The book I am seeking was called Hyppo the Hippo. I’m not even sure how it was spelled. We pronounced it with a long I – Hypo?. It was a book very like the Barbar books in shape and had colored illustrations of hippos in human clothes. The baby hippo was left on a doorstep in a wicker wash basket. I imagine it was published in the 40’s
Category Archives: Unsolved
221B: Girl moves to country with parents and falls in love with boy named Eric
Hi! I’m looking for a book series written in the early 20th century (one in 1913)? It may be a children’s book series. It’s about a girl who moves to the country with her parents, where she falls in love with a boy named Eric.
Unfortunately I don’t have much more to go on, but here’s a few keywords/concepts that should appear in the series:
– The girl gets in trouble for wearing a skirt that goes above her ankles.
– Skiing with Eric.
– Wagons.
– Chickens?
Thank you so much for your help!!!
221A: “Solve this picture-mystery” collection of books
I’m not sure whether these were actually children’s/middle-readers books, but I loved them as a kid. Each two-page puzzle had a full black-and-white line-drawing illustration of a mystery on the left page, and a little exposition with leading questions on the right, to help the reader solve the mystery. The mysteries were things like “Who tampered with the paddles before the rowing competition?” and “How did the baby get downstairs in the elevator?” and “Who stole all the chickens from the coop?” I forget whether there were murders to solve too, but most of them were all-ages-friendly puzzles. Each book probably had 20 or 30 mysteries to solve, with answers in the back of the book. It was a series of largish paperback books–I’m pretty sure I had at least two or three of them–and I was reading them in the early-to-mid ’90s. Thank you!
220C: Animal Pirates in Space Seek Treasure on New Planets
Its a kids sci-fi picture book I loved as a child. I know it was popular in the late 80s or early 90s as that was when I was a kid. The book reminded me of “The Odyssey” but in space, and animal characters instead of humans. Each planet they traveled to, two of them would decide to stay. Sometimes their decision to stay would be a bad decision and sometimes it was okay. in the end, there was only one or two animals still on the ship, and on the last planet they visit, all their friends they lost throughout the journey, ended up being there.
220B: Children’s Science Fiction Chapter Book Yellow Cover People with Powers in Hidden City
I was in elementary school in the 90’s, and I remember a book or series of books in the school library that I believe were all by the same author but may not have contained the same characters. I think both books had yellow hard-back covers. One of the books cover had a woman on it with a third eye, the eye was possibly triangle shaped. I’m not sure I remember the plot line of that book if there was more than one book. The plot-line I do remember though went as follows: A girl (and possibly her family) moves to a farm/rural setting. While out walking one day she runs into an invisible wall. Somehow she, and possibly a boy (or her family) get through the wall, and there is a hidden city behind it, possibly made out of crystal. The people in the city are either alien in nature, or are people with powers, and those powers and possibly telekinesis and/or telepathy. I think she has to figure out how to escape from this city. I’m hoping someone knows what these books are.
220A: The Mystery of the Missing Diamonds
Publication: I believe this book was published in about 1969 or 1970.
Genre: Early teen to Pre-teen mystery, possibly bought from Scholastic Books
Plot: A young girl with the last name Duncan solves a mystery of some missing diamond jewelry. She ends up finding the thief, a lady new to town who goes everywhere with her poodle. The diamonds were hidden in the puff on the poodle’s head. Story takes place in the summer. One chapter in the book describes a garden party where the main character’s friend dresses in matching mother-daughter outfit with her mom. Main character appreciates her own mom as dressing in an “unfussy” way.
219D: Sisters feeding wildlife apples and nuts in snow
A picture book that I read in my childhood (early to mid 1990s) from a book that could have been written in 1960s to early 1990s. The main characters (2 to 3 sisters as I remember) fed wildlife (birds and also a few deer, there might have been squirrels as well) apples and nuts and seed in the snow outside of their house. I believe the sky was darkened as if it were night. The setting was fairly Germanic or Nordic. The house where the characters lived was either a log cabin or a Tudor style home. I believe a few of the animals looked in through a window in the house prior to getting their food. Outside the home there were a few evergreen trees. Set before Industrial Revolution.
I cannot remember for sure if this was a Christmas story or if it was only winter, but I lean towards believing the inside of the house was decked with garlands. I am pretty sure it is in English, but it could be in German as well.
219C: Chinese doll floating down a river
Looking for a picture book, early 1940’s, about a Chinese doll floating down a river, perhaps Yangtze. Definitely not The Story of Ping. Black/white illustrations, red cover.
219A:Treasure hunting goes wrong.
Young man is swindled out of his salvaged shipwrecked rubies (or sapphires or emeralds) by a beautiful girl with irregularly-cut hair and a love of diving inspired by reading Red Rackhams Treasure as a child. She is afraid of one thing, dying alone. They have a passionate affair, but she swindles him. He eventually retrieves his treasure from her, but finds her dying, he closes the door and leaves her to her worst nightmare:dying alone.
This book was written about the early 1990s by a chap writing for his PhD in geology in the university of Copenhagen. A debut novel. A bloke.
I can’t remember his name, name of the book. He stole my line about the Tintin thing. I must have met him at a conference and was asked about diving. I did lots of diving for geological samples and I was indeed inspired by Tintin books.
please help me re-find it. My copy was pinched off a ship I was working on.
218G:child preparing for First Communion
The book I’d like to find is religious, written for a child preparing for First Communion (Roman Catholic). In the story the child lives in a garden and welcomes a visitor to the garden. I believe that the book is hardback, wine-colored cover, about 10″ – 12″ tall. It may have been published in Cincinnati, but this is just a guess. I read it between 1952 and 1954. This is a tough one, but I’d love to find it. BTW do you know anyone who identifies music from just a few notes?