Much Loved Childhood Book

Looking for a book or a story? Post details here and hopefully someone will be able to help.
Kate Young
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Joined: 10 Aug 2010, 16:42

Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Kate Young »

I'm trying to trace a much-loved childhood book which was I think called "My First Book." Although I don't think it was an Enid Blyton book it's possible that members may recall it.

It was about a day in the life of a little girl and was composed with a series of rhyming couplets, starting with her getting up in the morning - "Here is the clock so cheerful and red that tells me when to get out of bed" and through the day to night time when - "The telephone rings, what does it say? Daddy will be rather late today. He'll be back in time to say goodnight so that makes everything quite alright."

I hope that the above might ring some long, far off distant bells. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.
rosepdalton
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Joined: 14 Sep 2010, 20:01

Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by rosepdalton »

Here is the clock so cheerful and red, that tells me when to get out of bed.
A busy time with sponge and brush, then off to breafast with a rush."

I too am trying to find a copy of this book. I bought it for my daughter when she was a baby, and it was read EVERYNIGHT for over 4 years. She is now pregnant with her own baby and I would love to get a copy. I have hunted all over the place and am unable to find a copy. It is not an Enid Blyton Book, that much I do remember. If you have any luck, please let me know too. rosepdalton@yahoo.com
Kate Young
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Joined: 10 Aug 2010, 16:42

Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Kate Young »

Hi Rose - thanks for joining me in this quest. I keep remembering more and more of the rhyming couplets and the pictures which accompanied the story, so I guess it was read in our family pretty regularly too. Hope someone out there can find out something about this lovely wee book.
Kate
pammy
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by pammy »

Wow cant believe other people remember this book. I had a copy when I was a young girl and I am now in my 60s. Then way back in the early 70s I came across a copy in a department store in Dunedin New Zealand. Bought it and meant too keep it, but somewhere amongst having 4 children and moving house a few times it has disappeared.
Would love if any body gets hold of a copy to be able to maybe get it copied. I remember the pictures and words so clearly. How they went shopping "My coat and hat and gloves are blue, there very warm and woolly too", then there was the basket to carry things back from town and money to buy them siver and brown. Memories worth keeping.
rosepdalton
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Joined: 14 Sep 2010, 20:01

Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by rosepdalton »

Im still hunting girls. I cant even remember the actual name of the book.

Ros
pammy
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Joined: 22 Sep 2010, 03:29

Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by pammy »

Like Kate I am almost 100% sure it was called My First Book. It had a red cover too I think
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Aurélien
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Aurélien »

Rose, despite being sure that this book is not a Blyton, it might pay to check out this link:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchR ... &x=58&y=13

‘Aurélien Arkadiusz’ of :( the geriatric memory
rosepdalton
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Joined: 14 Sep 2010, 20:01

Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by rosepdalton »

Im still looking for this book girls, not had any success yet. :cry:
tix
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by tix »

On June 20th, rosepdalton wrote:
Im still looking for this book “girls,” not had any success yet.

********************************

I’m a “boy” so I hope you don’t mind my answering.

“My First Book” is a title that’s unfortunately very common. I have two of them – “My First Book” and “My First Book.”

One has a red cover (Pammy mentioned that). It has some lovely pictures and a clock section further on where a little boy and girl go through their day with the different times but there are none of the poems such as "Here is the clock so cheerful and red that tells me when to get out of bed. " There “are” a few pages of poetry later on though. The other book also has a clock section but lacks the stated lines.

You can do what I did to get hold of a book long since disappeared (and I’d like to see the one you’re after as it sounds quite popular).

Seeing that more advanced methods of communication were becoming available and photocopies were well entrenched, I wrote to the Library of Congress in July of 1989 and found they had a copy listed although “Not In Library Of Congress.” That’s strange! However they had penciled in a reference – “Richmond Public Library, Virginia.”

I wrote to them and to cut things short, I eventually received a letter from the librarian at OCLC Library in Ohio confirming that she’d borrowed the book from the Amarillo Library in Texas and had actually gone to the trouble of photo-copying it for me. I received the pages in April,1990 and I was truly grateful.

The message in that is to obtain a little more information by trying various libraries and repositories. With a few more details …. Publisher, Date, etc you should be able to make progress.

The National Library of Australia has such a title but as of “Right Now” their website is down temporarily.

If it was an English book you should be able to locate it in the British Museum and you could even get your photo taken for a Visitors’ card and enter the vast Reading Room to view it. They have a photocopying service.

As the days pass, so do a million more items of data (and scans) appear on the Internet and to illustrate that, here’s an example.

The photocopies of the book I had once yearned for were black and white of course. As an experiment I typed the name once again into a search engine and then stopped writing this letter and spent about 20 minutes downloading the original book (all pages) in bright colour! Now that’s what I call “Service!”

If you have a spare day, perhaps you could wade through the 71,000-plus pages that appear when you print “My First Book” into “Search” on the “Flickr” site.

Good luck.
umairaraza100
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Joined: 02 Aug 2011, 08:18

Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by umairaraza100 »

well it was a nice book and really i had like it so much and thanks you remembers its memories with us in this forum
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Moonraker
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Moonraker »

umairaraza100 wrote:well it was a nice book and really i had like it so much and thanks you remembers its memories with us in this forum
This confirms what I said in another post about learning a language! You are to be congratulated for at least picking up some English words, and can, at a pinch, get your message across - albeit in a very stilted, word-for-word translation. Your post, had you learned the language properly, would read more like this:

Well, it was a nice book, and I really liked it very much. Thank you for sharing your memories with us in this forum.

It still doesn't sound wonderful though! Maybe this would be better:

Yes, that was a great story! I must say that I loved reading it, and would like to thank you so much for bringing it to our attention!

I'm not really nit-picking your English (well, I suppose I am really!), but just wanted to point out that learning a language fluently, can't be done through Google! :D
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pammy
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by pammy »

I am presently on holiday in the UK and when I get back to New Zealand I intend to do my own format of the book. I have already bought a small red clock so I will keep gathering the items for photos. Will post when I have completed it. :)
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Moonraker
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Moonraker »

pammy wrote:I have already bought a small red clock so I will keep gathering the items for photos. Will post when I have completed it. :)
:?:
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Pammy can remember the words, so she intends to recreate the book using her own photos for pictures. It contains the lines:

"Here is the clock so cheerful and red, that tells me when to get out of bed.
A busy time with sponge and brush, then off to breafast with a rush."
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Moonraker
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Re: Much Loved Childhood Book

Post by Moonraker »

Thanks, Anita. I thought Pammy said she was collecting photos to put behind the red clock! :roll:
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