Tag Archives: bugs

358R: Bedtime Stories Collection Book

This was a large, hardcover book of bedtime stories for children.  It was red with gold page edging.  One of the stories in it was about a baker who forgot his glasses.  He mixed up his ingredients and made raisin cookies and chocolate chip bread instead of raisin bread and chocolate chip cookies.  Then, while making a birthday cake for his niece, he is unable to read the recipe properly because he lost his glasses.  So instead of using 2 cups of flour, he uses two crates.  And instead of 2 eggs, he uses two dozen eggs.  Then he presents this ginormous cake to his niece, who loves it, and lets him know she found his glasses.  I believe it was called The Birthday Cake Mix-up or something like that.  The characters in most of the stories in this collection are bugs of some sort.  Another story is about a little girl trying to get her hair done but she doesn’t like any of the styles the hairdresser makes.  Eventually the hairdresser asks her what hairstyle she wants and she says she wants pony tails but her mom says they aren’t fancy enough.  So the hairdresser makes her fancy pony tails with ribbons and curls, and she is happy.

352B: Children travel to other worlds with animals

It starts with some kids (possibly siblings, there are two or three kids) in, I think, a shop, a thrift, antique, or pawn shop, with no adults around and they are visited by these creatures. One is like a bear that talks in a phonetic southern-US style accent and one is like a dragonfly whose words allruntogetherlikethis. When I say “like” a bear and dragonfly, I think they were described as similar to these but not exactly the same. I think the creatures come from the kids interacting with an object in the shop.
They visit other worlds or dimensions and at one point they’re in a desert and tiny bugs swarm them and try to get to the moisture in the kids’ eyes and mouths so they have to keep them shut tight. They have to figure out how to outwit the antagonist without opening their eyes or mouths.
That’s all I remember. It was most likely written in the 70s or maybe 80s but definitely no later than mid-nineties. I read it around 2000 and it seemed old at the time.
I’ve spent so long looking for this because I just don’t believe no one else has read this and I think about it every time a gnat flies in my face! I feel like I’m in another dimension myself!!