pictures – Page 33 – Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories

GingerUpstairsPet

Ginger’s Upstairs Pet by John Ryckman, 1971.

This is a cute picture book about a little girl named Ginger and the mysterious new “pet” she’s found. At first, her mother doesn’t believe that Ginger has a pet, but Ginger keeps running downstairs from her room to ask for more food to feed her pet. First, it’s cake. Then, it’s apples. Ginger keeps coming back down stairs with more requests for food.

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Ginger’s mother thinks that Ginger is eating the food herself until Ginger comes downstairs with an especially strange request. Then, her mother decides to see Ginger’s mysterious pet herself.

What kind of pet does Ginger have? More importantly, how did she get it?

My Reaction and Spoilers

If you don’t want to know what pet Ginger has, don’t look at the pictures below! I don’t mind giving spoilers, though, because this isn’t a very common book these days. It isn’t on Internet Archive, although it’s possible to buy it on Amazon. I won my copy in a drawing back when I was in first grade, and the school library was raffling off books they were getting rid of.

It’s a fun, light-hearted story about a strange day in the life of this family and the unusual “pet” that little Ginger temporarily acquires without even leaving her upstairs bedroom. It’s a calm but humorous story that has enough reality to it to be believable. Ginger’s pet and the way she found it are unusual enough that it would be unlikely that anything like this would happen to any real child, but not so far out and crazy to be completely unbelievable or too cartoony, and the situation is resolved realistically, after which Ginger and her mom have some cake themselves. There’s nothing serious or tense about the story at all, so it would make good bedtime reading. It’s one of the books that I think would be nice to see in print again.

The drawings are cute, and they’re interesting because they only use four colors: black, white, red, and green.

The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base, 1989.

Horace the elephant is turning eleven years old, so he’s invited all of his animal friends to his house for a costume party. The best part will be the extraordinary feast that Horace has created himself with all kinds of cakes and pastries and other desserts.

But, Horace refuses to let his friends eat any of the goodies until after they’ve played the party games. The guests have a lot of fun, but through all the games, they’re still thinking about that glorious feast. Only, when they finally go to eat, the food is all gone! Who could have taken it?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This picture book is actually a puzzle book, with puzzles difficult enough to even challenge adults. Hidden within each of the large pictures taking up the entire page of each page in the book, are secret messages that hint at the identity of the thief, who is one of the party guests. Some of the messages are in code. Although a young child might enjoy the pictures in the book and the rhymes of the story, it would take someone older to be able to solve the puzzles.

There is a way to find the thief without finding the hidden messages or solving any codes, but it still requires attention to detail. There is a section in the back of the book that explains everything, pointing out all the secrets that you can find in the pictures, including the names of one of the giraffes and the swan, whose names are not given in the story itself.

But, don’t skip straight to the answers. As Base himself says at the beginning to the section of answers, “the getting of wisdom is no match for the thrill of the chase, and those who choose the longer road shall reap their reward!”