I hope you all can help.  I am looking for the title to a children’s picture book that I read in the late 1950’s to mid 1960’s about a woman who lived in a decrepit house (maybe with a cat) surrounded by peeling paint, cracked plaster, torn, sagging curtains and general disrepair.  The cover (as I remember it) was this woman sitting at her wobbly legged table with a cracked wall and possibly a filthy window behind her (the cat may have been on the cover, too).  Her expression is one of sadness, possibly even resignation.  One day she decides to either repair the table leg or maybe paint the table and it looks great, but makes all else appear even worse, so motivated by her success with the table she tackles the other issues one by one filling cracks, painting, cleaning until she has transformed not only her once humble abode, but her entire outlook on life.  Being excessively tidy and organized myself I adored that book but have no ideas regarding the title or the author and probably only read it once or twice though it has stuck with me all these years, a constant reminder to just keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter the circumstances and all will turn out in the end.

I am a 74 year old woman who remembers some details about a children’s picture book my mother read to me.  Actually, this was one of the many books we read that helped me learn how to read before entering kindergarten.

Unfortunately, soon after I was married, my parents’ basement flooded and all my books were lost.  I think about this one often. If one has knowledge of a picture book where the child dreams of everything being pink( clouds, dresses, food) I would greatly appreciate their info.

I am looking for a children’s counting book which was a story about a mother hedgehog and her 10 children.  She counts as she puts them to bed.  On the last page it say something like “ten happy hedgehogs, one happy family.”  I read this to my kids approximately 1978.  I have looked everywhere and can’t find it.