A lady asked my wife for help identifying the titles/authors of some books she loved in her childhood. She remembers reading them in the 1960s when she was about 6 years old, but the books were subsequently lost in a home fire. As an adult she would like to reread the books.
"One book is about a little girl who goes to a nearby carnival and steals the little dancing ballerina on a music box and takes it home. She begins to feel guilty and returns it. The most memorable part of this book is the illustrations; it had beautiful colored pencil illustrations.I know the readership of this blog is replete with bibliophiles and especially with librarians. Can anyone harvest their knowledge base to help this lady?
The second book was read to students in class and all the person recalls about the plot is that one of the characters could turn invisible and was up in a tree some of the time."
Third book: A giraffe misses its little girl so runs to find her school. On the way there, she stops to help a woman whose clothesline has fallen...by holding it up with her head."
There's a whole website for finding old children's books - have you tried it yet?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oldchildrensbooks.com/
I've got my own half-remembered book that I still haven't found yet, but I give it a go every few years
The second one sounds suspiciously like it is describing the Cheshire cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
ReplyDeleteIt does, doesn’t it? But it was set in contemporary times and it was a child who was able to become invisible.
DeleteThe second one reminds me of The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree by Louis Slobodkin.
ReplyDeleteNYPL site with useful links:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/11/22/finding-book-forgotten-title
Madison hosts a wonderful library of children's literature: https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/
ReplyDeletePossibly the third book is The Giraffe Who Went To School by Irma Wilde.
ReplyDeleteI've been searching WorldCat, limiting my search to books published between 1950-1970 (publication dates aren't always exact so I went a little high). There's surprisingly very little juvenile literature about carnivals from that period.
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/11/22/finding-book-forgotten-title
ReplyDeleteI second the giraffe who went to school - here's a youtube video reading of it:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dS8MaUBMU
I purchased a used copy of that book online recently, thinking that it might be what I was searching for, but it’s not the book I remember. Many of the books I had were purchased in the British sector of 1960s West Berlin, so there’s the possibility they were published in the UK.
DeleteI'm 100% sure that the first book is called "Candy Floss". It is one of a series of doll stories by author Rumer Godden. Candy Floss is the eponymous doll, and she "performs" at a carnival on a music box before being coveted and stolen by a rich little girl named Clementine. Clementine keeps Candy Floss for a day or two before regret and shame compel her to return the doll to the carnival. She spends the remainder of the day with Candy's carnival family, working the booth, and generally learning how not to be a spoiled brat.
ReplyDeleteThe edition you're probably looking for is the original 1963 hardcover illustrated by Adrienne Adams. This story was included in numerous Godden collections, including my personal favorite "Four Dolls", but many of those have different illustrations from their original publications. So go for an Adams edition if the artwork was significant for you. Best of luck!