Category Archives: Status

341Q: Children’s Sea Creature Book

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I am attempting to find a childhood favorite for my brother. We were both born in the mid 60s so I suspect his book is from the early 70s. I don’t remember the title but it was an illustrated book about sea creatures. It was very ‘Boys Life’ in its design: realistic illustrations and high drama. The only specific memory I have is an illustration of a fisherman stepping on a deadly stone fish and being supported and carried away by his fishing buddies. I know it’s not much to go on. Good luck!

341O: Illustration of giant, dog and boy

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As a child in the mid sixties I was looking through a children’s book and all I can remember is one illustration and I have been looking for this book for years.
The illustration was not a full page, the page included the story.  The illustration was of a giant holding out his ring and a little black dog was jumping through the ring.  The giant had dark hair and beard, kind of reminded me to Brutus from the Popeye cartoons.He was laughing with delight.   There was also a boy in the picture.  I believe the dog belonged to the boy.  It looked like it was sketched with a pencil.

341N: 80s/90s dance book: poor teenage girl (Sal?) at local dance school

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I am looking for a book I read years ago, probably in the mid-nineties. It was about a teenager who went to a dance school and I think her name was Sal. Her family was quite poor so they often worried about money. I think she stayed at home with her parents for a while but they lived quite a long way from the school so she had to move closer, and they had an argument about that. Her parents weren’t keen on her going to the school anyway: maybe they wanted her to get a 'sensible job'.
The dance style was contemporary or ballet. I don't know about the location except that it was the UK or USA.  It was set in the present day when it was written, but that would have been in the 80s or 90s.

I remember very little of the story. At one point she realised she wasn't as supple as some of the other students so she stayed behind to do extra training. At the very end there is a show by the students and she was doing a solo. She got on stage and decided to abandon the dance she'd planned and just improvise with how the music make her feel. At the end she felt it hadn't gone very well but then got loads of applause.

I think there was a romance element as well with another music student, although it wasn't just a romance tale. I've searched through heaps of lists of young adult dance books and on Google Books but I can't seem to find it.

‘Say Goodnight, Gracie’ by Julie Reece Deaver was suggested on another forum, but it’s not that. The dance aspect is central to the story I’m looking for, whereas it’s just a supporting story in ‘Say Goodnight, Gracie’.

Jean Ure as an author was suggested as well, but most of her books seem to be for slightly younger readers.

I don't think this was amazing literary writing or anything, but for some reason I remember this book and would love to find it again.

341M: Chapter Book – Childrens’ House Floats Down River

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I am looking for a children's chapter book. The plot involves children whose house is able to float and they float down a river on it. This was a chapter book from the 1970’s or 1980’s. I don’t think it was a houseboat but rather their actual house was put on a raft, but my memory could be wrong. Thank you!!

341L: Little girl’s doll makeover at her father’s Doll Hospital (Solved!)

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Looking for a child's fiction/picture book circa 1950's-1960's, maybe even 1940's -Hardcover - Colored pictures drawn like doll wigs of different colors, new clothes in tissue paper, clothes accessories, etc. Pictures are not 'cartoony'; more true to life.

Story: Little girl has been asking her father to fix her doll but he has been too busy at his shop. Finally, on the little girl's birthday, he closes his doll hospital early and dedicates the rest of the day to fixing up her beloved doll with new eyes, face and clothes that she gets to pick out all by herself.

341K: 70s-80s Book About Colors

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I don’t remember if there were characters or much of a plot, but what I do remember is that it had lushly illustrated two-page spreads where each spread was devoted to a single color. I think yellow was a picnic in a wheat field with buttered bread…I also think there was a spread that depicted the beach (not sure what color it might have represented). Also, I think in each spread there was a teaser color spot or object that represented the next color’s scene. I think the book ended with a scene of all the colors. I would have read this in the late 80s, but it might have been 70s etc. It was certainly bigger than a Golden Book or board book.

 

341J: A Family’s Year of American Adventures

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I am looking for a book my uncle read while in 4th or 5th grade in the 1950’s. His teacher had assigned it to the entire class to read as a project. Some key points he remembers are a family pulled their children out of school for the year to travel the United States to experience new places and adventures. They went to a desert, they starred in a Hollywood movie, he also remembers something about birds – sparrow specifically – being in the book. He thinks there was a car on the cover, possibly pulling a trailer behind it.

Please help if you can, I would love to give him this book as a Father’s Day gift and he recently celebrated his 75th birthday too.

341I: Generations of Sleep Rituals (Solved!)

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I had an illustrated picture book about a little girl being tucked in by her mom and learning about how the generations before her did the same thing. She lives in a house, the family has a car, and a swing and her bedroom is upstairs and at bedtime her mom turns out the light and goes downstairs and the girl can hear the wind in the trees and the grownups talking downstairs.  She asks her mom what this was like for her when she was a little girl and it’s all the same except the house, car, swing, lamp, etc are all different but the experience is really similar, then they do it for her grandmother, same thing again. You see the different houses, and kinds of swings, they turn out lights, lanterns, candles, etc. The cover was like a page from a photo album with a taupe background with different.