When I was a child in the 70s, I received a children's book called Penelope Goes to the Farmer's Market by Shirley Jean Boccaccio as a gift. (I believe it was from my Aunt-by-marriage Cathy (who is no longer my aunt, but last I heard is an attorney living in Seattle) but I honestly don't recall) It's a charming little book with photographs combined with illustrations and hand-written text. It's touted as a "feminist book for children", but at the time I didn't understand what "feminist" meant and just enjoyed the story of Penelope and her brother (who's name I think is Peter, but don't quote me on that) who live with a salamander named Sally. They were poor; so poor in fact that they couldn't afford to buy food, so they came up with the brilliant idea to ...
... well, I don't want to give away the story in case someone else wants to hunt down this book! Anyway, I was doing some random searches on the internet and discovered that Ms Boccaccio wrote and illustrated two other Penelope books: Penelope and the Mussels and Penelope and the Earth. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I WANT THESE BOOKS! Finding them, however, is proving difficult, but hunting down favourite books from childhood to complete our personal library is all part of the fun, right?