Tag Archives: books

370B: Girl is bored by being in a whale’s stomach

I would like help finding a book from my childhood, please. I think I read it around 2004, but I often read older authors like Enid Blyton as a kid, so I don’t think this date narrows it down much. From what I remember, it was a book about a book. The characters were self aware, and had to relive the events of the book as it was being read. I recall a girl (possibly a princess) being bored as she was eaten by the same whale for the umpteenth time, and being unimpressed by her love interest. Outside this book, the lives of the readers went on. The book was read by a girl, and then left on a shelf until it was read by her granddaughter. The characters were aware of time passing, and missed the girl, and were surprised she had grown old. I’m sorry I can’t give more details.

367M: Person who eats along with story they read (Solved!)

I think this might have been a short story published in Cricket Magazine in the 1980s – early 90s, perhaps with Quentin Blake illustrations? It was a short story that told about a reader that had a voracious appetite for books AND for any food that was mentioned in the books they read. If the character in a book was drinking tea, the reader had to have tea, and so on.
The memory of this story has plagued me for years, I’d love very much to read it again.