Category Archives: Unsolved

294I: The French intensive method

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A large size paperback, 1970s comprehensive instruction manual for growing a kitchen garden and orchard by the small-space, French-intensive method. It had realistic line drawing illustrations (looking as if the source of the drawings was photographs. ) Also appeared to be UK English in origin as illustrations showed brick walls around the garden as if it were on an estate. Instructions for annual and perennial vegetables, as well as fruit shrubs and trees were included. Specialty techniques such as espalier were shown.

294H: 70s/80s YA Science Fiction Anthology

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I’m seeking the identification of an illustrated science fiction anthology I saw once in the children’s section of a library. This was back in the early 80s so the book was from that time period. I remember the ending of one story where some astronauts were walking along and a robot that was with them telling them to stop because there was danger up ahead. They laughed at the robot and told it there was nothing ahead of them. They kept walked and ended up stepping into quicksand. They begged the robot to help them, but the robot told them it wasn’t allowed to put itself into danger, so the astronauts ended up drowning.

I remember two illustrations from the book: one for the story mentioned, it was a drawing of the astronauts disappearing into the quicksand. The second illustration was of a dinosaur being scooped up by a payloader. I’ve wondered about this book for years. My Google skills have been fruitless, so if somebody here could figure this out for me I’d be ecstatic.  

294D: Enchanted Book

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Beautiful cover with picture of an opening through a forest. The colours were browns and golds and green. It was a story about a boy and girl traveling into an enchanted place and the things they experienced there, an adventure.  I read this book over 50 years ago.

294C: Wowee Kee Flowee

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This is a child’s book circa 1950s about a bird who is trying to bring twigs into his/her birdhouse to build a nest.  The twigs don’t fit in the small birdhouse door because the length of the twigs is too long to fit in the oval entrance.  The bird finally realizes that the twigs can be brought in by turning them to go straight in.  The bird then screams Wowee Kee Flowee!  Of course, I might not have the entire story correct since it has been over 60 years since I read it, but I will always remember Wowee Kee Flowee!

 

294B: A witch, a storm and perhaps a cave

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I read this book in the 1980s, however I think it was older.  It had something to do with a child living in a house on the ocean.  I vaguely remember something about a witch and a storm (and perhaps a cave?)  The rest is a little fuzzy.  It may have taken place in New England, but it had nothing to do with Salem.  I realize that this may not help at all, but I had to ask.

294A: Boy’s adventure in the Northwest

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This was a hardcover chapter book I read in the ’60s. Don’t know when it was published, but it felt like contemporary writing, though the story was set in the early 20th century. No illustrations. A very young man lives with his mother in a small town- the nearest city is Spokane, I think. Possibly his older brother is missing. He goes to the ice cream parlor and has a pineapple ice cream soda. There is some sort of quest, some railroad tracks. He fights a cougar or puma, and is wounded, and emerges scarred but triumphant. He gets the girl.

293Z: Rabbits on the Run – NOT Watership Down

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Picture book – published prior to 1985
Rabbits in jeopardy. Little (young) rabbit wants to escape. Persuades old, previously resigned-to-his-fate rabbit to escape with him.  Big rabbit is scared out in the larger world, returns to his fate where they began.  Little rabbit goes on to other adventures alone.  Could be related to Watership Down – maybe a chapter of that turned into picture book.  Illustrations were beautiful, and NOT clips from the cartoon movie of that book.

293Y: Mother and child mouse encounter a road at night

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Children’s book set entirely in a rural setting at night. A mother mouse guides her child mouse through grass and vegetation — perhaps a meadow — and I think I remember berries in the illustration. I think she teaches/explains her surroundings to the child mouse as they go. At some point, they encounter a road, and the child mouse feels its cold, hard, unfamiliar texture. I think the mother mouse tells him that the road is dangerous. I was reading this book in the late 80s or early 90s.