Comments on: Help me find a childrens book

Question: Help me find a childrens book

Glow Bucket — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:56:53 -0800

Please help me find the title of a hazy remembered childrens book with animals and a helicopter.

I remember finding this in our local public library in the early eighties and I am pretty sure it was originally an English book. It was about (anthropomorphized) animals. This might have been a series of two books.

The paintings were very detailed and sometimes spread across two pages beneath the text.

The thing I remember most vividly about this book was one picture with a cut-up view of a helicopter (something like a Sikorsky S-55 or a Sikorsky S-58t)

The format of the book was landscape, i.e. the pages were wider than high.

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:07:13 -0800

Something by Richard Scarry? I remember a pig flying a helicopter in one.

By: electricinca

electricinca — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:50:47 -0800

I would second the notion that it was by Richard Scarry. Perhaps A Day at the Airport.

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:55:51 -0800

There's nothing like that in A Day at the Airport, or any other Richard Scarry book I can think of -- plus most of his books aren't landscape size.

By: mjbraun

mjbraun — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 15:44:17 -0800

Could it have been David Macaulay's "The Way Things Work"?

He had a strange fetish for mammoths and they were all around his illustrations. If it was a mammoth suspended from the Sikorsky, then it's pretty much guaranteed that was the book.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:46:28 -0800

Scarry does have a book with a ginormous Sikorsky-like helicopter with all the parts labeled, and he often employed the cut-away technique and two-page spreads. All his characters were anthropomorphized animals. Not sure which book, though. Do you think his style matches?

The other angle that comes to mind is either Sarah Ferguson's Budgie the Helicopter book series (first one, 1989), or the Arthur Baldwin book it allegedly ripped off, Hector the Helicopter (first pub. 1964).

There's also Harold the Helicopter, from the Thomas the Tank Engine universe.

By: Glow Bucket

Glow Bucket — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:12:24 -0800

Thanks for the suggestions so far, but it most definitely was no Scarry book. The pictures in the book I am trying to remember were much more detailed and less comic like. Somewhat like Maurice Sendaks "Where the Wild Things Are" only with more brilliant colors. The animals, if memory serves me right were mostly small animals, i.e. mice, moles, frogs and toads, though I could be wrong about that.

Also not Macaulay, we had "The way things work" at home and again, the pictures in that are too comic like.

As for Budgie, Hector or Harold the helicopter: No, the book was not mainly about a helicopter. It is just the one image I have retained from that book.

The main story was about the animals, perhaps there were to factions that were somehow opposed or something but again, I am unsure of that.

By: saltfiend

saltfiend — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 07:52:17 -0800

I think i have this book.. it was one of my favorites, I loved the detailed illustrations too... in fact I just dug it out to show it to a friend last weekend. I have a pic if it would help, but it's called Trumpets in Grumpetland by Peter Cross and it was originally printed in England. (Didn't know that til i looked but I did remember a tea reference.) Does that sound right??

By: Glow Bucket

Glow Bucket — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 08:47:53 -0800

saltfiend, I had a look at the cover of the book and it prequel (Trouble for Trumpets) on Amazon and I am sure that that is it!

Thank you so very very much!

By: electricinca

electricinca — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:47:58 -0800

This is spooky as a while back I found an old photograph of myself and my brother reading a book and I vaguely remembered it and wondered what it was called.

Turns out it was Trumpets in Grumpetland!

So thanks Glow Bucket for posting your question and helping me find the answer to a question that I'd forgotten I even had. And like dhartung I'm pretty sure I had a Richard Scarry book with a Sikorsky-like helicopter in it with all the parts labeled.