Please help me figure out which edition of a library book I read

December 23, 2022 5:49 PM

I am looking for either the publisher or illustrator of a book I read in 1978/79 from my elementary school's library (very small town in Southwestern Ontario). The book itself was The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde and while there are hundreds of versions of his text readily available, I would like to find a copy of the specific edition I read and loved as a child.

One of my friends suggested that the illustrator might be Michael Foreman, but the cover photos that I've found online don't feel familiar to me. I was more captivated by the words than the photos and I rarely looked at the cover because I couldn't wait to open the book and read it. The cover image has probably been long lost to my memory and thus I can't say for sure that the illustrator is not Michael Foreman. I only vaguely remember a one-page illustration of the north wind blowing on the giant's castle and a two-page spread showing the garden once the children had returned there to play, with a small corner still covered in snow.

How can I go about finding out who the publisher or illustrator were? Do schools use specific publishers for their library books? Would someone from the board of education for that area think me insane if I emailed my question to them? Would they even know where they bought their books from 45+ years ago?

If anyone has a copy of the one illustrated by Michael Foreman, would you mind taking a picture of the page showing the north wind blowing or the page near the end with the garden in mostly full bloom so that I can see if either of those images spark any sense of familiarity?

Thanks!

posted by Ceridwen to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Best answer: A few possibilities just in case any of these are familiar to you:

Pablo Ramirez's version

Herbert Danska's version

Joanna Isles's version

Gertraud and Walter Reiner's version (this was an animated movie but has also been published in book format)

My guess (and this is just a guess - I have experience in libraries, but not in school libraries) is that the school isn't likely to have records of the specific books they bought ~45 years ago, but it's not entirely impossible that one of the librarians who worked there ~45 years ago is still around (though probably retired) and might remember that specific book. If you can track down contact information for the current school librarian (or failing that, the current principal), it might be worth a try.

Otherwise, I think your best shot is combing through listings on WorldCat for books published in approximately the right time period.
posted by Jeanne at 9:12 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The other thing that would have a decent chance of turning up results is looking in databases for reviews of new editions of The Selfish Giant from that time period. I didn't manage to turn up anything in the databases that I currently have access to, but if you hit up a decent research library I'm sure you can find a librarian who has access to old issues of Horn Book, Kirkus, and other journals that review children's books for librarians.

I bet there's somebody at the Cooperative Children's Book Center or the Center for Children's Books who might be able to get you pointed in the right direction.
posted by Jeanne at 9:20 PM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I googled a bit to try and find a publication history for the book, but most editions seem to either be older (like, the 30s) or newer than the 70s. The only one I'm finding from the 70s is the one illustrated by Michael Foreman, and the first edition for that appears to be 1978. Or maybe it was an old copy of this edition from 1964, illustrated by Herbert Danska. Does that style look familiar? I found that book by looking on the Google shopping page, which brings up editions from various eras. Do any of those covers jog your memory?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:28 AM on December 24, 2022

Best answer: My partner's library is closed until January but it looks like they have a few editions including the 1978 Foreman—we can try and help you out in a week-ish!
posted by avocet at 8:35 AM on December 25, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks for all your helpful suggestions! None of the editions look familiar from what I'm seeing online, so I'm kind of thinking that I've probably buried the actual memories of the book beneath decades of looking for it. I've decided to order as many different editions as possible and let go of the goal of finding "the one."
posted by Ceridwen at 4:08 PM on January 26, 2023