Category Archives: Picture Book

115A: Children’s book of colourful rooms

I am chasing the name of a children’s picture book that we borrowed from a library in the late 90’s.  The book involved a girl who was in a room and was trying to decide on an outfit for the day.  Each double page spread involved a different coloured outfit and the room transformed to contain multiple objects that matched the colour of the outfit.  On each page was a chameleon to find as well.  Finally the girl decides on a multi-coloured outfit. 

Unfortunately I cannot recall the author’s name but recall that the title may have ended with the word “day”.

114C: Elephant Graveyard

 A children’s picture book I had when I was young. ( I was born in 1975) It was a heart-wrenching story about elephants.. It focused on the fact that elephants morn their dead. I believe the elephant heard was returning to a graveyard where one of their group had been been buried.

113C: Puppy at bedtime, asking about where he lives

My girlfriend is looking for a children’s picture book.  She would have read it as a child, in the early 1990s, so if I had to guess, I’d target the publishing of the book in the 80s, but it could be anything pre-1995. She says it was about a young dog (she’s 99.9% sure it was a dog) being tucked in at night, and he asks his parents about where they live (she even thinks the title of the book may have been something like “Where do we live?”).   His mom/dad told him about their street, then their city and planet. The artwork showed the other families in the book as anthropomorphic animals, and they all had unique houses (fish families had fish bowls, rabbit family had a hole in the ground, etc).  The houses stood out to her, but may have only been artwork, may not have been noted specifically in the story.  She believes the puppy may have been named Walter, or something similar.  I know this isn’t a lot to go on! 

112H: a boy and girl held captive in a dark forest/cave

In our small-town library, sometime between 1956 and 1959, I becamse fascinated by a large-format story book with darkly forbidding (Gothic!!) illustrations (maybe engravings, or duo-tone illustrations). I believe the story was about a girl and boy (sister and brother?) who were either lost or held captive by ___?? in a forest or a cave or some outlandish place. They were obliged (I think) to do manual labor of some kind — carrying something (ore?) or digging for something. I recall that it was a book my grandmother would not let me take out of the library on her card! I was only a beginning (but precocious) reader at the time (age 7, approximately), so cannot recall the title or the names of the characters, etc. But the words “forbidden” “hidden” “forest” “treasure” “lost” all seem likely terms to be associated with this book. I would LOVE to find it, read it, and solve this mystery before I die!!!

111B: Princess and Peasant Girl Swap Places

A princess and a peasant girl swap places. The princess is lonely, and hates being made to embroider (she embroiders tiny frogs and snakes in a corner of the canvas) or to dress up and go and see the countess with her mother. The peasant girl comes from a large noisy family and rarely gets any attention or nice clothes. They meet and swap places. The peasant girl can embroider beautifully and asks if she may have a new dress and visit the countess much to her unknowing mother’s delight. The princess loves having dirt between her bare feet, finding frogs and sitting up to the table with a noisy family.
They end up staying in their new roles.

This book was probably produced around the 1989-1990.
It had beautiful whimsical illustrations and I think, a red cover.

111A: Honey Farm

Children’s picture book definitely pre-2000 and probably earlier. Young girl lives on a honey farm, possibly w/ her grandmother. Girl has to get honey from cellar but is scared by “monster” who is maybe a man w/ hat and trenchcoat. He may be chased by bees at the end. Soft, pastel-like illustrations.

110D, solved: Unusual Pencil-drawings

Our teacher showed us this book in 1993; it had full-page pencil drawings with unusual captions.  I remember one of the drawings was of a young boy sleeping and the caption said something like “Archie (don’t remember last name).  A small voice said ‘he’s the one.'” I think another picture was of a room or staircase, and there was a tiny, maybe six-inch high door built into the wall.  I want to say our teacher mentioned that the illustrator had dropped off the illustrations and captions at a publishers, said he would return the next day, but never showed.  So the pictures were published into this book but no one knows who actually drew them.

 

107A: Appearances can be deceiving

children’s book I had in early 1970’s.  Was about not judging others by their appearances, that sort of thing.  There was a well dressed man and a bum/hobo both with their hands behind their backs.  When you turned the page, the bum had flowers behind his back and the “nice” guy had a club or a bat!