Category Archives: Unsolved

276C: A family tries to sell their house

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

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

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

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

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!

273D: Ethereal Little Mermaid Illustrations

I’m looking for a Hans Christian Andersen collection of fairy tales from the early 90s. I read it when around 1994-6 but it could have been published a little earlier. I remember it for its Little Mermaid illustrations. They were so beautiful and seemed to glow. Lots of pale mermaids with long blonder hair. Like angels. The pages I remember most are the pictures where the Little Mermaid’s sisters are hoisting each other up out of the sea to hand her a dagger to kill the prince. The last page is the Little Mermaid floating to the sky as an angel after she kills herself to save the prince. It was hardcover and I believe it also had The Princess and the Pea and The Tin Solider stories in it, but I think different illustrators worked on them.

 

Hope this was enough to be helpful. I tried to look up books published in that time frame with Hans Christian Andersen author credits, but couldn’t find a comprehensive list.

273C: Four Corners Young Adult Mystery

It’s a young adult mystery set in Four Corners area (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona).  A family moves to the Four Corner Area and the teen aged kids get involved with a museum.  The mystery involves oil and artifacts from the area.  The name of the book include the words “Black Gold,” but I’m not sure.  I read the paperback in the later 50s or early 60s.

272I: A girl experiences a ghostly phenomenon

This was a book my doctor had in his office when I was a kid in the 70s. It was a small paperback about a house that was haunted by children who used to live there–I think there may have been a murder committed that started the haunting, and a little girl who was either living in the house or had visited it who was experiencing the ghostly phenomenon.