Hello everyone, a friend of mine gifted me 3 paperbacks when we were
kids, this would have been early 70s. They were all from the same
publisher, they were smaller than is common for paperbacks, were
mostly white, with an illustration on the cover, along with
illustrations throughout the books. One of the books was about a
fictional James Bond like character, who went behind a fictional iron
curtain, and that’s pretty much all I can remember of that book. I also want to say one of the pictures in the book showed
the secret agent climbing over a wall. I think he might have been there
to rescue someone, maybe a scientist? Another one of the books I think
might have been about WWII in North Africa, but not sure. I wish I could
remember more, but this is all I can recall. My friend seems to
think they may have been part of a promotion, and came with Nestles
Chocolate Quik. I’ve just about found all the books I had as a kid, but I
cannot for the life of me find any of these books, thank you everyone.

There’s no text on this book. It was only images and every page has tons of things happening, kind of easter eggs.

I remember there was a white kid, a boy, disguised as a wizard, cooking something, making a cake I guess, and everything was a mess. There was also a black kid with short hair, I think she end up stoling the cake.

Besides that, as said, in a scene focused on the boy making the cake, for example, you could see a goat by the window, cats having a date on the roof, frogs playing a guitar…

Furthermore, English is not my first language, so let me now if you don’t understand something

Russian farmer saves the day by using his tractor to help Father Christmas distribute presents – that was the gist of this children’s book from the 70s/80s that I am searching for. There was a even a vinyl album of music that accompanied the book. I’m pretty sure the book had a red cover.

I can sing the tune of the music in my head! Wish I could find this book but searching online has not turned up anything. Thanks for anyone’s help!

Hello! I found your site through Twitter and I think what you do is absolutely cool. I’ve been trying to find a book for years but it’s practically impossible to find. I have a lot of nostalgia attached to this book- it was given to me by a family member at a funeral when I was about 9 and when I moved to the US at 13, I never brought this along with me (aka my biggest mistake ever). I’d reread this all the time as a child but now I haven’t been able to find it at all and I really want to pass it on to my little cousin who shares my love for reading. So anyway about this book, I assume it’s quite old and it’s a chapter book with pictures. I was 9 in 2010 so I’m positive this was published before then or around that time. I was given this book in India but I’m pretty sure the author was British or European because the denomination for currency was not Indian. I think they used tuppence. The chapter book was a collection of different stories and the pictures were devoid of color. It was a children’s book but did not feel as childish as some and I distinctly remember the picture of a bee in there. Some of the stories were pretty unique which I thought would make it easier to find online but I’ve had no luck. Let me describe the stories to you in no particular order.
1. One of the stories was about a little fairy who finds a bee. The bee basically explains that it has pockets to collect pollen. The fairy needed to deliver some packages so the bee offers to store the packages in its knees where the pockets are and gives the fairy a ride. I feel like this story was titled something like “do bees have pockets” or “where do bees keep their pollen”. Something along those lines…
2. One of my favorites: a boy is visiting his extended family. His aunt has a special recipe for black currant tea that she makes only when the kids are sick or hurt. This boy really wants to drink it so he fakes being sick but his aunt sees right though him and refuses to give it to him. He sulks but later notices a cup of what looks like black currant tea on the table. Tempted, he secretly drinks it but is surprised when it tastes horrible. The family finds out that he drank it and are shocked because it was actually leftover dirty paint water and not actually black currant tea. They laugh about it and the boy is embarrassed but the mom makes black currant tea for him to feel better.
3. There was a story about talking shoes. Don’t remember the plot but their pictures had faces on them and the girl could talk to them.
4. There was a story about ice cream, and cornetto was mentioned specifically. I vaguely remember something about a girl giving up her ice cream because she sees another girl getting injured so she wanted to cheer her up. She’s sad about it because she had used her pocket money to buy it. Later on when she gets home her mom has surprised her with cornetto ice cream.
5. There was a spooky story about a witch who lived in a house and she had a black cat. I don’t remember anything else but just that it was spooky and weird in a cool way.
6. There was a story about dolls. One doll somehow gets lost from her owner and she meets other dolls. Some have horrible owners and in the end she finds the right owner for her.
I’m so sorry, I really wish I could give you more details. I vaguely remember the title being “why bees have pockets and other such stories” (a title of one of the stories in the book followed by “and other such stories/tales”). This was truly a unique book but I’ve tried everything to find it and I’m not even sure if it even is online. It might be too old to be properly documented, I’m not sure. If you could find it, I would be forever grateful to you. If not, that is also fine. I’m just glad to have had the memories I have with this book. Thank you so much!

Hello, I’m looking for a kid’s book that I read in the mid 80’s in the US, borrowed from a 5th or 6th grade teacher. Hardcover chapter book and it had some charming black and white drawings. It didn’t have a dust jacket but the outside of the cover was silvery.

The setting sounded like somewhere in Scandinavia in a fairy-tale sort of past, character names were European-sounding. Maybe one was Anna.

The main characters were a younger brother and sister. Their elder sister had a boyfriend and she said something like she wouldn’t marry him until he got the star or jewel from the crown of the giant or god in charge of the morning or evening. The younger siblings find a chest that glowed when the elder sister opened it and found that the boyfriend had gotten the star for her but she was scared/crying because maybe it stopped the sun from rising? So the younger siblings go off to return the star/jewel to the giant. They might have traveled by sled/sleigh. They do return the star/jewel and then go back home.

There was cooking during the trip, the sister cooked and used hot water because otherwise the pots would be smeary or something.

Thank you in advance.

Hello and thank you ahead of time. For a number of years I have been trying to find a book that I had as a child. Early 60’s. It was about a little girl and her dogs. The vivid picture in my mind is her walking through a field with her dogs following and all you could see of them were their various heights of tail above the grass. My mother who has since passed and I have been trying to find it for many years. Sadly neither of us could recall the title.
Thank you

Hi! I’m looking for a book about a girl who visits a seashell kingdom. There were seashell people and it was published sometime in the 90’s. I remember there was a castle on the front. I have tried searching on the internet with no luck. Appreciate the help!

Try this: Thing, by Robin Klein; or its sequel, Thingnapped.

Hello–I am looking for a book I read with my mom as a kid–back in the early 2000s (though the book could be older than that). The plot centered around stone owls coming to life. It was a chapter book, and I believe the main characters were siblings. I also think they lived in the south, because I vaguely remember them mentioning cotton fields, but that part might not be accurate. Thank you in advance for your help!

Have you ruled out Gone is Gone?

I know a version of the first one from one of the Kingfisher Treasury books from the UK in the 1990s. I think it’s called “The Husband Who Looked After the House.” If need be, I’ll follow up once I find my copy (my first good chance to dig it out of storage will be about a month from now).

Hi everyone! So I’m looking for a very fond book of my childhood. I read it in the early 90’s, I think it might have been published around that time too. It could possibly be a Little Golden Book, but I’m not entirely sure. It had a white hardcover and it was about an inch thick. The book was comprised of moral short stories for children including one about a child stealing a chocolate bar from a store, another one about a child spilling milk in the living room, one about a child being afraid of thunder, and another about a child who couldn’t fall asleep. All of the stories had at least one illustration to it, maybe two. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I have been looking for a long time for a book I read c. 1970. In this tale, two ne’er-do-well brothers are walking home through a dark forest at night when they see embers burning in a cavity in a tree. However, when they climb up to seize upon one of these embers, they discover, to their regret, that these embers are the eyes of a monster that immediately takes off in pursuit of the brothers. The monster grows progressively larger, eventually knocking over trees. I don’t recall the exact circumstances of its defeat, but it had something to do with the brothers mending their ways.

I cannot recall the author’s name, but I know he had written a number of other book for young readers/young adults, including one in which a naturalist in the 1800s or earlier acquires a young boy as an indentured servant, and on one of their first nights together camping in a cave, they inadvertently ignite a coal fire which might burn for decades.

I would be immensely grateful to anyone who can identify either of these texts and/or the author’s name. Thank you!

Hello everyone, a friend of mine gifted me 3 paperbacks when we were
kids, this would have been early 70s. They were all from the same
publisher, they were smaller than is common for paperbacks, were
mostly white, with an illustration on the cover, along with
illustrations throughout the books. One of the books was about a
fictional James Bond like character, who went behind a fictional iron
curtain, and that’s pretty much all I can remember, I know, it’s
frustrating. I also want to say one of the pictures in the book showed
the secret agent climbing over a wall. I think he might have been there
to rescue someone, maybe a scientist? Another one of the books I think
might have been about WWII in North Africa, but not sure. I wish I could
remember more, but this is all I can recall. My friend seems to
think they may have been part of a promotion, and came with Nestles
Chocolate Quik. I’ve just about found all the books I had as a kid, but I
cannot for the life of me find any of these books, thank you everyone.

Oh wow, that sounds familiar to me too! I wish I had more info for you.

I’m searching for a book that i read over and over again in the 1970s about a grandmother who decorated Easter eggs, hid them the night before Easter egg hunt for her grand kids. Her black cat hid them down the rabbits den hole, which looked like a home in the illustrations. The eggs hatched and baby chicks emerged form the rabbits den hole while the children were looking for the eggs.
The cover of the book was like looking in back to back mirrors, the image was in the image, then smaller in the image, then smaller again, as the rabbit on the cover was reading the book, that I was reading.

There’s the wordless book Mouse Around by Pat Schories, but that’s too late (1991) and it has coloured pictures, so probably not.

My Side of the Mountain?

I’m looking for a book, I think from the 50s or 60s, about a female animal (fox?) living in a old shack who starts with a vase of flowers, then decides to paint her table and chairs, then makes curtains, and step by step transforms her home. Does anyone remember this book? Thank you!

Hello.

I’m looking for an old children’s book. I’m not sure of the year it was published, but it could have been from the late 1940s to late 1960s and it could have possibly been a school reading book. Hardback with red and black on the cover and spine. It was a collection of children’s stories. The only one I can recall clearly is about a black cat named midnight that had kittens. There were little illustrations to go along with each story.