Picture book, available in early ’70s. Illustrations in penciled sepia. A little boy enjoys a tree but grown-ups say it must be cut down. Eventually he is given a chair, his size, made from its wood, which soothes him, maybe with a spindled back. Not The Giving Tree.
Looking for a book about learning to care for different things. Each time the child is given a new object to care for (kitten, cheese, etc.), she cares for the new item as she was taught to care for the previous item thereby ruining it. This is a children’s book I remember from 50+ years ago.
This is a book that my mom read to me when I was a little girl in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I think it was called something like “Mrs. ______’s Cake Shop” (or possible Bake Shop) although I’m not sure and haven’t found anything by searching with those keywords.
I remember that it was about a lady who had a cake shop with all different kinds of cakes. The illustrations were really cute and it talked about how she made big cakes, and little cakes, and short cakes, and tall cakes….The illustrations showed cakes of all colors and sizes sitting on different platters. Some cakes had frosting and were very fancy, others had no frosting. Some were little like cupcakes and had pink frosting (I think) with cherries on them.
I think the story continued with her boxing up a cake, or several cakes, that she was going to deliver somewhere. As she is walking along with her cakes, it starts to rain. I think she didn’t bring her umbrella with her because she was holding all the cakes, or there is something about her umbrella in the story, but I’m not sure if its a main part of the story or not.
And that’s all I can remember!
This was one of my favorite books as a little girl and I can still remember the illustrations of all the little cakes in my mind but I just can’t seem to remember the title or how the rest of the story goes.
A boy kicks over a hive of beens and is stung so much he needs to be hospitalised. He is sent to the beekeeper (for care, or to apologise, or both) The bee keeper gives him a soup which shrinks him down so he can enter the hive. He comes to respect the bees and to feel better about himself
I have submitted two stumpers. We believe they’re by the same author, but don’t remember. We think the author is also the illustrator, but could be mistaken. These aren’t quite board books, but little hardback picture books for very young readers.
This second book is about a little girl, possibly named Susan, who feeds fish by the water’s edge. She falls in one day and is rescued and carried to shore by a big fish she has been kind to. Probably published in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
A remarkable and memorable thing about this book was its illustration.
The graphics were geometrical and simple, almost primitive, and the colors were bold. I don’t remember as well what “Susan” looked like, but her body may have been a triangle.
My parents bought the books for me at a little bookstore in Elmira, NY, when I was small, probably right around 1980-83. Would love to find these books for my own boy. Thanks for any help!
I have submitted two stumpers. We believe they’re by the same author, but don’t remember. We think the author is also the illustrator, but could be mistaken. These aren’t quite board books, but little hardback picture books for very young readers.
The first book is about a little prince who wants to play with other people, but he’s considered too special. In the end he gets to play with the others. Probably published in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
A remarkable and memorable thing about this book was its illustration.
The graphics were geometrical and simple, almost primitive, and the colors were bold. The prince had black hair and the main colors in that book were green, red, yellow, black, and white.
My parents bought the books for me at a little bookstore in Elmira, NY, when I was small, probably right around 1980-83. Would love to find these books for my own boy. Thanks for any help!
It is a gift and I’d make someone VERY happy. All I could get from her is that the book probably from 1970’s, maybe earlier. The main character was a boy with a dog, there was also a girl in book that a cat. Book went from colorless to having colors (or maybe dull to colorful) as more colors appeared, the boy became more happy. Flowers became colorful, each petal would have different fabric in different colors. Other items changed colors too and they were all patchwork-looking.
I know this isn’t a ton to go from, but it is a unique-sounding book, so my fingers are crossed. Many thanks, you may be my new hero if you can assist.
Captain Kangaroo takes zoo’s animals home to their habitats. In an airplane, they travel, slowly dropping different animals off: camels, brown bear. Penguins are last, and say “Too hot! Too hot!” when in the Sahara, etc. World map at the end showing their travels. Orig bought in Chicago.
This stumper is a children’s picture book that I think was published either in the late 80’s or the early 90’s. I live in Australia, and I’m afraid I don’t know if it was an Australian book or not. If it is I suspect it will make it even more difficult to solve!
I originally thought the title was “Lucy’s Beach”, but I’m obviously wrong about the name because I have not been able to find any record of it. I am pretty sure it’s a girl’s name followed by the word “beach”. I don’t know who the author is.
The story began with the main character, a young boy, in the kitchen at his house with his family. The weather is good, and he comes to the decision that today he will cross the red cliffs to the beach. His family listens to his announcement very seriously. You got the sense that it was an important thing the boy was doing, and that it’s the first time since some kind of significant event that he was returning.
He leaves the house and crosses the cliffs. He navigates the narrow ledges of the red cliffs and finally arrives at the beach. He searches in the beach until he finds a stone covered by the sand, not red like the cliffs, but flat, smooth and polished. It has a name engraved in the top of it.
Finding the stone makes him remember playing at the beach before with his younger sister, and the boy remembers his parents telling him to watch his sister in the water to keep her safe. I think he got distracted playing his own games, and his little sister ended up drowning. The stone is a memorial marker for her. He lifts up the stone and finds a compartment with some kind of plant or flower seeds. He removes the seeds from the box and blows them into the wind, and they rise up above the towering red cliffs.
I think that’s pretty much the end of the story. Pretty sad for kid’s picture book. I really hope you can help me solve the mystery of this stumper! I’m certainly looking forward to hearing from you.
I got this book from the picture-book section of the library in the 1990s, I think. It was quite new then. It is about someone who wants to make an angel cake as good as her mother’s (grandmother’s?) but she doesn’t know the secret ingredient. Some angels come and make the cake for her, I think. Maybe they eat it too? I am not too clear on the plot, but I thought the illustrations were BEAUTIFUL! The angels are obviously portraits of real people. Obviously, someone else loved this book too because it disappeared, and I could never find it again. The author’s name was at the end of the alphabet- I only remember that because of where the book was on the shelves.