Category Archives: Unsolved

279B: Bunnies go on an Easter Egg hunt

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Hi there! I’m looking for a book my mother used to read to my sister and I as children. It was about bunnies that go on an Easter egg hunt. The book may have come in different sizes, but this particular book was only about 5×5?  The cover was mostly white, I believe and had pictures of bunnies and grass and eggs hiding.  The book didn’t have bright colors. It was mostly pastels. I believe it was geared toward younger children, but we loved when our mother read it to us!! Please help me find this book!

278D: Halloween story featuring a new teacher

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I have been searching for this book for so long with no luck.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember the title.

I got it when I was in elementary school in the 1970’s.  It was probably published early to mid 70’s.  I got it through one of the school’s reading program catalogs, so it may be a Scholastic book or another company like that.  My best friend and several other students also purchased it.  It was a Halloween book.  It was about school students who have a young, pretty new teacher come to their school.  Her name was Miss – something.  Maybe Miss Grey.  (I don’t trust my memory that far though.)  The students think there is something odd about her.  She wears a big, wide-brimmed hat.  Of course, she’s suspected of being a witch.

The book was a thin paperback.  The illustrations were pencil drawings in black and white.  That’s about all I’ve got on it.  It was such an unusual story and I’ve never seen the book again.  Wish I knew where my copy got off to.  Probably gave it away when I felt I was too old for children’s stories…  geez…

 

When I search online, the later 80’s series about “Miss Nelson” pops up, but that is not it.

 

Thank you for your time!

278A: Rocket Club but not the Rocket Boys

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This is a book written in the 60’s about a group of boys who have a rocket club which meets on the farm of an old army general.

They design various rockets, and at one point there is an accident because two of the boys decide to include dangerous design changes.  I think they eventually get a trip to see a launch in Florida.  This is NOT Hickman’s “Rocket Boys” or “October Sky”.  It is also not “Countdown to Zero”.

276F: Scuba diving adventures

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Juvenile fiction from late 1960s or early 1970s with color illustrations of a teen boy and his father/uncle and their adventures scuba diving. I worked in the school library when I was 13-14 and was fascinated by this book, which piqued my interest in oceanography. I’ve searched on and off for many years. It’s not Sea Hunt and it’s not a Hardy Boys book. Any help locating a copy of this book would be much appreciated.

276C: A family tries to sell their house

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I’m looking for a book that a friend of mine read between 1978 and 1982 but the book may be older than that. It is about a family that wants to sell their house and each prospective buyer wants them to change something about the house (paint the inside, fix something outside etc). Over time they make so many changes to the house that the family decides not to sell. They end up liking the changes they’ve made and stay put.

275D: Bodysuits change colour

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This was a children’s novel about a advanced human society living separate to an abandoned post-disaster world.

The inhabitants now live in a peaceful and educated way, having somehow atoned for the previous mistakes. Everyone wears a bodysuit that changes colour dependant on the mood of the wearer. One scene describes a young girl’s family living room where the children ‘paint’ an image on a kind of computer screen that is displayed as an artwork.

In another, the children visit the old city, a chaotic abandoned world. My memories are sketchy but I think they find something there and the protagonist – I think it was the young girl – must walk through a super modern hall, a busy public area, with her bodysuit flashing colours wildly. The bodysuits glowed gently when the wearers were calm, and most were calm, so it was obvious to all when one was upset or aggressive.

Really quite incredibly prophetic as it must have been written before 1985. I borrowed it from a library in Australia in the early 1980’s.

 

274F: Wordless series of holiday books featuring rabbits

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The books I have in mind are a series of wordless picture books that were probably published in the 80s or early 90s. While they weren’t graphic novels or comic books per say, the images were arranged in panels on each page and you’d “read” it by following the story from left to right, top to bottom. The stories centered on a family of rabbits (or I’m pretty sure they were rabbits, they might have been mice) and there were books for each holiday—the ones I remember most vividly was the Halloween book and the Valentine’s Day book. The rabbits were anthropomorphic and were shown putting on coats for fall, trick or treating in a neighborhood, and so on.

I can still picture the books in our elementary school library and so the author’s name must have come closer to the end of the alphabet, since I remember them being nearer to the end of the shelves—possibly in the R, S, T section?

274E: A horse goes exploring

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I’m looking for a children’s paperback picture book (ages 4-6 ish) about a horse that escapes his/her stables to explore for the day – particularly in fields of strawberry patches. It was accompanied by a cassette tape, and the woman reading on the tape had a British accent, similar to Haley Mills or Julie Andrews (though she definitely had an expressive quality more similar to Haley Mills). I read it/listened to it as a child in the 80’s, but the illustrations seemed reminiscent of the 60s or 70s – similar in both colors and style to this image: www.pinterest.com/pin/550987335638025397/ Or similar to the lines of the hair in these pictures: www.pinterest.com/pin/550987335638025364/ Or similar to the clouds and sun in these pictures: www.behance.net/gallery/Bella-Butterfly-Childrens-Book-Illustrations/3105177

Unfortunately I don’t have a clue as to the title of the book or the author. The above is the most I can remember. Thank you!

274B: Non-fiction series with striped spines

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I’m trying to hunt down a series of nonfiction young reader picture books from the 80s. My family had 12-15 of them when I was growing up, and I recall them all having the same pattern on their spines – muted stripes of yellow, green, red, and blue. I’m under the impression that each book in the series had a different author/illustrator. Unfortunately I can’t remember any specific names or titles, but there are certain books from the series that I’ve tried to pinpoint:

Book 1: An instructional book on how to make costumes for various magical creatures and characters. There are instructions on how to make fairy and pirate costumes, among others I can’t recall. Vignette illustrations of fairy cakes and mushrooms are placed throughout. In the last spread, all of the magical characters have a feast.

Book 2: Title something along the lines of “On the Go” or “On the Move”? A more cartoonishly illustrated book on the progression of vehicle technology. Double page spread of horses and wagons mired in mud, illustrating life before the invention of roads. Some very 80s illustrations of sports cars. An image of a very nervous man in a tiny sedan being sandwiched between two Mac trucks.

Book 3: An instructional book on caring for pets, including detailed illustrations on how to build aquaria for turtles.

That’s pretty much it! I hope something rings a bell for someone. Good luck, everyone!