Looking for specific biography

[nanamom]

A long time ago (in a galaxy far away) I was an elementary student with a love for books. I remember a set of hard back biographies that our library had. They were the size of a DVD case only thicker, probably half an inch or so. They were hard backs and various colors, not vibrant but colors. They were named whatever person they were about, I remember Juliette Low, Thomas Edison, and several others like that. I loved reading them. When my two eldest kids were little I found them in the basement of a local library in PA. Now that i have other little ones I would like to find them again but have nothing but the memory to go on. I don't know who published them although I am sure they are out of print. Does anyone remember them or have any information on them or even have one of them? Thanks

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

There was only one series of biographies that I know of that included Juliette Lowe, so I think I read the same series as you did. And Thomas Eddison was in the series I am thinking of, as well. The books all started with the childhood of these Americans, right? I don't recall the name of the series, but there should be a ton of them out there as every public and school library I went to as a child in the 1960's had a set, sometimes even two sets.

The ones I recall were usually orange books with black titles and a black logo that included an arch of stars. But sometimes they were other colors (depending on the year the set was published? Sometimes a library's set was mixed colors, not acquired all in the same year?)

I think part of the series title was "Famous Americans," but there was more to it than that. "Heritage" was that in the series name?--Anyway, if you look up Juliette Lowe on Half.com, you will see that there is one book offered with her name. Perhaps you can contact the seller to see if the book is part of the series you are remembering and get the series name from the seller. Or perhaps you can look up the author (Higgins, or Wiggins. I forgot already.) of th JL book and see if she wrote other children's biographies. That could be a clue.

By the way, I did have a chance to revisit those books sometime in adulthood. From my adult perspective I realized how hugely fictionalized they were and how, um, goody-goody and contrived they were. Sort of propaganda-ish. Nonetheless, I loved them as a child, just ate them up.

Hmm, maybe there were two really similar series. I say that because I just was describing above a series focused on Americans, yet I seem to recall that Florence Nightingale was the subject of one book Yet Nightingale was not American.

Let me know if you figure it out, please.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Okay, I just looked at my son's remaining childhood books and see that I we do have a couple of one of the series I was thinking of. Wow, these are old! From 1950 and 1953!

The Series is called "Landmark Books," and the logo features a quaint tiny village or large farmhouse cluster surrounded by a picket fence and trees outside of the fence, but most prominently a huge obelisk arises out of the center of the cluster of houses. They were published by Random House- New York.

Both these books are a muted green cloth cover and the title on the front is surrounded by a wreath that is open at the top. In the open space there is a little picture that relates to the subject of the book.

The blurb on the back dust jacket says, "Each Landmark Book brings to life a great event or famous person.....intended to inspire...understanding and appreciation of the important events and great figures of History." So some of these were biographies and some were focused on events or trends. I bet this is where I read the Florence Nightingale bio. I'm also thinking this series contracted with known history writers and popular authors. I think I recall Neil Sperry was an author in this series; he also wrote for adults. And one of the two books from my sons' library is by Jim Kjelgaard, who wrote popular and also somewhat peculiarly misogynist "boys books" in the 1950's and 60's. He wrote the book "Big Red," from which the Disney movie of the same name was roughly adapted.

These books are just very similar to the other series I'm thinking of, the one that focused on Americans and usually had orange covers with black writing. Same size, same reading level, same length, same font size, same style of illustrations, with just enough illustrations to satisfy the child who is young enough to still recall the happy way picture books draw you in. The illustrations are black or two tone--the second tone matching the cover of the book! Sound familiar?

I love children's books.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Is the forum software going to cut me off for making three responses in a row?

I just found another book of that type on son's shelf. This one is a bio of Geronimo. It is part of a series called "Signature Books" by Grosset & Dunlap. It has a painting on the cover and on the spine, but I vaguely remember that this series had solid color books for most publication years. Inside, the book also says, Weekly Reader Books presents," which indicates it was part of a book club by that name. I don't think the whole Signature Books series was available only through Weekly Reader.

Gosh, this is such a trip down memory lane. I can picture these books on the shelf in three different libraries I went to as a child!