Q: Trapped in the cloud? How can I retrieve, at least to get a hard copy printed?

Your books are not in iCloud. Books are stored locally on the device. If you migrated your iPhoto Library to the Photos.app, they have been converted to plain albums without the text.

See:  Migrating from iPhoto for iOS to Photos on iOS 8

The only way to get your books back would be to downgrade again to iOS 7 and to restore your iPad from the last backup before the upgrade.  This is not supported by Apple, and I am not sure, if it is still possible at all. It would be at your own risk. See:

How to upgrade to iOS 8 (and downgrade to iOS 7 if you regret it) | Macworld

You may want to send feedback to Apple about the missing functionality and missing warning:   Apple - iPhoto - Feedback

I too am outraged that Apple would eliminate my photo books with this 'upgrade'! I put so much time and energy into them and now they are 'not supported'??

This makes me want a Samsung product!

Shame on you Apple!

Hi,

I have 'preserved' my photo books by taking a screen shot of each page. At least that way you can save the text.

Open the iBook, double click on the first page so it is all you see in the window. Hold down the on/off button, and press the Home button (the round one). That takes a screen shot of that page.

Hope this helps.

susan

PS finding this solution however, does little to quell my outrage that Apple decided to make such a major change without warning!