Looking for vintage children’s picture book, likely from the early-to-mid sixties, I borrowed from our school library in California in 1969.
The plot centred around a boy, who I seem to remember was homebound possibly due to an illness, or maybe because of bad weather. He liked to draw animals and then alter their anatomy. These creatures would come to life from his easel and would befriend him.
I distinctively recall one animal he drew was an eight-legged mammal (possibly a bear, weasel, otter or some large rodent). But when it came to life, it could not walk properly because it tripped over his crowded legs. So the creature hops back to the drawing paper, and the boy erases four of the animal’s legs and redraws them on its back. When the updated animal comes back to life, he’s able to walk normally, or flip on its back and walk with it’s head upside-down with those legs. He drew other creatures, but this is the only one I recall.
Would love to find the name and author of that book for memory’s sake. Thanks in advance.
Not a long shot, others on have suggested the same title, but it’s definitely not Roland. I wanted to state in the original post that it was not Roland, but I was apparently disabled from editing it after a time expiry.
Nor was what I was looking for The Magic Paintbox by Denise Trez or Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (if I had a brat like Harold, I’d give him a good spanking with the back of a stiff heavy hairbrush and a visit to the psychiatrist for an ample prescription of Ritalin). As I recall, the artwork was not unlike Syd Hoff who illustrated Danny and the Dinosaur, but I searched as many of his books as I could with no success.