I can picture the cover perfectly. I read it in the early 90’s. A boy is in a small row boat and it is foggy. All I can remember is something about a small island he finds close to his house……good luck!
337S: Boy Rows Boat Through Fog
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Category Archives: Unsolved
337R: Children’s European Story Collection
Hello! I am looking for a storybook collection that I had in the 1980’s.
This book had a number of stories in it that seemed European based. I believe the first story was of a little boy whose mother made him green dungarees with a plane on them that he loved. He accidentally tore them on a fence and was very sad until his mother patched it with a star instead of a plane.
Another story was from Denmark about a boy whose father was a fisherman. The pictures in this one were monochromatic (rust colored.) The picture was of the boy standing close to the sea and possible the famous mermaid statue.
Another story was of a mother hedgehog. I believe it had a picture of a hedgehog in an egg cup.
I believe the back cover of the book was blue.
This book was read to me every night and it was my favorite. I would be so happy to finally find it again!
337Q: Hearts and Flowers
I am looking for a 1920’s-30s romance, where the heroine earns her living being a professional letter writer, and she begins a correspondence with a young man (invalid/injured?) using the persona of an elderly motherly woman. The only other detail that I can recall is she sent the young man some women’s hats and requested that he choose the one he liked for her.
337P: Tearjerker
I am looking for a 1920s-30s illustrated children’s book where the plot revolves around a rich little boy who is injured (toy boat explosion), who stays at home communicating through his window with the poor little girl who lives across the street. His head is wrapped in gauze. The format of the book may be square?
337O: Children Stories About Science
I remember two stories, and I believe they may be from the same book. One story is of some kids that get “hired” by a local scrap metal company to figure out how to crack open metal cannonballs. They first try burying it in the snow, but find that the snow acts as an insulator, preventing the cannonball from getting cold enough to crack. The kids then re-try by leaving the cannonball in the open (at least that’s what I remember), at which point the metal is cold enough to crack.
The other story also involves children, this time on a beach. They collect up seawater, rig up a distilling system, and then boil the water to make steam. The steam is collected up as drinkable water.
Thanks in advance!
337M: Girl Escapes Dystopian World Through Sewer To Find Mother
In the mid- 90s we had a college student come to my class for a project on the impact of sci-fi/fantasy novels on kids. We had a selection of books to choose from, like “Girl with the Silver Eyes” and the Tripod trilogy. There was one I started, but had to give back the next day as the project ended earlier for some reason.
I think the title had something to do with “moon” or had the word “moon” in it. It started with a girl escaping a city through the sewer (I think she lived there with extended family?) to go find her mother. I think it was kind-of in the dystopian genre. The mom was presumed dead, or shunned from society in some way.
337L: Picture Book Featuring Pink Cat And Blue Dog
Back in 2001 (I am 23 now, I was about 4-5 years old at the time), I recall picking out this book from my old preschool “library” that I borrowed for a weekend that I can’t remember the title of. However, I remember the character designs spot-on and I remember some vague idea about the subject that the book covered.
I don’t know if it’s much to go off of, but what I do remember is that it was definitely a children’s picture book about rain (or weather in general as the topic, this memory is very fuzzy for me) and the two main characters in this book are an anthropomorphic light pink cat (female) with yellow, almond-shaped eyes that wore either a raincoat or a fishing vest with a wide-brimmed hat of some sort and an anthropomorphic baby blue dog (male) that may or may not have had a raincoat on as well. I also remember that he either had a droopy or gruff-looking face while the cat had a more cheerful disposition. The dog was much taller than the cat in height and I think they were both weather reporters? Or maybe the cat was a weather reporter? Again, I’m not entirely sure.
The book itself was hardcover and looked relatively old and worn out at the time (keeping in mind that again, this is around 2001). So I’m assuming its older than that. The cover had an illustration of the female cat character and the male dog character standing beside each other in their raincoats, under an umbrella, while rain fell from the sky. (Again not entirely sure if this is what it was, my memory is fuzzy.)
This is all the information I have to go off of. I don’t remember the title, the author or the illustrator. Just what I mentioned above.
I tried googling this book for years with no luck whatsoever, but the closest I came was running into the phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs” when browsing children’s books and thinking that the book I’m looking for was either called that, was a twist on this phrase or maybe the characters I talked about were based off that idiom since the plot/subject of that book was about either rain or weather.
I’ve been looking for this book for so long with no success and I’m honestly starting to think that it never even existed. Maybe it’s just a false memory or a fever dream or something? If someone here knows what I’m talking about and could point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it! Thanks.
337K: Cursive Letters Tractor Mystery
I know this is a long shot but I am looking for a book that I can only remember a few key details about, as well as what the cover looks like. It was definitely published before 2007. I would assume it is considered in the subject category of “Teen Fiction” or something similar. On the cover, there is cursive writing and an image of a letter, the background is a maroon/red color. The few details I can remember include a girl who was a bit of an outcast in their school falling in love with a boy but there is some secret that is being kept. There was an accident involving a tractor which resulted in manslaughter, and that’s all I can remember.
337J: Cowboys and Indians in England
The book I’m looking for was a children’s book probably published in the 1950s, although possibly going to back to the ’20s or so (no later than the early 1960s and I’m pretty sure it belonged to one of my parents when they were children, both born in 1949). I believe it took place somewhere in England or in Europe. Our copy did not have the dust jacket so I don’t know what was on the cover other than it was a green hardback. The most distinctive feature was a neighborhood map on the inside cover, probably in orange.
The plot concerned the kids in this neighborhood. I believe there was a new family moving in from America, and the kids played cowboys and Indians and built a teepee in a front yard (I remember learning that the British word was “garden” for yard from this book). And if I remember correctly, there was something beyond the neighborhood on the map, like a meadow, forest, or some kind of land over a fence or boundary line that the kids would go over to play.
I’m a librarian and I have searched WorldCat a lot for this book, and have also contacted the Library of Congress, the NYPL and the British Library with no luck. I have a feeling that a word related to the neighborhood was in the title, something like “Street,” “Lane,” “Road,” etc. so I have searched those kinds of words a lot but nothing pops up that looks familiar. Several times I have thought that it was something like the Mulberry Street or Primrose Lane books but those don’t have the right plots. Or maybe the title had something to do with whatever the kids called their little group– maybe something American Indian related.
Thanks for your help! I don’t know why I am so fixated on this…
337I: Suki Steps on Snake
I am looking for a children’s book set in India. A girl steps on a snake, she has a sister and a father, her name might be Suki. I read it in the late 1960s.