Category Archives: Picture Book

198B: Dog saves cat from fire

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My brothers and I are trying to recall the name of a book that we read when we were small in the 1950’s. Of course, we would also like to find a copy of it.
The book was about a dog (perhaps a German Shepherd) and a cat who were “friendly enemies.” My oldest brother thinks the cat might have been named Queenie and she might have had three legs. They lived with a family in a cabin near the woods. The story ends with a big forest fire where the dog, despite the abuse he took from the cat, saved the cat from the fire in an heroic sort of way.
For whatever reason, this story rekindles lots of emotion for us. My oldest brother is going through chemo and I am hoping we can find this story for him.

197D: Mattressland Adventure

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My dad read this book in England in the late 40s or early 50s. It’s about a boy who is sick in the summer and he’s hot in bed (possibly in an attic bedroom). His grandmother keeps piling blankets on to him despite his being too hot. He eventually falls asleep, but when he wakes up, he’s not in his bed. He’s in a world that’s covered in a mattress (i.e. the ground is a mattress). He stabs a knife into the ground and feathers come streaming out. He has adventures in this magical place. My dad is the one who was delivering plot points, and that’s all he can remember about the book. Publication will not be later than the late 1950s.

196H: Dark, Beautiul Picture Book Series (Solved)

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I’m looking for a picture book with beautiful, lifelike illustrations. Picture book, but dark and almost adult in nature. There were two in the series.
The first had a small blond girl, with braids over her head, who was the rightful queen of a kingdom ruled by a dark tyrant. At one point she confronts the tyrant by landing on his dinner table, I think. The tyrant might wear a weird mask. He’s dressed all in black. She has friends who wanted to help her get her kingdom back. They set up a system where they would light a fire on the upper level of the castle when it was safe for them all to start their attack. One man was stopped, but is so dedicated to her and the cause, that he lit himself on fire instead and jumped from the roof.

In the sequel, she has a baby (still blond braids roped over her head), and a soldier tries to lead her through the snow to safety. I think they all die, but I’m not sure it’s obvious.
Beautiful illustrations.

196F: Stuck in the Snow Children’s book

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The book I am searching for is a children’s picture book from the 1960s/1970s. It was about a big snow storm. Lots of people kept getting stuck in the snow storm, and they went to a cozy little house (I believe it was up on a hill) to wait it out. While they were there they ate biscuits and all became friendly together. This is all I remember!

I would love to read this book to my daughter.

195H: Mouse picking up shiny things

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I am looking for a children’s book about a mouse (rat?) who would see something pretty or shiny and pick it up. He would get distracted by the next shiny thing and put down what was in his hands and pick up the next thing. My husband thinks it’s called “Pick it, Put it” or the other way around. It was his favorite book in the early 60’s. Can you help? Thank you for trying!

195G: Children’s book with descriptive skin tones

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I wish I had more information, but my girlfriend described a book that she had as a child. It was (I believe) a picture book, with various pictures of children of color and descriptions of their skin tones (like “John’s skin is the color of a penny,” stuff like that). I know it’s not a lot to go on, but if anyone remembers anything, that would be great.

195F: Child’s book about time and timekeeping (Solved)

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We’d love to reconnnect with this children’s book we had from our local library, but despite extensive online searching, can find no trace of it, as cannot remember or even guess at the title.

Illustrated short children’s book from c. 1990, for readers perhaps 5 – 9. The young heroine (age 8-ish, possibly called Anna) is not good at timekeeping, and is often late for tea. She therefore observes that ‘time is [like] a monster, marching on’. She meets the clock-keeper of the town hall clock, asks him about the nature of time, and he kindly on one occasion puts the clock back about 5 minutes, so that she does not seem late home for tea. The story and pictures have a mainland European feel to it. Someone suggested it may have been set in Switzerland. It is almost certainly a translation into English, and the English has that sense of maintaining a foreign idiom.
If this resonates with anything you recall, we will be overjoyed!