Looking for a Childhood Book? Here’s How.
Looking for our antiquarian children’s bookstore?
Go to https://www.oldchildrensbooks.com
Looking for our antiquarian children’s bookstore?
Go to https://www.oldchildrensbooks.com
You are looking at a new website, same address, with all the features and more, right on this site! Thousands of queries and solutions from the last five years are all here.
The search below is an exciting addition: Search the Content: try Dragon, or Sister, or Christmas. Or click on the green bars, select Author and call up our experts like Mama Squirrel… or search your own contributions. You can also hide Replies for a quick visual search, follow Users, Edit using the Settings gear… and more!.
You can be notified of responses by signing in using your old Disqus password or you can establish a new one. “Subscribe” (upper left).
Many thanks to Kelvin Kathia of Journeybytes.com for figuring all this out very quickly.
Note: Children’s book queries only: all comments are moderated and thus take a few hours to appear here; ads, links to sales venues, and direct contact info will be deleted.
It will take Google a few weeks to connect with this new site since Disqus hasn’t functioned well since December. We welcome your comments now, but feel free to repost later in March. Suzanne
Hi – I’m looking for a book I fell in love with as a teen back in the 70s. I swear it was called To Catch a Falling (or Rising?) Star but none of the many books with either of those titles is what I am looking for (none are old enough either). From what I remember, it is about a teenage girl who falls in love with a young man who is intent on entering a seminary, so she instead begins a relationship with another boy, who is a friend to them both. However, it is soon revealed that the first boy has a disease (cancer?) that will soon claim his young life, so she is torn between revealing her true feelings for him before his death or staying with her current boyfriend. It was a very tragic, heartrending story, and the details may not be 100% accurate, but I just remember it haunting me for years after and I would love to track it down. I thought I had located it on ebay as an old library book a few years ago, but sadly did not purchase it at the time.
I am looking for a book set from the early 1990’s. I don’t remember much but I know it was a set of four board books that came in a carrying case. The books took place in the jungle and one boom had the main character of a lion.
Hi, i don’t recall too many details but a group of siblings are traveling separate from their parents (I believe they may have died) but they get stuck in an awful rain storm and have to stop for the night (their car may have broken down as well, I remember a tree falling at some point). They wind up at a creepy hotel that turns out to be haunted. Any help is great appreciated – it was a short chapter book!
The Great Good Thing by Roderick Townley.
“Sylvie had an amazing life, but she didn’t get to live it very often. Sylvie has been a twelve-year-old princess for more than eighty years, ever since the book she lives in was first printed. She’s the heroine, and her story is exciting — but that’s the trouble. Her story is always exciting in the same way. Sylvie longs to get away and explore the world outside the confines of her book.
When she breaks the cardinal rule of all storybook characters and looks up at the Reader, Sylvie begins a journey that not even she could have anticipated. And what she accomplishes goes beyond any great good thing she could have imagined…”
“Sylvie has been a 12-year-old princess for more than 80 years, ever since the book she’s a character in was first printed. She’s the heroine of the exciting story, but she only gets to play her part when a reader opens the book and starts the action. One day Sylvie makes an exciting, but dangerous discovery: She can travel beyond her own pages and into the dreams of her reader. When a mischievous little boy takes a match to Sylvie’s pages, her whole book community must take their chances within the dreams of their reader, Claire. Once the royal family and many of the community members have arrived in the city of Claire’s dreams, they must adjust to a new life that includes dangers, betrayal, and life outside the written lines of their old story. Eventually Sylvie is charged with the dangerous task of forging a new path in the memories of Claire’s daughter, Lily. It’s a risky move, but Sylvie is driven to do a great, good thing.”
Other books in the trilogy are Into the Labyrinth and The Constellation of Sylvie.
Here are more links to possum books:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=18197218004&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp14-_-title20
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=7696343625&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp17-_-title7
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30972063054&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp15-_-title10
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=10387778978&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp19-_-title15
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22720568022&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp19-_-title20
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30788299911&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp22-_-title11
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30603937735&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp25-_-title5
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22383600169&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp25-_-title1
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=19357008676&searchurl=n%3D200000013%26pt%3Dbook%26ds%3D20%26sortby%3D18%26kn%3Dpossum&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp22-_-title12
Hi there – I’m searching for a children’s book I read to my son 10 or so years ago that had a page featuring a “tired old soldier” resting under a tree – and had an illustration to go with it. Any chance this rings any bells with someone? Would love to track down that old book…
Found two more possum books:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1577252.Possum_in_the_House
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303158720853
Found this book, but don’t know if it came with a puppet.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10576822-brave-brush-tail-possum
I grew up in Australia and would have read this in the 1970s. It was a circus-themed book. A child asks the ringmaster how they train the horses to dance to the music. The ringmaster replies that the horses are not trained to dance to the music; the bandleader changes the tempo to match the horses.
hi i’m looking for this childrens book from my childhood that i cannot remember the title of, and there was a giraffe and a elephant, i believe one of them made a suit, and they went to some party, please help me find it!!
I’m trying to find a book I did a book report on in elementary or middle school. There were two kids, an older boy and a younger girl. They were orphaned. The girls name might have been Annie or something similar. I don’t remember a ton of details except at one point they wind up in a city and separate because the boy wants to join this group of street kids and the girl doesn’t. I think they get adopted at the end? They start on a farm or something of that nature and there’s a lot of travelling in the book. I seem to remember there being a circus too but I could be mixing that up with something else.
It might be the wrong one, but is it ‘What Faust Saw?’ By Matt Ottley? I know that book is about a dog in the night seeing monsters?
I appreciate your guess! This is not the book I was thinking of, I believe the dog in my book was white, maybe with a black spot or two.
Hi i am looking for a book with very vague memory from the 90s. A book for older kids 8 years on wards . Book about 500pages with short stories by an american author was american stories. Coloured illustrations looked like from 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s and 80s. One story from it with picture was when abraham Lincoln was young his laying on the grass reading a book. And another story is with a picture of a boy peeping from behind his cabin door in snowy weather looking at a moose getting close. And another story is about a greedy couple cutting open a goose to get more golden eggs. Also had a young thomas Edison story. Looked like american characters and stories. Could be a book from 50s 60s 70s 80s or may be 90s. It was torn with no covers. Would love to get it for my kids
Hello! I’m desperately trying to find a book I used to have as a child. I don’t remember the title, author or detailed context. All I remember is it is based at a school house for girls. And each girl had a little doll that looked like themselves. They kind of resembled Precious Moments figurines. The animation style was detailed and vintagey. There was a lot of reds and browns in the illustrations. I think it was the first day of school, and the main character was having trouble making friends. That’s all I remember unfortunately. I had it in the late 90s/early 2000s. It was a very sweet book. I greatly appreciate any help!!
American possums have skinny rat-tails. Australian brushtail possums have fluffy tails, as do several other Australian possum species – and they did say it may have been an Australian book.
Looking for a middle-grade book about a story-book princess who becomes self-aware that she’s in a story. The reader of her book (a girl) reads the story while almost asleep and the princess jumps from her book into the girl’s dreams, eventually reminding the girl of the whole story and bringing the royal family into the girl’s dreams. The “alarm-clock dream” was a plot point. Cover might have had a princess peeking out of trees that morphed into book pages.
not really a children’s book but “mr. limpet” by theodore pratt? it was the basis for the movie “the incredible mr. limpet” starring don knotts.
Found this one with similar theme, but title doesn’t match.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1537298.Grandpa_Grouper
im looking for a children’s book…I can’t remember the title….the book has about 8-10 pgs and on the last page is a blanket you lift up to reveal a little girl lying on her bed
hello! i am looking for a book about fairies. i knew it as an audiobook so in my mind it is british but i’m not certain. all i remember is fairies coming to the windowsill of a young girl, i’m pretty sure there was something about a glass of water and like a grandma with asthma or something??? and i remember another part was in like an old toy shop, second hand toys maybe? ahh i wish i could remember more.
Benny blue the pig:
My family is trying to locate this story because sod a family nickname that came about from it. It was a children’s book in the 30s.
There is a childrens book I could swear was called Waldo the Fish. He was orange, had glasses and bumped into lots of things. Thats all I can remember and Id love to read it to my son whom recently got glasses for the first time
“I need help finding a children’s book! Borrowed from a library in Kansas sometime between 1999 and 2003. It had fantastical illustrations of weird things like fish swimming up an old man’s beard and snakes putting their tails in their mouths and rolling like tires. That’s about all I can remember.”.
I am trying to remember a book I had when I was young – late 80s to early 90s. I remember the cover a being yellow and green with a picture of the front garden of a house. The story focused on what lived in the garden/ yard of the house with beautiful illustrations of even the earthworms burrowing in the earth. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
The first one is probably The Great Blueness by Lobel. Here are some pictures https://www.oldchildrensbooks.com/books/the-great-blueness-21608
Hi! I’m looking for two books from my childhood, both going back at least 20 years. One was about a king or emperor who ruled over a black and white world and wanted to paint it. Blue made everyone sad, red made everyone angry and I think it was yellow that made everyone feel sick. An accident happened in the paint room and he ended up with multicoloured paints which made everyone happy. The second book I’m looking for is called Tempus Fugit but I can’t remember the author. This one is about a girl who moved into a new house with her parents and whilst playing hide and seek, she hid in an old trunk which made her go back in time. She went back a few hundred years to when the man who built the house was alive and ended up a mistreated scullery maid.
Looking for a 1970’s vintage children’s book consisting of small stuffed animals eating breakfast, bathing, dressing & grooming with vibrant color backgrounds. Mother watching over them & pages made of thick cardboard. My book is missing cover & remainder pages in pieces.
Probably not it – but have you taken a look at Andrew Henry’s Meadow by Doris Burn?
“Andrew Henry has two younger brothers, who are always together, and two older sisters, who are always together. But Andrew Henry is in the middle–and he’s always with himself. He doesn’t mind this very much, because he’s an inventor. But when Andrew Henry’s family doesn’t appreciate him or his inventions, he decides it’s time to run away. Many children in the neighborhood feel the same way and follow him to his meadow, where he builds each of his friends a unique house of their very own. But in town the families miss their children and do everything they can to find them. And the kids realize that it feels a little lonely out in the meadow without their parents.”
It’s only one boy doing the building, but he does create some rather spectacular customized houses for his friends.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wm_xnAL1usc/TcF4-11_wpI/AAAAAAAACe4/b176HVEDFuI/s1600/andrewhenry14.jpg
Eleanor Estes’ book Rufus M. mentions Rufus being left-handed, but I don’t remember a tornado.
I’m posting for my stepfather.
He’s looking for a book about a kid named Rufus who is left handed and would write with his hand curled around so it was like a right hand, a tornado comes and takes out a chunk of land in front of his house out like a concave hole.
He read it in 1960.
Can’t recall the name of an illustrated children’s book, about a dog who’s boy is lost in a city at night. I think the dog went around with a flashlight, encountering some spooky monsters as he searches for his boy.
Kristin, I am looking for this book too! I came on here today just for that purpose. Let’s hope we can find it. I read it at nursery school in 1970-71, so it’s at least that old.
The Good Stepmother by Marguerita Rudolph
A king cares lovingly for his daughter Elena after his young wife dies. As she grows up Elena wishes she had a mother as other children do. At first she does not explain her sadness to her father, but after he questions her, she wishes he would take a new wife. What if he were to choose a bad stepmother? he asks. Elena says she will make the choice. So the king invites all eligible women to the palace ballroom. The chamberlain arranges them in three rows–the noblewomen in the first, the daughters of landowners and merchants in the second, the peasant girls in the third. Elena puts a small bandage on her little finger and asks each woman two questions: Did you sew your dress yourself? Is the embroidery of your own design? Only the women in the third row could answer yes to both questions. As Elena comes to the end of the last row a young peasant girl Mashenka inquires, as Elena asks of the fine work in her dress, about Elena’s injured finger. “Would you be my mother?” Elena asks. “Nothing would make me happier,” Mashenka replies. So Elena presents Mashenka to the king.”
The Good Stepmother, by Marguerita Rudolph.
And just in case you’ve confused an otter with a possum, there’s always
“Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas” by Russell Hoban
I don’t know if it ever came with a puppet, but it’s been around since 1971.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2712343-emmet-otter-s-jug-band-christmas
Not this one unfortunately, it was a hand puppet with a fluffy tail!
Are you sure it was a possum? Possums do not have fluffy tails. They have skinny ratlike tails.
Found this one from around that time that comes with what looks like a finger puppet.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4705265-paddy-o-possum-s-prayer-book
I am looking for a book I used to get out from the library often as a child. (20 years ago) It was about a Princess who’s father wants a mother for her. So he calls all the maidens of the land to come to his palace and she will choose which one will be her new mother. As she walks through the lines of finely dressed women the only one who notices a small bandage on her pinky finger is a simple dressed quiet woman. and that is who the girl chooses to be her mother. not only did I love this story as a girl, the book had beautiful illustrations.
I’m searching for a children’s picture book from the early 2000s. It was purchased in New Zealand but was possibly Australian. The book featured a trouble making possum and was a story about him and his forest friends. The book ended with the possum and his friends dancing around a fire in the forest at night. It also came with a possum hand puppet. I can’t find record of it anywhere- it wasn’t Possum Magic or any other common google search result.
I’m looking for this childhood book. I can’t remember the name or pin point the character but it was a short books that came in a small collection and I believe it had two African America children on it and I think they was siblings brother and sister. And the book cover was just them in different senarios but the hard covers were yellow, light blue, pink, purple. I’ve believe there was a mouse with them to. Like I remember the covers but can’t think of the name and can’t find it anywhere on google
Could it be one of the versions of the book Stone Soup?
Weary travelers show up and are very hungry, but the villagers are greedy and won’t share. They tell the travelers that they have no food, so the travelers offer to make soup of only stones. As they make it they mention ingredients that would make it better (potatoes, onions, milk, etc.), and the now eager villagers contribute food to the pot. In the end they make a delicious soup, and the villagers keep saying in amazement, “And it was only made from stones!!!” Does this ring any bells?
Hello. I’m looking for the first chapter book I ever read. It was an older book I got in the 1970s from the bookmobile. So the book was probably from the 1950s/1960s. I thought it was called A is for Alice but it had nothing to do with Alice in wonderland. I remember one part talked about the little girl and her mother. I have been looking for this book for over 2 decades…PLEASE help me.
Hello. I am remembering a childhood book. Two boys build an eclectic house/fort in the woods out of found and recycled bits of lumber and wall paper etc. One was tall and one was short and together they make an amazing place. Maybe one was named Pete? I think they were sort of blond Swedish looking. any ideas?
Hello. Looking for a big fat anthology of poems for children, beautifully illustrated in color and printed on glossy paper sometime between 1994-2000. Cover had animals on a white background. It’s not the child’s book of verse— for some reason I thought it was some version of “A Child’s Book of Poems” but can’t find anything that matches. It was very thick, and included some longer poems like The Song of Hiawatha.
Hi! I’m looking for a book my mom remembers. It’s about a gray (?) sweater that gets holes in it. The person unravels it and reknits it into mittens and then dyes them cherry red. It’s an older children’s picture book. Have any idea what it is?
I remember an child’s picture book, I think it was called “The Calico Cat” —there are a lot of books with that or a similar title. This would have been published before 1975, possibly in the 60s. A kitten gets injured and its mother patches it with fabric; this happens repeatedly and so the kitten ends up being like a patchwork quilt cat. That’s all I remember, other than a very specific image that I think will help me identify when I have the correct one. I’d love any help on this. I asked my many siblings and one sister said she also thinks it was “The Calico Cat”. Thanks!
Maybe Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude by Kevin O’Malley?
Once upon a time there was … a princess who loved all her beautiful ponies, and a cool muscle dude who rode an awesome motorcycle. But a giant came and started stealing the ponies! The dude came to fight the ugly, smelly giant with his mighty sword. She turned gold into thread while she cried for Buttercup, her favorite pony. And he took the princess’s gold thread for payment The end!
Wait a minute! That’s not how it ends!
Oh no?
Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl who had to tell a fairy tale to the class, but they couldn’t agree on the story. Will everyone live happily ever after?
Possibly A Baby for Max by Kathryn Lasky.
“Text and photographs record a five-year-old as he awaits the birth of the family’s new baby and enjoys her afterward.”
Mr. Pine’s Mixed-up Signs by Leonard P. Kessler.
Mr. Pine made signs. He made signs that said STOP. He made signs that said GO. He made signs that said FAST. And signs that said SLOW. When the signs in Little Town were old, the mayor said, “we need all new signs.” Mr. Pine painted all new signs in one week. “I will put them up,” he said. But he could not find his glasses. He put the signs up anyway. The signs were all MIXED-UP! Little Town was all mixed-up! Where were Mr. Pine’s glasses? Who had his glasses? How did he solve the problem of all those mixed-up signs?
If you have the book, it would be great if you could upload an image or provide a link, so someone can id it by the illustrator. I’ll approve the link. Good Luck,
Suzanne
Hello! I’m looking for a book that I loved when I was a child in the 80s. Not sure when it was published. What I remember of the story is that at night a boy would put on his “crash helmet” which was either a pot, a pan, or a colander (can’t remember which), and drive through the center of the earth to Australia. There, he met lots of Australian animals, one of which was a Kookaburra bird in a blue gum tree. I’ve been trying to find this book for years. I would be so happy if I could find its name.
Hop Aboard! Here We Go! by Richard Scarry.
I’m looking for a book that would of been around in the 1960s about a man who’s job was to put up street signs but then becomes blind so all the street signs are wrong. Any ideas?
Christmas book about mice. starts out with snowball fight and they knock over a grumpy old rat neighbor. Mouse learns true meaning of Christmas by giving away his handmade scarf to rat and they have him over for dinner.
I’m looking for a book about a boy who used to get picked on by his science or history teacher. The teacher had greasy hair and a thin mustache. The teacher made the boy stay after class one day and turned the boy into a dog. The boys friends took him to a lady’s house who made him drink a potion. The boy then chases his teacher through time as far back as acient Rome and I think the teacher turned out to be an evil wizard. I have been searching for this book for years.
I am looking for a book my brother and I loved as grade school kids in the 1950’s. The book itself may have been older than that even. It was a rather somber little book with a gray cover (hardback) about a mouse in a house who finds a cheese. We do not even remember the name of the book! Any hope out there? Thanks!
I feel like this could be a long shot but my best friend is trying to find a book she remembered from the third grade. She says she thinks it came out in 2010 when we were in 3rd grade but my guess would be around like 2009-2014 maybe? All I know is its about a princess that owns unicorns and an ogre ends up stealing them. The only way that she got them back was from the help from a biker. I tried to see if she could think of anything else. All i got was that the characters where exactly what you’d think they would look like. She also said that the biker was on the front with unicorns behind them.
I’m trying to find a children’s picture book from the late 90’s to early 2000’s. I believe I read it in 2004.
It’s about a coin operated horse thats by the ocean. She watches wild horses on a nearby island and I think wishes on a a star and she falls into the ocean and becomes a seahorse but eventually gets to the island and becomes a real horse.
I am looking for a book from Scholastic in the 1970s. A young girl visits / goes to live with her two aunts on an apple farm in upstate new york. She starts out pale and ends up healthy pink cheeked
Maybe take a look at Fardingales by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer – or one of the other books in the Chudleigh Hold series. (Other titles in the series are Chudleigh Hold, The Condor Crags Adventure, Top Secret, and The Susannah Adventure.) They do take place near the village of Applesendie, and there is a nearby sea cave and a network of underground passages that connect up to the cave which feature prominently in the books.
If it was a collection of stories by various authors, it may have included an excerpt from one of the Chudleigh Hold books.
From reviews of Fardingales:
“The heroes Humphrey Anthony, his cousin Anstace Rosevere and their friend Tom Vinton (who appear in later books with some of the Chudleighs) find that small articles of personal property mysteriously disappear. There are mysterious passageways and eerie cellars and then Humphrey and Anstace are kidnapped and imprisoned. What has the house Fardingales got to do with desperate criminals?”
“Humphrey, Jill and invalid Rodney Anthony – all quite normal names! – go to Fardingales to stay with their mother’s sister, Aunt Francie and her family, during the summer. Uncle Tim recently inherited the big house, as he was the next male in the Roseveare line. Their children have rather remarkable names: Anstace, twins Lettice and Quentin and Thorold. Nearly all the names are shortened at one point, but they’re a bit much.
Rodney is in a much worse state than Charles Chudleigh, and his parents are glad for him and his older brother and sister to come to the seaside, where they hope the sun and sea air will help build up his strength for an operation that will allow him to walk again. All seems set for a good time, but there are some strange things about Fardingales as the older visitors learn. The family all sleep on the ground floor after some of their things have gone unaccountably missing, scaring nervy Letty in particular. There are rumours flying about the local village of Applesendie about the family, making it hard to get local help, and once she hears of these things, even unimaginative Jill gets the feeling she’s being watched, sometimes.”
From Chudleigh Hold:
“The really important items of history and location are the secret passages. Cousin Merrill, fresh from Switzerland, quickly knows all about these, whereas the Chudleigh siblings, who have merely spent their entire lives living there, appear oblivious to their existence until Crumpet notices Cousin Merrill’s ability to get from A to B unseen. The Chudleigh siblings do know about the cavern (which is where, it turns out, all the passages end up) – this is accessible from the coast, a half hour walk away. It extends all the way inland right under the house, where unwary occupants are easily freaked out by the weird booming noise the sea makes crashing around inside the cavern… The cousin from Switzerland turns out to be an imposter who is helping a local gang to enter houses to steal jewels and paintings, but Crumpet (with the help of Hawk and Auntie M (and the revolver)) figures this out and foils the attempt on Chudleigh Hold.”
I’m looking for a book where one day some things crashed down from the sky, and it turns out they were children from another world. One family adopts a girl, and their son ends up marrying her and they have a daughter together. The boy has dreams of stars which turned out to be the time and location where The hybrid children are taken in clay cylinders back to their world.
Looking for a children’s book about welcoming a new baby sibling that I remember from my childhood (1980s/1990s) and am hoping to share with my own son as we are expecting our second child. The book was a series of black and white photographs (with associated text) of a little boy and the events surrounding the birth of his new sibling. There was a picture of his mom’s belly, the new baby crying, baking cookies with grandparents who were visiting, etc. Thanks for any leads!
Hello! I am looking for an old children’s board book that my sister loved reading. She is having a baby soon and I thought it would be a sweet gift for her. It is missing the cover and end of the book so I only have the middle, I do not have a title or author. A few lines from the book include, “Penguin has a car To drive away, And look what Rabbit Is painting today. Kitten’s toy train Chuffs around, choo-choo! And Panda has music For dancing to.” “Frog has a jigsaw to share with mouse, And Lion plays with the little doll’s house.” “Bear sits in the chair with a nursery rhyme” I have looked everywhere but cannot seem to find the book. I would very much appreciate it if someone could help my find this book. Thanks!
I’m looking for a girls adventure story omnibus from the 50’s. One of the stories was set in the seaside village of Applesendie or Applesendey and was a tale of smugglers
Wilbur’s Space Machine by Lorna Balian.
“In this story with an ecological theme, elderly Violet and Wilbur live in the middle of beautiful countryside, surrounded by “. . . clean, peaceful space . . . .” But, soon, their valley becomes congested with people, houses, and cars. The focal point of aggravation is a neighbor child named Googie, who tramples their garden in the spring, litters it in the summer, and steals their harvest in the fall. Wilbur decides to build a space machine to recover the “clean, peaceful space” he loves, but the space he creates just disappears into the air. Violet advises him to capture the space in balloons; when she ties them to the porch railing, the house floats up into the air, and Wilbur and Violet are once more surrounded by space.”
Thank you for the reply. This description doesn’t sound familiar but it’s been 30ish years. I will look for the book to see.
From another description of the book:
The clean, peaceful valley surrounding Wilbur and Violet’s house “in the middle of nowhere” becomes transformed by the congestion of suburbia. The couple figures out a way to have more space, but they also get, and, ultimately, get rid of Googie!
Thank you for the follow-up Chandra, but that doesn’t sound quite right, from my memory the last line of the book is “and we’ve got Googie”. Hoping to find someone with the book willing to share what the last page says before I get it.
The Seamstress of Salzburg by Anita Lobel. I loved this one as a kid! Copies are hard to find and fairly expensive now. I bought a copy for myself a few years ago, and it was pretty pricey.
“As Anna added more flowers, flounces, ribbons, and plumes to the rich ladies’ fancy dresses, the dresses became so heavy that everything began coming apart at the seams.”
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BG0fC-ijhSk/SyjGwirX1gI/AAAAAAAABLE/wjye8x5x5Qg/s400/seamstress3.jpg
Oh amazing! Thank you so much! Been driving me crazy for years trying to find this. I see someone has a video on YouTube reading this out and showing the pages so I’ll have a look there. Thank you!!!
You’re welcome! Glad I could help!
A couple of books come to mind that I miss from 1985 to 1990, one a children’s book monster on the moon told as a bedtime story, the other night at a museum that us a dot to dot with a dinosaur chasing the security guard. There was also an usbourne adventure puzzle book pirates/pyramid. An alphabet book.
This one came up in a search for spoiled princess books. It has different covers. Don’t know if there’s a unicorn involved.
“The lost princess” by:Leimert, Karen Mezek
A sulky princess and the parents who have spoiled her have some surprises in store when a wise woman with a touch of magic kidnaps the princess.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/670819.The_Lost_Princess
I’m looking for a children’s board book that said hop a board let’s take a ride it’s time to go so step inside. I read it to a my cousin in the 1990’s and I would like to find a copy for her to read to her young daughter.
The Adventures of Mole and Troll, by Tony Johnston.
Hi im looking for a book, i remember reading it when i was ten or somewhere around that age, so 1990-2000 the plot was something about a pottery man, it was a childrens book i think it was set some where foreign i possibly remember there been sand in the pictures, its about a single dad whose a pottery maker and he has one daughter who likes making pottery aswell, one day she makes a pottery man, and i think the dad smashes him up, maybe the girl puts him back together and they leave on a pottery horse. good story. please help. x
i have been looking for a book for ages and i don’t know if it’s something i made up or if it’s real ,, the only things i remember is i read it in 2006 and it wasn’t published then so i think it’s a bit older , it’s a middle grade book , the cover is darker , and it has a boy that can see emotions tied to people and they are like strings ?? that’s really all i remember T.T
Maybe some of Thornton Burgess’s animal stories? There are LOTS of books in the series, and they’ve been reprinted many times, with different covers in a variety of colors.
I’m looking for a book which I think was part of a series, featuring a boy and a girl solving crimes. In this title, they discovered their nemesis was disguised as a woman behind the counter at a bakery, and I think the name of the bakery was an anagram of the villain’s name! It had kind of comic book style illustrations (every page illustrated) in predominantly blue tones. I believe it was American, probably published in the 70s or 80s, and definitely paperback. I would love to see it again and find out if the bad guy is as terrifying as I remember!
I’m looking for a dark, beautifully Illustrated Children’s Book Involving a Girl (Princess?) who finds a unicorn trapped in a forest of thorns.
I read this book as a child, in the 1990-1996 range, but obviously could have been published before then. The illustrations as I recall were beautiful oil paintings and a little dark in nature. The girl (princess?) may have bandaged the unicorn’s leg with a piece of fabric torn from her dress.
“She was spoiled and she got… sent away from home? And that was when she found the unicorn. There was a part about a fountain that she let dry out and all the fish died?”
I tried creating a post on the whatsthatbook subreddit and another redditor and I are coming up with more info, but still struggling to find the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthatbook/comments/q8v726/dark_beautifully_illustrated_childrens_book/
Hello, looking for a book I believe that came in the mail through the scholastic book club in 1971-1972. First grade -second grade level. There were a couple of stories in the book, it was about a troll and his friend. A frog or a toad, I can’t remember. The story that sticks with me is that the frog (or toad) gave the troll a burnt out lightbulb for his birthday and he liked the “ping” sound it made. I will buy this book in an instant if someone can help me remember the name! Thank you!
The Future Took Us, by David Severn.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21079401-the-future-took-us
Looking for a book I read and loved in the grade school/primary school library in the 70’s. Had beautiful illustrations and was a bit of a Cinderella story about a girl who made dresses for rich women from flowers. I think towards the end the customers kept demanding more and more flowers on the dresses and they got so heavy they fell apart.
Hello, I’m looking for a book I read back in the 90s I think. It was about a group of kids who didn’t get to go off to summer camp so the created a business selling lunches to the kids who were also there over the summer time, they make a couple of hundred dollars and if I remember rightly a kid who comes back from summer camp takes their money? But that might not be quite right. The lunch they made had grape juice boxes and peanut butter/jelly sandwiches. I wish I could remember the title of the book so I can try get a copy to read to my son. Thanks.
LO AND BEHOLD… I FOUND IT!
I was looking for another children’s book in Spanish and BetterWorldBooks.com popped up. I had the Spanish book in my cart and decided to type “turtle” in the search and started browsing the covers. About 5 or 6 pages in, an author’s name popped out at me (even though that particular entry did not have a picture). It is TURTLE TALE by FRANK ASCH.
[NOTE: The word in the white speech bubble was “OOF!” lol]
Better World Books did not have a copy of Turtle Tale, but I found one on eBay…
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40839.Turtle_Tale
Thank you for your research and kind suggestions!
Thanks for letting us know.. Suzanne
Hello, I am looking for a book I read to my son sometime between 1988-1992. I can remember it had an old couple in a house I think they were going to move their entire house with balloons and said “and we’ve got Googie” several times. Does this ring a bell with anybody?
I knew it had to be a Stephen Cosgrove book. LOL
“Misty Morgan” (Serendipity) by Stephen Cosgrove
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248820.Misty_Morgan
Oh my goodness thank you! Thank you so much!!!
You’re welcome. Glad to be of help.
If this was a Puffin gamebook, you might be able to find it by putting “gamebook” in the title field on Abebooks advanced search.
Hi I’m looking for a book I bought from the school book catalogues we used to get in the 90s in the uk. Was one of those choose the neck to step of the story and was about a wizard and a boy and he had an adventure but you were able to direct the story? I’ve found similar but nothing that’s the right one
This is a book in the Buddies series by Toby Bluth. This one is The Buddies in A Day for Knights.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5107808-the-buddies-in-a-day-for-knights
I grew up in a small town in Kansas. I can remember reading a series of books in elementary school in the early 80s. The books were hard covered, chapter books. The covers were yellow with blue writing. They were about woodland creatures, squirrels, etc. Since I was reading them in the 80s, they could have been written in the 50s, 60s or 70s.
Maybe the Magic Pot by Patricia Coombs?
Boy’s hiking adventure at home on a rainy day. Looking for a story in the UK from at least the late 70s (book could be a bit older I guess) about a boy whose mum helps to create a hiking adventure in their house on a rainy day. Memory very hazy but could be a short story within a larger book of stories. It may have had some pictures?
Think we remember his mum packing his lunch and using the stairs as a waterfall or climbing route. Maybe using cushions or something to cross a pretend river etc.
Thanks
I’m looking for a book that was read to us (aged 10-11?) in the mid 1980s in the UK. It was about a dystopian future (surprise!) in which all technology was banned, and the UK/world was ruled by an elite who worshipped maths (the only book that had survived the apocalypse was a maths textbook) and kept the population illiterate. Circles were considered sacred. The plot involved time travel – somehow a boy had been in the office of the teacher who had written that maths textbook and was transported into the future, where he inspired a resistance against the cruel, elite mathematicians.
I have been looking for this children’s book for years. It is from the 80’s maybe 90’s. It was about a grumpy rabbit who lives alone and everyone fears him. He is a “hunter” and wears plaid and big hunting boots and carries a gun (find out later its not a real gun) He had a berry patch of some sort and a female bunny comes to pick the berries with out permission and he catches her and is angry. Somehow she finds out that he isnt as mean as he seems and they eventually get married. I remember that he has animal heads hanging on his wall (they are just toy stuffed animal heads that him and his new wife work together to sew back together) beautiful illustrations from what I remember.
Time at the Top, by Edward Ormondroyd.
Hello! I am looking for a children’s book. It is set in a magical land. There is a castle entirely full of clocks and a girl whose job it is to run around setting them constantly. Her speaking horse friend (possibly unicorn) wants her to spend time with him, but she says she is too busy. He is sad and wanders out into the mists. Hours pass and she realizes he shouldn’t be gone still. She goes out into the mist and finds him. She learns a lesson about making time for your friendships. The horse/unicorn and the girl are the only characters. It is a picture book.
Thanks for writing back with your book!
I am looking for a picture book I read as a kid, late 80’s early 90’s. About two young girls who are friends, one gets a pretty doll and starts to ignore her friend. The friend gets jealous of the doll and wants one of her own. I remember it being mostly grey, black and white but I think there was some red or pink as well.
I’ve been trying to find a book for years and unfortunately I don’t remember much… definitely a young adult book maybe from early 2000. About a boy who ends up crossing through a tree line or something and comes across a house and young adults live there…I think they have magic powers, creatures end up attacking in the back yard area and they fight them off… there may have been a magic carpet as well…and a think I remember one of the girls having very long black hair…may have called her Raven… if anyone can help that would be great…sorry for lack of detail
this was a book i red as a kid it was about a man who saves this tiny fairy like person and in return the man gets a bowl that gives him more. like it gives him more food, then money and so on. Ive been looking for it but i cant remember the name
There were a few books in this series, though all had different main characters. It was about faeries and folklore. There was one book where we found out that fairies were born when a child died, but the fairy could only live if the humans remembered their human name. The main characters friend, one of the fairies, begins to get sick because she is being forgotten by the humans, and will die. A dove leads the main character to the fairies human grave so she finds out her human name. So the main character then threw a party and reminded the village of the names of the children so that her fairy friend wouldn’t die.
I’m look for a children’s book from the 80s-90s about 3 boys, a duck named Dickey (he has a skateboard with rockets on it) and his “buddies” a monkey named bobo and a rabbit. The rat who owns ” the atomic egg dinner ” sends his fly sidekick to find fresh eggs and he finds Dickeys sister (still an egg). So the rat tricks them into thinking an ice cream truck is outside and they run out at that time he takes the egg and heads to the diner on a bicycle.The three boys go on an adventure to rescue her.the monkey ends up catching her right b4 shes fried.. And after she is home she hatches into a baby duck with big blue eyes and a pink bow. And they say something like a day for knights or something? Please help!
I want to remember a book which I was read 20 to 27 years ago with animals who did go kart racing. I want to say i remember a mole and they put together racing karts from bits of old wood and wheels. I cant remember it’s name!
is it The Woman Who Outshone the Sun Paperback – Picture Book, May 30, 1997, Alejandro Cruz Martinez