Category Archives: Picture Book

369Z: Kid’s Picture Book About Too Many Cats Living in a Grocery Store Until They are Given Away to Customers (Solved!)

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I am hoping you can help me. My mom read a book to me as a kid but I cannot remember the name or find it on Google for the life of me. It’s driving me crazy! 
It is a picture book about a man who owns a grocery store and a cat lives there (or comes to live there at the very beginning maybe). More and more cats come to live at the store until they are causing all kinds of trouble for customers, like knocking stuff over. I remember one page was a drawing of a cat popping out of the fish kept in the ice section and scaring a customer. The store owner decides to give away a cat with every bag of groceries purchased. One page is a customer (an older woman I believe) taking home 2 cats with 2 bags. The bags are brown paper bags. It ends with the store owner only keeping the original cat. I think the original cat was an orange tabby but I am not sure about it, sorry.

I remember the pictures take up the page or at least most of it.

It was a softcover book (or at least my copy was).

My brother and I were born in 1993/95 and both remember it so I’m guessing it was read to me in the late 90’s or maybe early 2000s. I think it wasn’t an older book when I read it because of the drawing style- at least it didn’t look old fashioned. It’s a colorful, but not unrealistically colorful picture style. Not overly artistic/beautiful. Just fun, clear, and kid-like pictures. 

The book is in English, but I don’t know where it was published.

I’m guessing it was not a super popular book because I have googled it like crazy and can’t find it.

369W: Illustrated Children’s Book with Child-snatching Witch

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It was a large hardback colour illustrated book. The story features a boy, a girl and a dog or cat, I think they have to stay inside because it’s raining. I think the girl is trying to scare the boy by telling a story about this witch that snatches children. The witch rides around on a vacuum cleaner like thing I think. I vividly remember the illustrations being the main focus, some taking up the entire page and I think some pages had special printing like glow in the dark patches. I think the girl was emphasising how she wasn’t scared of all these fantastical things going on and I definitely remember at the end of the book she is scared by a spider or mouse.

I read this book as a child, but I can say for certain when, I think the time frame for when the book was released is 1985-2005 though could be earlier. It was in the UK if that makes any difference.

It’s been bothering me a lot because every time I try to search it I end up getting the same results of Badjelly the Witch, Terry Pratchett’s The Witch’s Vacuum, Winnie the Witch, The Wednesday Witch, The Littlest Witch, etc – it isn’t any of these.

369T: My Busy Day

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I am looking for a book my father often read to my sister and me when we were very little. She was born in 1978; I was born in 1980. The book title (I think) was about a “busy day.” There are two lines/quotes from the book that stand out to me that my father recalled years later:

I start my day with breakfast. I drink from my own cup.

Next I play dress-up. Look! That’s me, the fire chief!

The book definitely seemed to be written in the first person, and it contains some kind of reference to drinking from a cup and playing dress up as a fireman.

Any ideas? Thanks for any potential leads you can give. My father died in 2015, and my sister and I are always looking for ways to help our own children know him. This book would be such a special connection!

369R: Steam locomotive explodes when boy covers steam pipe with bandana

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I’m trying to track down an illustrated children’s book, here’s what I remember from the story:

– The story is about a steam locomotive operator (a boy or young man)

– At some point, he wants to either eat lunch or take a nap near the train

– However, he is bothered by the noise of the steam coming out of the train

– To solve this, he puts something over the steam valve (I’m pretty sure it’s either a lunch bag or a hat/bandana)

– This blocks the steam from escaping from the train and causes it to explode

– I’m pretty sure the book mentions nobody could find him (maybe they find his hat or some article of clothing?)

Thanks!!

369P: Overconsumption

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I am looking for a children’s book I read in class as a kid.  1974-1977 I remember it had a big gold award seal on the cover. About a society that the people replaced household pieces every day.  Specifically I remember plumbing pipes being replaced and then a landfill was piled high with all this junk that had only been used one day.  

369M: Small Cloud Escapes Doom

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I’m looking for a children’s teaching/therapy type book. It is a paperback with a blue cover. I’m guessing that it was printed in the 2000s, but I’m not sure.
The book is about a small cloud who is happy with his cloud mom until one day he wants to go exploring on his own. (I feel like the cloud was a boy but I’m not sure.) 
His mom says it’s okay so he goes off and soon runs into a group of cloud children. There’s a ringleader and the other clouds follow him/her and do what s/he says. He thinks they’re fun at first until they go higher and higher in the sky. He gets a funny/bad feeling in his tummy that tells him that this is wrong. He tries to break free from the group of clouds, who are being sucked together by the ringleader into one big dark cloud, but he finds that it’s difficult to get free. The other clouds are laughing at him. Then he draws on all of his strength, shouts “no!” (or something similar) at the clouds and he’s free.
He returns to his mom and tells her all about what happened. She responds by saying that she knew he was strong enough to do what was right (or something like that).
I’ve spent several hours entering different phrases into Google to try to find the book. I hope you have better luck that I’ve had.

369E: The Naughty Frog (Solved!)

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My wife and my mother in law remember a children’s book that they read together in the late 80s or early 90s, long since lost–and they have been searching for it for years to hopefully share with grandkids.
The book has illustrations only, no words, and has a similar illustration style to a “Frog and Toad” book.
The book features a little boy with a pet frog. The boy takes the pet frog out on a boat, and while out on the water to somehow another little frog joins the ride.
The first pet frog is secretly jealous of the newcomer and when the boy is not looking, the first frog kicks the other one off into the water, but then plays innocent.
These covert aggressions continue, and are apparently very funny. But the boy eventually figures it out and scolds the naughty frog.
I look forward to any help that you can give!

369D: The Secret Passage, Straight to the Bakery (Solved!)

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I’m not even sure why this particular picture book continues to stick with me. Was it the thrill of exploring a secret passage that sparked my love of exploration? Was it my first surprise ending? Was it my love of bakeries? I’m really not sure, but I’d love to find a copy. I borrowed this book from the children’s section of the Elmhurst branch of the Queens (NY) Public Library many times from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. There were either one or two children–boys I think–who were exploring a secret passageway they had found in an old mansion or castle. I think he or they had just moved there but my memory is unclear. One of the illustrations I remember best showed an interior view slice of the whole house, including the secret passageway winding its way through the multi-leveled dwelling, with the two boys visible with their flashlight somewhere on a lower level. The boys follow the passageway a long way underground to a door. The door opens out into a bakery in the town or village.  There’s another illustration of a surprised baker at his oven as the small door opens out from mid-wall and the equally surprised boys tumble into his bakery. For some reason I think the baker is French, but again details remain elusive. At the end the baker serves them cream puffs or eclairs. Another post I saw (on another book search site) seemed to be a  query about this same book and mentions the boys perhaps finding some old casks of wine (?) that had been missing for some time. I also think the town was celebrating some kind of anniversary and the townspeople hoped to celebrate with the casks of wine. It’s also possible I am confusing two books. If anyone can help, I’d really appreciate it!