Category Archives: Unsolved

145K: Children’s Illustrated Mystery Book from late 1970’s?

Leave a reply

I have been trying for decades to find a book from my childhood. I would have been about 6 or 7 when I got it, so it would seem to be late 1970’s/early 1980’s. It was a hardcover book, about 8.5 x 11 size, with illustrations on each page that had the reader solve a mystery. I cannot remember the title though I seem to think it was a set of two, and perhaps the main character had “professor” in his name somehow. I also seem to recall one or both mysteries being set on a dock and/or boat. The illustrations were brightly colored with dark outlines; a graphic style more so than a detailed realistic illustration. Any help would be appreciated!

 

144I: Cabbage air freshener and a magical world?

2 Replies

YA or kids’ book, fantasy or magical realism.  Protagonist is a young girl.  She gets sent to the store to buy something with a wick — either an air freshener or a candle?  The one she buys is the last on the shelf, it’s in a dented can, and it smells like something you wouldn’t want air freshener to smell like.  I think it’s either cabbages or broccoli.  It’s also magical, and either gives her access to a magical world or brings her a friend/companion from a magical world.  That’s all in the book’s set-up, like in the first chapter.  No idea what happens from there.

 

144C: Children’s book regarding rainy day and umbrellas

4 Replies

I am looking for a children’s books that was probably published in the 1980s. I am 35 years old now so if this was a new book when I was a child, this would have been maybe around 1988, give or take a few years.
PLOT: What I remember about the book was that it involved a child going to school on a rainy day. When the child arrived at school, they saw all of the umbrellas of the other children lined up outside the classroom. I remember a page (actually I think the illustration covered two pages) depicting all of the different colors and patterns of the umbrellas, all dripping outside the classroom. The style of the illustrations seemed to be like watercolor paintings. I don’t remember anything else about the book, only that the rainy day and the umbrellas were at the center of the story.

 

144B: 1950’s YA boy & dad visit Abe Lincoln sites

Leave a reply

I Have been looking for over 50 years for a book I read during the late 50’s, most likely an offering from from the Weekly Reader’s Book Club or some other monthly book club of the era.

My hazy memory is that a boy and his dad (perhaps whole family), visit Lincoln’s birth site, etc., on some kind of vacation or road trip. Another book in this club was No Children, No Pets. Help! This is a chapter book.

 

143O: A Salmon’s Life Story

4 Replies

This is one of two books I read in elementary school – more than 50 years ago, circa 1960 that connected me with thoughts and feelings way beyond my tender years. I’ve never forgotten them & would love to read them again.

The first one followed a salmon from his birth and throughout his life to his serenely accepted death. The part I remember most vividly is when he swims to the ocean where he meets a whale with an aura about him, a whale who, although the book never expresses it outright, is more than just a whale. The salmon comments on the aura, and the whale is impressed – very few animals are able to see it.

The book ends at the pond where the salmon was born. He comments (via the 3rd person narrator) how it looks so much smaller to him now than when he was young; and then peacefully lets same fisherman he eluded back then catch him, ending the story.

I did an Amazon search and came across several books tracing the life of a salmon (both fiction and non-fiction), but none of them was the one I’m looking for. A few years ago I read a review of a book with a similar theme and wrote the author asking if the book I’m trying to locate was an inspiration for him, but he had no knowledge of it.