1950/60s Children in Paris adventure. Involves model Eiffel Towers that are real gold and the release of birds in the Paris bird market.
226G: Children in Paris
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Category Archives: Unsolved
226F: Antique musical book
I had an antique children’s book which had mechanical sound effects built into the back part of the book. It had strings coming out of the side which were attached to a variety of calls and whistles made of wood and paper. Maybe late 19th century?
226E: Adventures in science (description updated)
My husband is always talking about a series of books he read as a boy (born 1957), probably from school or city library. He remembers them being called “Adventures in…” followed by some sort of science title. The protagonists were two boys, one or both pre-teens. They would travel with their father and have what I guess were all science adventures (there could have been others, like mathematics, but my husband remembers only the two that were science oriented). The two he always talks about are the chemistry book (perhaps Adventures in Chemistry?) where the boys went to a laboratory and made toothpaste (he remembers the younger boy tasting the toothpaste and liking it) and a book about model rockets (Adventures in Rocketry, perhaps?). The boys and their dad are driving to a deserted place where they can shoot off their rockets and are stopped by the police who see all the rockets and the rocket motors in the car and are upset; maybe the dad shows them a permit to shoot off rockets or something to let the police know they are no threat. It’s our 25th anniversary coming up and I’d love to dig up one of these books, but I’ve never found them searching online.
226B: Parade Delays Dinner With Friend
The book I am trying to find was one of my favorites in the mid 1980s – not sure when it was published. The entire book is illustrated in an interesting way – every page is sort of sepia/black and white. The plot: a boy who is invited over to his friend’s house for dinner, but when he arrives at her house, no one is home. He sits on her stoop feeling sure that the friend doesn’t like him anymore. Later, the friend and her mother come home, and the friend tells the boy an incredible story about why they were so delayed. She tells him they were stuck in a parade – and I seem to remember something about a truck spilling molasses or some other gooey substance all over the street at the parade. The boy thinks the friend is lying, but the next morning he realizes she was telling the truth because it’s in the newspaper. The girl’s name MIGHT be Emily and the boy’s name MIGHT be Horace (these names could be wrong).
226A: Picture book of toys
It is a children’s hard page book. I had it in 1987. The lines that I can remember are:
Look at all of baby’s toys!
Big ones and little ones
Shiny toys and cuddly toys
Some to push and some to pull
Toot Toot! Here comes the truck.
Choo choo! Here comes the train
Ok – that’s all I got. 🙂 I know this is a long shot. It was my daughter’s favorite book – and she just had my first granddaughter. It would be such a great treat if I could find this book!
Thank you!
225D: Girl experiences loss and self exploration in New England
Adolescent book from 1980s: Girl and her lovely sister move to New England; the sister gets cancer and dies. They meet and interact with all kinds of characters, including a pregnant couple they think is not really married and a photographer. At the end of the book, she goes to an exhibit called Faces of New England and sees her own face among the portraits submitted by the photographer friend, and sees herself in a new way. Beautifully written, a book that stayed with me a long time as a teenager.
Thanks for your help!
225C: A snail called Selina
Picture book. Featuring a snail called Selina (sp?). Was beloved by my grandpa when he was a child – he was born in the late 1930s. He recalls the illustrations as fantastic. Unsure of title or author. Possibly an Australian title. Google searches haven’t turned anything up. Look forward to hearing from you. Can contact me at moo_haha@hotmail.com.
Regards, Sharni
225A: In Lucky & Lazy Land
Title of story ‘In Lucky & Lazy Land?’ About kids eating thru spaghetti mtn and cooked pig running around w/fork in him. Moral was about things coming too easy (laziness).”
I could have story title wrong but that’s what I remember. Title of book is unknown but looks similar to Favorite Stories Old & New.
I wish I could look at TOC for every book from that style and publisher. Gist of the story is about two kids I think who ate through a mountain of spaghetti together to this special land where every thing was done for them. Food walked around already cooked or growing on trees ready to eat. No work required. People sat back and were lazy.
224I: Cross country adventure
A book that my 6th grade teacher read to my class back in 1978-79. It was about a family – I think they were on vacation – and the kids were separated/lost their parents. The kids began a journey traveling across the country – the thing I remember the most is that they slept in stores/maybe shopping malls…
Thank you for your help – I have been looking for years!
224H: Stone Soup
The title is Stone Soup. I don’t know the author or year, but the main characters were pigs instead of humans and I think all the townspeople were various other animals but I’m not sure. I believe the background of the cover was light blue and there was a picture of the pigs on front. Also, it was hardcover. I read this book probably in 1985-1986, but I don’t know when it was actually published.