Category Archives: Unsolved

378C: The Friendly Monsters

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I’m looking for the title of a picture book that I read as a child in the mid-1990s. I believe the book was written in the 1980s or 90s, though it could also be from the 70s. I don’t remember any part of the title. It was a large-format hardcover edition.

It features illustrations with a watercolor style and a brightly colored, somewhat flat, surreal aesthetic with greatly exaggerated proportions. Its protagonist is an explorer who is dressed in a blue 19th-century naval outfit and sailing a large (and very tall) ship by himself.

He is searching for a rare creature that has some giraffe-like features and eats bananas, and on every page you can see that this creature is following him just out of sight. During his exploration, the protagonist meets several huge, frightening monsters, one of which I seem to recall was named the “purple lumpy thumpet”.

When the explorer finally finds his creature, it is revealed that it has many babies, and also that the monsters he encountered earlier were all friendly. All characters then have a picnic together on an island.

As a young child I read this book over and over again, captivated by its unique blend of unsettling, dreamlike visuals and mischievous, lighthearted storytelling. I have now been searching for its title for nearly a decade with no luck, and just found out about this service.

378B: Little Witch Children’s Book

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When I was 4 years old, (roughly 1970) we went to the library in Red Oak, IA for story books.  My mother remembers this book as well. It sparked my love for reading, and I would like to find it again, and read it to my grandchildren.  It was about the size of the Little Golden Books.  The story is of a little girl witch and her mother is a witch and they make blueberry muffins. The recipe was included in the back of the book. I was so thrilled to make the blueberry muffins and have remembered that book every time I’ve made muffins for so many years. I think it states in the story that if you use the blue berry juice, the muffins will be purple. 
The only one I’ve been able to find is the Old Black Witch – which is Not the same story. 

378A: Identify Childrens’ Books 1930s – 40s, photos of tableaux

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The books I’m trying to remember were children’s books for youngish readers, medium-size (12 x 8 inches perhaps?), hardback and slim, perhaps 20 pages long, I feel not more than 30. They had text on one page (but not very much, a few sentences at most) and illustrations opposite. 

They were in the children’s bookcase in my father’s parents house: at least two titles. I was a little disdainful of them as a child myself (in the 1960s): they seemed a bit basic and unsophisticated to my small snobbish self. But they clearly had some kind of evocative magic, which is calling to me 50 years later. I’ve never seen anything like them since and was unable to google anything of the kind. My family is UK-based, though my grandfather worked in Washington DC during WW2. 

If I had to guess the publication date (based on when my father and his siblings were children, and the colour reproduction) I’d say the 1940s or early 50s. The stories were simple tales with a comic or slapstick outcome — possibly of a moral nature. A particular story I feel I strongly remember involves a house filling with water. 

The illustrations were colour photographs — but not photographs of real-life subjects. Instead they were photos of model characters on a little stage-set, a maquette complete with props and scale-model model furniture and so on. As with a cartoon or any illustrated story, each picture was a snapshot of the narrative: but from picture to picture while the characters might have been moved or adjusted within the stage-set, the set itself often stayed the same, possibly through the entire story (this I remember less well).  

The scenes I remember most clearly were the interiors of houses, sparsely furnished with wide expanses of wall in particular, of perhaps a single pastel pink or green. I think there was outdoors scenes also: when I try and recall the feel of the scenes what comes to mind is stills from the TV show Gumby (1953-onwards — but I was not aware of it at the time).  Certainly a similar sense of a flat painted backdrop, with similar spatial relationships between characters and objects and backdrop items. Also very much in colour, though perhaps more washed-out. I actually don’t remember the characters very well, but if my memory isn’t playing tricks I think they had more of a feel of pipe-cleaner people. 

377Y: Children’s book stumper

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I remember a children’s book about some sort of creature or monster who lived underwater in a castle or palace. He is sort of humanoid/frog cross, is described as having a heart as black as coal, and falls in love with a girl (maybe a princess). He kidnaps her to his underwater palace, and she is eventually rescued by her human love interest. It was a book my grandma bought from her library – my guess is that it was probably published in the 60s or 70s, and I think it was watercolored. I also feel like the color purple was heavily featured in it, but that could be wrong.

377X: A boy and his hound dog

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I have a query about a children’s book from the 1950’s or early 1960’s. I read the book in 1965 or 1967. 
The story is about a lonely city boy who is failing math. School ends for the summer and he goes to visit relatives on a farm.  He gets a hound dog to raise, and he finds self esteem and joy in the process. 
The story mostly revolves around this little hound dog and the boy’s experience with the dog on the farm. 
It’s not “daddles” or “old yeller” or “the fox and the hound”,  or any of the well-known hound stories.  It was a chapter book with a solid color cover and some b & w line drawings.  I thought the title was something about the little hound dog, but my previous searches haven’t borne that out.

377W: Painting the town red (literally) and cucumber sandwiches

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This is a middle-grade book that I read over and over in the early 70s. Here’s what I remember about it: –It was about a group of 4 boys who had adventures in their small town. –One of the boys had a wealthy grandmother and they used to go to her house for cucumber sandwiches (which one boy didn’t like because they gave him gas) –They heard the phrase “paint the town red” and went out one night, broke into the hardware store, stole paint, and literally painted the town red –One of the boys’ moms wanted to visit Schenectady because she liked the way it sounded. This makes me think that it was set in NY.

377U: Boy on the Bayou and Hard Lessons

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This is a book (novel) I read as a boy, so would have been published before 1970. Set in South (probably Louisiana), the boy and his dog paddle through the bayou on a boat (pirogue?) and fish for Gar. The boy has a sister; she is assaulted at one point by a young man from a bad family, but is rescued by a young man from a quiet and good family. The assaulting man is killed and the killing hushed up. Afterwards I think the girl and her rescuer marry. Later the boy goes into town and there is some mention of black superstitious practice involving (if I remember) putting something into a tree, then plugging it up.I tried AI but it was absolutely no help.Perhaps a Harper & Row publication. perhaps 1965.

377S: Animal beggars who were at the bottom of a well

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There’s a book that I had as a child that my mother hated reading to me – I was born in 1987, we had this book before I turned 10. It was a children’s book, illustrated, it was about animal beggars with different kinds of injuries (one missing legs, one blind – war wounds I think), I think one of the animals was a frog. They lived (or hid?) in the bottom of the well and meat was thrown down to them. I’m sorry that I don’t remember much more of about this book.