Hi!
This was a cherished book I had as a child (I am 47). The book was unique in that the illustrations were of rooms in a real house, with a real teddy bear. In the book I think the bear was “alive”. I can recollect something about the London bridge.
I’m looking for a book that I read in the 70’s about a family of three children, youngest son was named Barnaby and there was an elephant that may have been pink or polka dotted.
I’m also looking for a book probably written in the 50’s/60’s about a witch that would grant wishes but the children had to give something in payment. So one boy wanted to be able to talk to his dog, but because it was French poodle, it only spoke in French. Another girl wanted a wish granted and the witch asked for her eyebrows.
An illustrated ’70s or ’80s children’s book about cartoon-looking bugs living in a city within/on a potted plant. The bugs had houses and shops and children. They wore clothes I think and were quite humanly.
I read a junior fiction trilogy in middle school in the early 70s.
It was about two brothers who build a flying machine (NOT the Wright brothers – as virtually all my searches return).
I think it was set in either England or New England, possibly on a farm; likely at the turn of the 20th century. I think their mother is one of the characters. I remember specifically a description of cool linen sheets – of all things!
I think both brothers may have liked the same woman. (They might have been cousins but I don’t think so…)
One of the brothers was injured at some point – either in a crash, or maybe in war? Walked with a limp and a cane after that.
I remember rich detail in the writing.
Any thoughts or ideas would be welcomed. I’ve been hunting for years!
Greetings from upstate New York!
I hope you can help me identify and find a book I had as a child.
I do not know the title or what the cover looked like because my copy was missing the cover. But here are the facts as I remember them:
I was born in 1960, so this book had to be late 50’s early – mid 60’s
It was a Christmas book – containing many different stories/legends from the birth of Christ to the real Saint Nicholas to Christmas legends like the Christmas Spider
It was a large, oversized book, say 12″ x 18″ ish. It was not a thick book.
What was so great about it was the artwork – very beautiful renderings – not cartoony or modernish, more like realistic paintings. So the art was appealing for even adults, but the stories were short, maybe one or two per page. If I had to guess, I would say the art style was something similar to this picture below.
As a child, the images I remembered the most was the story of St. Nicholas paying the dowries of three poor women. They were all sleeping in a bed and he threw a bag of gold in through the window.
There was also a story of this flying ( but I don’t remember it with wings!), hairy, red-eyed beast with sharp tusks/teeth, but I can’t remember the story. LOL – I don’t think it was Krampus, because it was more like an animal (wolfish) than a human devil guy.
Another feature was the rich colors of the end papers. Like a renaissance fabric pattern. I think red with a little blue and gold in a repeating diamond pattern, I think – it has been a long time since the book was lost or given away.
So I know these are a lot of random details – I wish I had the title and publisher, but maybe you can help me – my desire is to purchase a replacement copy to pass on to future grandkids.
A poor family decided to go west and had to leave one of the daughters behind, as she was sick. They left her with a husband and wife. Her family was killed in a flash flood. She stayed with the couple, they are involved with the underground railroad
This was a three book series I read a few years ago. My library had them in the “young adult” section. I remember the book cover of one was green, I know one had vines on it. The book was about a girl and her family lived on a kind of farm and she finds this kind of tunnel. On the other side was a whole “colony” of these dwarf like things some of them had wings. There was this kind of Pegasus animal, it was small though and horse-like but had wings. I believe in the second book maybe the third the little girl gets sent to a boarding school and everyone thinks she crazy because she talks about these dwarf things.
One part of the book the Pegasus animal gets hurt and the girl takes care of it for a while in a sort of shed that her family no longer uses. At one point, I know, the two of them spend the night in a tree house sort of thing near the girls house. I know as you read the books it went back and forth of who was “narrating” like one or two chapters would be the girl side and then one or two chapters would be from the “dwarfs” side.
It was a kinda confusing series because it ended up that this little girl had had another life or something a long those lines. I don’t know how much help that is. There was something about a magical “touchstone” that guided the “dwarfs” they had migrated and at the end of the book they migrate again.
Children’s picture book in which a house follows a boy down the street. Read it with my boys in the late 70’s/early 80’s.
Probably read this in the early 1970s Two children, boy and girl, are turned into buttons by a woman (witch?). As buttons, they looked like carved bone and I think they were dressed as Pilgrims. They had to escape before they were sewn onto anything, because once they were sewn on, the change was permanent.