This was a series of children’s books about a centimeter thick and maybe 9″x 12″, a little larger than a standard sheet of paper. They were hardcover with maybe 30-50 pages of full color photographs and illustrated content. I read them in the early 90s in the United States, so they had to be published sometime before that. The inside format was like an Eyewitness book, with little vignettes scattered around the page which sometimes featured a cartoon child’s question for that topic. They were probably targeted at the 6-11 demographic.

This biggest stand-out feature is that even though they were in English, I believe the book was originally published in Japan (or an adjacent culture) because the illustrated characters took part in cultural or regional norms typical to Japan (sitting on stools in showers, catching horned dynastid beetles etc). The illustrations were very cute, a lot of the inanimate objects (teeth, tornadoes, pancreas) had little cartoon faces on them. I have attached a mock-up of how I remember the book cover and cartoon boy looked.

The title was something like “Tell Me Why” or “How It Works” or “Answer Me This”. The books had subtitles of the specific topic they focused on, like “Insects”. I think there was a question mark prominently featured on the cover of the books. There was also a cartoon boy with gray hair and blue shorts on the cover. I think each book featured different cartoon kids, but I’m not sure. The book would follow the kid as they asked questions about the world and received answers.

I had three or four different books in this series. Each book had a different color stripe/band at the top. I think the Insects one was green, the pink one was Weather, and the blue one was Human Body. Insects went through different types of insects, and it included real photographs along with illustrations. I remember an illustration of two stag beetles fighting each other, the artist gave the beetles cartoonishly big eyes. It talked about insect diets, and discussed defense mechanisms. It showed the life cycle of dragonflies, butterflies, praying mantises, bees, wasps, ants, pill bugs etc. There was big real life photo that showed the yellow blood a ladybug secrets when threatened.

The Human Body book talked about each organ and what it did, and how your body healed itself from bacterial infections and skin abrasions. It had a few pages that discussed the best way to take care of your body (exercise, healthy diet, etc). It described what a dentist visit might be like. It showed how a cavity is formed with a little illustration and what it might feel like to have one. I remember an illustration where there’s a frog, a raccoon, and a human child with their bellies face forward. This was to show that some animals, like frogs, did not have bellybuttons because they were not mammals like humans. There was a section about hygiene and I remember it advocated using qtips in your ears, and baby oil + qtips to clean your bellybutton! It had an illustration of a nude child and dad sitting on stools in the shower with dad holding a  removable shower head helping the child wash off.

I don’t remember as much about the Weather book because I thought weather was boring haha. It probably discussed tornadoes, hurricanes and storms and why they form, and what to do if you’re caught in one.

And before anyone asks, no, it is not “The Big Book of Tell Me Why”, or the “Just Ask” picture book series (although I did own those and love them!).

In the 1970s, I loved reading a novel (I don’t believe it was a true story) about two young men who embarked on what was supposed to be a two (?) week canoeing adventure into the Canadian wilderness. Things started off well but, of course, their canoe capsized in rapids. They almost drowned. They lost virtually everything they had packed to survive. What little wasn’t lost was wet including matches. In assessing their situation, I believe one of the characters says, “…grub box couldn’t swim.” However, they survived that day, that night, and even the winter… then finally escaped and/or were rescued. In 2000s, someone asked me if I’d read “Into The Wild” and just by the title I thought he was talking about this book (he wasn’t). Years later, I saw that something similar happened in real life and I want to say, “Sounds like ____” but I still cannot locate any sign of the old book. It was a great story! Possibly had been some sort of award winner.

I am trying to find this book for my Dad, who remembers it from when he was a kid. It would have been published in the late 1960s at the very latest. It was a hard-cover children’s book with colour illustrations. He thinks it was called, “The Day that Winter Went Away,” but we haven’t been able to find anything by searching that up, so I am guessing it is not quite the right title. The plot is that there are a some woodland animals (rabbits, squirrels, birds, maybe others) grousing about the start of winter. One of the animals says something like “I wish winter would go away and never come back. ” Winter (which kind of looks like a head blowing cold wind) hears this and decides to leave. This causes a lot of ecological problems. The rabbits turn white but there is no snow, so they can’t hide. The trees don’t leaf out properly in spring, so the birds building nests have no shelter. etc. So the animals have to go on a journey to find Winter, apologize, and ask him to come back. It would be amazing if you were able to find this book. Thank you for looking!

I read a book in seventh grade in about 1973 about the revolutionary war. I honestly don’t remember if it was fiction or nonfiction. It was not the last of the Mohicans. It was a huge book 500 or 600 pages if not more, huge by my seventh grade standard. My dad had read the book when he was in Jr High school probably about 1940. My dad is passed away and this mystery has plagued me for a couple of years.

When I read the book it was on my seventh grade reading list in history. It was my first introduction to Tories and many things relative to the revolutionary war.

Childrens book. An overweight boy, who gets teased and bullied, finds an amulet. He makes friends with a ghost? has one female friend. Out of print. I thought it was ‘the ghost in the shadow’, but can’t find under that title.