Category Archives: Picture Book

165E: Old aunt becomes young again

This book was a short picture book that I read in the 1970’s.  I am guessing it was published late 1960s to mid 1970s.

A girl visits her great aunt or similar relative, who is bedridden and lives in a room upstairs in a beautiful old house.  When the clock strikes the old lady turns back into herself as a young girl and the two girls play together and have a great time.  Then the clock strikes again and she turns back into an old lady.  The girl is dressed in what children would have worn in the 1890’s or thereabouts and I remember she had long black hair with a ribbon tied in it.

 

165C: Three little kittens jumping in pie with juice squirting out

The book I am searching for is a book my mother has looked for for years. She remembered it from her childhood so it would have been a book from the 30′s. It was a 3 little kittens book- possibly oversized and longer across the top than the length of the binding. The pictures she remembered were one of the cats in the snow with a lighted house in the background (maybe at night?) and picture of them playing with yarn balls, a picture of the kittens stepping in pie with juice squirting out, and picture that showed the kittens with just the legs of the adults showing. Since there are so many scores of books about the three little kittens, it may be hard to find, but I would like to surprise her with it if I could! She is 81 years old.

 

164E: an animal book, an abc book and a seek-and-find book all in one

I am thinking of a book that I checked out from the school library about 100 times in the mid-late 80’s
It was a picture book and each page was fully illustrated with animals. There was one page per animal, and went from A to Z. Some if not all of the animals were exotic. I remember wondering “what the heck is an ibis?”
So the pages went from A to Z. Each 2-page spread would name one animal that starts with that letter. The pages were covered densely from edge to edge with drawings of that animal. There was also one example of the animal illustrated and you had to find the matching illustration on that page, which was quite challenging. So it was an animal book, an abc book and a seek-and-find book.
I remember each page being colored background (maybe different colors for each animal, seems like mostly dark, rich colors like crimson), and the print might have been black only but I am not certain about that. It wasn’t white pages though, I am sure of that. I am almost certain it was a hardcover book too.

 

163F: Wren nests in pocketbook

:  I am hoping to find a much loved book from my childhood.  I do not know the name of the book or the author.  I read it in the 1950s.  It was a picture book.  It may have been a Big Little Golden Book.  The story is of a mother and her two children who go to a cottage on the shore for the summer.  In their hurry to settle in, they leave the mother’s pocketbook in the car.  A wren builds a nest in the pocketbook.  The family cannot get the money out of the mother’s purse, so they do not have any money for the summer.  They have to find ways to get by without the money in the mother’s purse.
They plant a garden and wait for the birds to hatch and leave the purse.  Of course, by the time the birds are grown, the family does not need the money.  They are self sufficient.  Mainly, I am hoping to locate the book because of the beautiful pictures of the little wren – or at least in my memory, they are beautiful pictures.

163C:Collection with Little Red Hen and a Fox (solved)

I’m looking for a collection of children’s short stories that my mom read as a child (either read herself or had them read to her – her memory is fuzzy).  She was born in 1944.  She remembers illustrations in the book and the book having a story about a fox and a little red hen.  Any information or leads you can provide would be awesome!

163A: illustrations, dragon toothache, Li Po moon, princesses, mountain climbing

I am looking for a large (coffee-table sized) book of children’s stories that are beautifully illustrated by watercolor in full color with glossy pages. The illustrations could be kind of scary–they were artistic, but not childish or cartoonish. The stories were involved, with lot of text.
One was about a dragon that had a toothache because a baker’s apprentice brought him so many cookies and donuts. Another about the Chinese character Li Po trying to get the moon in a cup.
Another about dangerous mountainous adventures.