Category Archives: Unsolved

370Q: Traveling Aunt Seek and Find Book

3 Replies

I have a query for you: I was delighted in a seek-and-find book as a child in the mid-1990s which, if my memory serves me correctly, followed a globe-trotting aunt. The reader was always one stop behind her, and to try to catch her was required to find objects and people in each image spread.
The book was large, slim, hard-backed, and had relatively little text. As usual for this genre, the images were visually busy illustrations in a reasonably realistic style.  I have no memory of the title nor the author, but I do remember that some of the locations included an Australian beach (with people wearing white sunblock on their noses), a wet market in Asia (lots of produce and people wearing straw hats) and an airport scene with a man tearing up his tickets. I am fairly certain there was also a scene of people at a ski lodge with lots of snow and chair lifts, but that image is less clear than the others. Each of these scenes took up a full two-page spread.
I read it between 1994 and 2000, although I do not know if it was published before that.  

370O: Children’s Paperback Picture Book, circa 1980, girl monster/purple dinosaur with a red dress, beautifully illustrated

Leave a reply

Hello, Stumpers. To the best of my memory, this is a Children’s Paperback Picture Book, circa 1980.

It was set in a woods, populated with monsters, near a lake that featured heavily. I think our protagonist – a girl monster whose face resembled a purple baby dinosaur, and who wore a red dress with puffy sleeves – saw her reflection in the water and got scared, or didn’t understand it was her.

It was beautifully illustrated line work, trying to make things look realistic with texture and shading, versus the looser style and flat coloring of a Mercer Mayer or Richard Scarry.

370L: House where the objects look like faces

Leave a reply

A picture book that goes through the rooms of a house at night showing objects that are places in a way to make it look like faces/people etc. I have a particular memory of a garden/shed page and a bathroom page for sure! If there is a story component to the book I don’t remember it unfortunately. Read sometime between 2000-2008 I think.

370J: Man Cleans House To Win Contest

1 Reply

I had this paperback children’s book in 1970. It is probably from the 60s. It is an American book with words. The illustrations were line drawings.  
All I remember is that an old man lived possibly on a hill.  The town was having a cleaning contest, and he cleaned every bit of his house, and I distinctly remember he even cleaned the cobwebs out of the corners. The people came to judge his house and he won.  This may not be right, but my memory comes with the color yellow. Maybe the cover- or maybe the man wore yellow.  I’ve tried and tried to find this book. 

370E: The Fun Easter Bunny

Leave a reply

I’m looking for an Easter book from when my friend was a child (born in 1987 in Canada) from early 90s or before. She remembers a silly/mischievous bunny that says “quack quack” and something like “I flap my ears for fun.” The bunny also supposedly sings about calling out the days of the week. In the end she seems to remember that he turned into chocolate or candy.

370D: Good Clean Fun for Kids!

3 Replies

The book was the size and style of a Dr Seuss book with an orange cover.  It contained fun things for kids to do ie: curly paper  book mark races ( something about Willy?) , rooting a sweet potato and making a newspaper tree.   I think it may have been the same illustrator as the Seuss books.  It would probably have been published in the 1960″s.

370C: Mexican beaches in a jalopy – early 1940s

Leave a reply

An American couple explores the beaches and coastal towns of the west coast of Mexico driving a jalopy. The story ends with the start of WWII, compelling them to return to the States. I read this as a kid in the mid-1960s. I’m not sure whether it was intended for young adults or grown-ups, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.