Tracking Down Books Read When Young

When I was in elementary school, I read a set of children's biography books.  I loved the books, and I have wondered for years what the books were.  You know how it is when you can't remember something, and it keeps bothering you because you can't remember?  That's what it is.  I am not interested in collecting the books or in reading them again.  I'd just like to know what they were.

Each book featured a historical figure.  The books were dark blue with a drawing of the person featured in the center of the cover.  I'm pretty sure that the books were picture books.

I searched online for children's biographies that are blue.  This led me to the Childhood of Famous Americans series.   The below image is from Amazon.

This blue book version of the Childhood of Famous Americans series is too new.  The books I read were published at least 45 years ago based on when I would have been reading picture books.

The Childhood of Famous Americans series has been around for a long time.  Here's a picture from eBay of an old set of blue books.

These aren't the books, either.  The covers don't depict an image of the person featured in the story.  I also distinctly remember that one book featured either Mozart or Beethoven, and neither composer was an American.  These books aren't picture books, either.

I have done all sorts of searches for vintage children's biography books including the word "blue" and also using both "Beethoven" and "Mozart" in some searches.

The books couldn't have been the Landmark Books or the We Were There books because neither series are picture books.

I couldn't find anything that remotely looked like the books I read.  I couldn't find any blue books that were what I recalled.

Huh.

It kept bothering me.  Every so often, I'd try again with no luck.

Recently, I randomly thought of these books again and suddenly realized something.  The books probably were rebound library editions, and that's why I couldn't find the dark blue picture books online.  The books could have been any color before they were rebound.

I knew that I had seen vintage picture book biographies online that I had ignored because they looked nothing like the books I checked out.  I searched again, and this time I didn't eliminate the ValueTales set of biographies from consideration.  I looked at them carefully.

The ValueTales books don't look right at all, because I know that the books I read were dark blue with shiny covers.  That's why I ignored them during all of my searches. 

Despite the books looking completely wrong, I am now nearly certain that the books I read must have been rebound copies of the ValueTales book series.  There's nothing else that the books could have possibly been.

Wikipedia page on the ValueTales set

Thriftbooks product page

This picture is from an eBay listing for a bunch of the books.

One of the books does feature Beethoven, so that tallies.  The center of each cover does depict an image of the person featured, so that tallies as well.  The books are the wrong color, but books can be rebound as library editions in any color of binding.

The age of the books tallies as well.  The series was published beginning in 1977.  I would have checked out the books from my elementary school library most likely during the span of years from 1978 to 1980.  The Beethoven title was published in 1979.

The ValueTales books must be the books I read. 

I have no interest in revisiting the books.  I found an image of one page from the Christopher Columbus book online, and it doesn't appeal to me.

If I were to stumble upon a set of the books with the dark blue library binding, I wouldn't be able to resist, just because of nostalgia.  Otherwise, they are of no interest.