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310X: Cherished books

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My father is desperate to find a cherished book from his childhood in Northern Ireland.  It was a compilation of poems and short stories published around 1945-1950.  He thinks it may have been a War Economy publication.  He cannot remember the name of the anthology.  The stories and poems he recalls are,

“How Horatius Kept the Bridge” by Macaulay

A tale about Ralph the Rover who removed the bell from the Inchcape Rock

“Rikki Tikki Tavi” by Rudyard Kipling

“Jackanapes” about the boy who became a bugler in Wellington’s army at Waterloo.  I think the author is J H Ewing.

“Stratosphere Express”: the tale of a huge, futuristic airliner that flew at 500 miles an hour and 60,000 feet across the Atlantic and, would you believe, was highjacked on its first trip

“Power on Deck” about the young engineering cadet who saves his ship from certain disaster

There was another story about a mysterious seaplane and the three children who put an end to its smuggling activities… with a little help from the Fleet Air Arm

The adventures of Mr. Bumbletoes of Bumbleton, the nursery floor creation who came alive at night with all his fellow citizens.

310W:It Was His Home

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 Looking for the title of an illustrated children’s picture book published in the mid-1950s to 1960 or so. It was about a dog (possibly named George, possibly a poodle?). My husband’s family recalls nothing about the story except the refrain, repeated throughout the book, “(But) It was his home, and he liked it there.

310V:Changeling child becomes a fairy knight

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his is a book-length fairy tale I found in our public library in the mid-1960’s. it was an old-looking book then, and was not specifically a children’s book, more in the style of Lord Dunsany or William Morris. The book concerns a human boy who is stolen by the fairies when a baby. The child becomes a favorite of the fairy king’s daughter, grows to adulthood in fairyland, and becomes a fairy knight.
I recall two scenes in particular. In one, the fairy princess has beseeched her father to take particular care of the changeling child. The fairy king commands the land to treat him well, in a spell beginning “Grass, be soft on his unused feet,” or words to that effect.
In the second, the boy has grown up. A fairy knight has to conjure/summon a horse from a mystic gulf by memorizing and then chanting the summoning. He then turns and walks out of the cave, not looking back until the horse he has called follows him out. How well he performs the summoning determines how strong and beautiful the horse will be.

310U:On A Train On Christmas Eve

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Christmas Star is Medal of Honor
 My mother remembers reading this story in school, possibly a short story in an anthology. A small boy is on a train on Christmas Eve and asks his mother if Santa can find him. Some soldiers (this was set during WWII?) overhear and enlist the help of the train staff and other passengers to get a tree, ornaments, and presents. But they can’t find a star for the top of the train. An older man who has been grumpy/dismissive about the whole thing offers his medal of honor for the star. She has been looking for this story for many years now!

310T: The Fire Truck Story

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There’s this picture book I swear my grandmother had. I believe it had 4-5 stories of motorized things. A tractor maybe, a dirigible, a firetruck, etc. I vividly remember the firetruck story. Burning building collapsed, bricks walls fell down, the fireman survived by laying under the truck. The tires all blew but the engine kept running, eventually the firetruck and fireman were both dug out. Was this a dream or is this a real book? It was probably published in the 50s. I remember it being ancient when I was a 70s kid.

310R:The Creepy Little Girl

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I’m pretty sure the title is one word, “The ______ “. I remember most the ending; a little girl is walking around the perimeter of her house (a Victorian?), looking in the windows, but can’t get in and no one can hear/see her. Through the windows she sees another girl who looks exactly like her, interacting with her (the main character’s) family, playing with her toys, basically living her life in her place like an impostor. At the end she discovers she is in fact dead, a ghost, and the other little girl has replaced her.

310Q: Societies At war

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Number of years ago I read  a series of books about a society that was at war with what seemed to be a plant related species that was taking over the country.  The Prince of the “good guys” formed an alliance with an enemy
society, which were reptilian nature.  The prince transports them to his country on iceberg boats and together they defeat the enemy.  The Prince then allows the enemy society to remain in his counties  as allies and
friends even though they were different species.

310O: The Murder Of A woman’s Teenage Daughter

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I’m looking for a paperback book I read in the late 70s possibly the very earlier 80s. The book was non fiction, written about the murder of a woman’s teenage (she may have been in her early 20s) daughter. The mother solved the murder by receiving what she believed were messages from her dead daughter. The murderer was her daughter’s boyfriend (husband).