Category Archives: Unsolved

373F: Horse and Sugar Bowl

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I am so thrilled to hear of your service!!   For the last day of school of my second grade, the teacher let us read books from the small classroom library. This was in 1962.  (Yes, I’ve been hunting for this book for over sixty years.). After lunch she made us pass up the books. She would not let me finish it. I watched as she packed all the books in cardboard boxes. The box with my book was likely shipped to the school district warehouse since it was so old.  And it wasn’t on the shelves when I snuck into the second grade classroom the beginning of my third grade.
What I remember, which is hardly anything, is that it was a larger format cloth cover.  The corners were worn and soft. (Maybe ten x fifteen? It was a thin book, perhaps green.) It looked “old fashioned” and I would guess it was published in the 1940’s.  The images were a type of collage with cut outs of real objects (like the sugar bowl) and a drawing of a horse cut and posed.  Then the scene was photographed in color.  That’s it :   a horse romping on a kitchen table and a sugar bowl.
It vaguely had the feel of a “Gumby” cartoon.   Hmmm….I never thought to hunt down the creater of Gumby.
I realize this is a long shot, but it would enable me to strike off one of the few items on my bucket list.

373E: Boy Builds House with Sticks and Mud

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I’m looking for a children’s picture book. NO ONE remembers this book, and I really want to buy it for my kids. A boy (I believe barefoot and in overalls?) builds himself a house with sticks and mud. He may also have a saw/hammer. It’s in a meadow or something. I feel like his parents were ignoring him or making a house professionally?

373D: English girl travels to Europe for summer as au pair to her rich, spoiled fraternal-twin cousins

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This book came into my hands in 1972, so it’s probably from 1960s (or possibly late 1950’s). The heroine is smart and has been accepted to university, but needs to make money over the summer. She agrees to take care of her fraternal-twin cousins (one of whom is named “Gaylord” and hates the name) as the family travels to the Continent. Definitely some beautiful descriptions of Lake Como. The beautiful elder sister of the cousins is meant to be getting engaged to some solid English prospect but has actually fallen in love with an “unsuitable” yet charming Italian. Our heroine ends up meeting the suitable prospect and sparks fly. His name is Timothy and/or he’s the heir to a tin mine (might have made up one of those because it sounds like the other). The ending is that they’re both going to the same university in the fall and presumably their romance will be continued/completed then. Oh and the twins come around in the end, too. I was most fascinated by the beginning, though, which is an account of her figuring out with her mum how to sew a respectable wardrobe for the summer with very little money.

373C: The Protagonist Named Paige

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I was born in 1963. Some time prior, probably 1960-63, my Mom read a book with a protagonist named Paige. She can’t remember the title or author and she thinks the protagonist may have been male. She named me Paige because of that book. 
If you can find the book, I’d like to get a copy. My Mom read constantly, her entire life, so it was probably a book published in that time period. 
Thank you!

373B: Jewish woman in the 1930’s – 1960’s Gets a Raise

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I am looking for the title and author of a book I read about 7-8 years ago (2015-2016). I believe it was a fairly recent release at that time, so this book isn’t too old. It is a historical fiction book (I can’t remember exactly what decade it was set in, but I believe it was 1930s-1960s) and what I remember most is that it was about a young Jewish woman who lived in an apartment in New York with her family and worked at an office in Manhattan. The other women at her work weren’t very nice to her, but she was really good at her job and got a promotion. Her home/family life was a big part of the book too. It even talked about cooking on the Sabbath and what was and wasn’t allowed. I know this isn’t much to go on because I don’t remember many details, but I absolutely loved the book. I have tried searching for it for about a year now and have come across a lot of books that hit these points, but they are not the right one. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

373A: Schizophrenic Episode

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I read this book maybe 10-15 years ago and had it from my library. It follows a European man who is a restaurant cook/chef and devolves into a schizophrenic episode. It talks about him scratching his scalp, leaving his job and ending up picking vegetables as a day laborer in a zombie-like state. It doesn’t tell you that this is a schizophrenic episode until his sister finds him (I don’t remember how) and gets him into treatment, you’re just along for the ride from his perspective.

I’ve been trying to find this for a few years, now.

372Z: Patapon the lost baby duck

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Trying to find a picture book about that my mother read as a child in the 1960s. A lost baby duck called Patapon. Patapon’s family go to search and at the end of each picture page the mother duck says, “Patapon is lost and we’re lost too. ” Patapon is found after escaping from a corn field that machinery was harvesting.

372Y: Early/mid 20th century children’s picture book; space fantasy setting; no text

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When I was a child in the 80s, there was an old picture book at the public library. It had no text, but it took place in a kind of fairy tale castle on some other planet. If I remember correctly, each scene followed two children as they explored the castle. They may have been following a piece of yarn that eventually led them to where their mother sat knitting in one of the castle rooms or towers. There may have been a sort of robotic-looking cat playing with the yarn at some point. I remember the artwork as being full color paintings like you find with 1960s scifi book covers or movie posters.

372W: Frau The Hare

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A children’s book which my Dad read to me when I was about 5. About a hare running from the hunt .. I remember feeling her fear .. for herself and her babies back home in the burrow .. When she arrived back safely with her babies I cried and cried !
It was a hardcover with pictures and the story .. a4 on its side . I think it had a dust cover as well ..