Category Archives: Unsolved

320Q: Fairy Tale Book(s?) From 70’s Or 80’s

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I am trying to identify one or two books from the following two images (I cannot remember if they are clues to two books or if they are both from the same one.)

I remember a rather thick book with a mix of fairy stories, myths & legends from around the world, probably printed in the 1970’s or 1980’s. (I was born in 1981.)

The first image is of my Grandma reading us a book, although it is blurry.

The second image, is a sketch by me of a calligraphy detail in the book, on a title page, I think, which I loved to trace as a child.

I am trying to identify the book(s) represented in each of these photographs, whether they are one in the same or two similar books with collections of stories.  If you could help solve the mystery, I would be much obliged.

Please find the two picture clues below:

320O: Animals’ Body Parts Switcheroo

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Have fun with this one. I'm taking a shot in the dark here that anyone knows what I am talking about, because my mother doesn't. It is a children's book from as late as probably 1982. Guessing possibly around 1975-1980? Literally all I can remember is an image of animals with switched body parts. Not sure how many animals or how many different body parts were switched. Could have been only 2 animals. Different heads for sure. One might have been short with the head of a taller one and vice versa. They might have been barn animals. And something about one of them getting stuck under a fence. Because he was too fat maybe? Like a chain link fence. And that's it. A flash of a memory of one page of a book that, if I can figure it out, is for sure my first identifiable memory.

320N: Toy Store With Trains

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I am looking for a children’s book about an old man who had a toy store. It may have been toy trains. They had pneumatic tubes. I remember a picture in the book where the man and a young boy are looking through a big window at a miniature city of toy trains. My guess on publication date is the 1970’s.  I've thought a lot about it and maybe the old man was a banker.

 

320M: Fairy Baking Competition

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Hi there, I'm looking for a book, I can’t seem to remember the title. It’s a children’s book. Hot pink cover with a fairy on the front on top of a cupcake and it has sparkles on the cover as well. Book for ages 4-8. It was a book about a baking competition and it had a recipe in it. Small print writing. That’s all I remember.

320L: The Tarot Class Mystery

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A pre teen girl moves to a new town and, as a way of meeting people, takes a Tarot reading class. There is an older girl, possibly named Maya, that befriends the protagonist. Some kind of mystery takes place, maybe the brother of the protagonist is falsely accused? I feel like most of the action happens around the little shop where the Tarot classes happen.

320K: Medieval Girl Returns To Family, Wants To Belong

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I’m searching for a book that I read in the summer of 1993 or 1994.  I believe it was set in medieval times (the family lives in a castle).  The book was very new at the time—I think I was the first to check it out (I miss stamping due dates)!

It begins with a fair haired and fair skinned girl returning to her biological family (refined family with fair hair) after returning from being raised by a rival family (a rougher family with dark hair).  She had been traded and her family had raised their son, who had died.  So, she was returned.

She’s spent her life feeling like she doesn’t belong and is now finding her place and adjusting to life back with her family.  She still feels like she doesn’t belong.

She has siblings—a beautiful sister & brother who are fraternal twins—and 1-2 more children.  There is a smallpox outbreak and her sister’s face is scarred.  

320H: Book on scouts avoiding capture

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The story is about two boy scouts, who get bored.  In order to overcome their boredom they enter a competition in which they go on a journey across several locations, where other scouts, if they see them, can catch them and in this way they lose; if they get to the ultimate location they win. As I recall, one of them was caught, one got through.

320G: Sci-fi about a seductive green vine

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This book was probably from the 1970s or 1980s (I read it in the 1990s), and its hardcover was entirely covered in green vines (from what I remember). It was about an (alien?) plant that grew really fast and completely covered a family’s house. The members of the family are totally entranced by the vine, which seems to cast a kind of spell over them (and maybe even speak inside their minds?), until it is almost too late to do anything and they’re entirely trapped.