Can you identify this old children's book?

May 8, 2009 4:32 PM

Can you identify this old children's book?

Mrs. Beese has a birthday coming up. I'd like to get her a children's book from her youth that she's never been able to track down.

It's a picture book about a half-puppy/half-kitten named Puppacat. (She wasn't sure of the spelling, but that was her best guess.)

She read it in an early elementary school grade on Long Island in the mid-60s, if that's any help. She describes it as popular with all the children.

posted by Joe Beese to media & arts (3 comments total)

The adventures of puppycat?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:38 PM on May 8

^ This is Puppycat, but published in 1990.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:41 PM on May 8

First, fyi, Worldcat does not identify any books called "Puppacat." Neither does Bowker's Global Books in Print (which also includes out of print books). That doesn't mean such a book didn't exist, but does lower the odds.

There was, however, a book called "The Puppycat" published in 1953 (sorry, I had to take it through a proxy to scrub my local preferences--you can just search worldcat.org yourself to duplicate my results without the proxy).

It's possible this may be the book your wife is talking about. It looks like the only libraries that I can see that have this book today are in NZ or Australia (the book was originally published in New Zealand).
posted by librarylis at 6:59 PM on May 8