one knows of this book. Only my sister remembers it, otherwise I would have thought I’d fabricated it entirely.
Any help in solving this would be very, very much appreciated – this mystery has been annoying me for too long!
Many thanks,
This book (which seemed old when my grandmother read it to me in the 1960’s) was about a little boy who had a bag of cookies that he gave away one-by-one on his walk home leaving one for himself when he arrived home. I’m confident the postman got one.
A 1960’s-early 70’s color (I think) children’s picture book about a girl who is forced to share her bedroom with a sibling. She copes by drawing a line down the middle of the room to stake out her territory.
I am looking for a children’s picture book that I am 90% sure was published before 1990. It follows a group of explorers through a cave. Page after page there are different looking creatures staring at them from behind rocks and on the stalagmites on the ceiling as they pass through the cavern. Some of the creatures sort of look like the ones from Where the Wild Things Are, or in the same spirit of Mercer mayor’s monsters. I have looked at both their respective catalogs and can’t kind a book that fits this description. I am pretty sure it is a rectangular shaped book. This one has stumped me for years and I really want to find it. Appreciate the help
Before 1973, poems and pics of imaginary creatures. Two I remember: “What the heck is a bottleneck, I can’t give you a hint to it, but grownups run right into it” and “A frightening beast is the raging inferno, for lunch he eats matches, at suppertime Sterno.”