Author Archives: admin

305C: Family, priced to sell (Solved)

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Dear Book Stumper, 15-20 years ago I acquired a children’s book that was old at that time (it had been in a library that was being closed). I didn’t have the book long before I somehow lost it and since then I’ve not found another copy, nor have I found anyone who has ever heard of such a story. I don’t know the title, but the story line is this:

A man decides he wants a wife so goes to a Wife Store and selects one. After a while the couple decide they want children so they go to a Children Store and select several. As the story goes on, the children are given “names” (numbers or letters), pets, and I think the family gets a home and/or land. Several other stores are involved in the story. I seem to remember that the man’s/ family’s last name was “Hunkendunk,” but am by no means sure about it.

I’ve tried local libraries, local book sellers of new and used books, online, entering what information I remember, without success.  Does this story line ring a bell with anyone out there?

 

305B: Unicorn horns for sale

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We forget the title and author, but my daughter Elizabeth remembers her favorite book from a trip to our library in 1990 or before. I would love to purchase a copy if at all possible! It was a hardback book with pastel illustrations. They story live involved a boy whose mother left him at home while she went shopping. He left on his own adventure with a bear in a top hat who took him to a magical land. They visited a street which had magic shops – a la Diagon Alley (from Harry Potter fame). One store had a basket of unicorns horns for sale. The trip ended when the boy rushed to get home before his mother did. That’s about all we can remember – except the story was so vivid, my daughter spent hours in the backyard reliving it and adding to the wonderful shops in her imagination.

 

305A: A river runs through it?

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I am trying to locate a children’s book that I read as a child in elementary school in Middle Tennessee. I cannot remember the title or the author, but would love to locate the book for my students. I believe the time period was in the 1800s and it was about a girl who lived near a river that froze due to record breaking low temperatures causing the river to freeze. I thought it was about the Cumberland River (near Nashville, TN) but it might have been the Mississippi River (near Memphis) or ever the Ohio River? I remember that the book mentioned the mother warming a brick, wrapping it it flannel, and placing it in the girl’s bed to warm it prior to her sleeping.  I believe it also mentioned that horse drawn wagons were able to cross the icy river. I’m sorry that I don’t have more information; I have been looking for this book for years and would appreciate any assistance that you could provide. Thanks for your help.

304Z: Frosting was everywhere

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I’m trying to find a book that I read in the 90’s. Not sure when it was published. It was a large hard cover book with pictures and several short stories. One of the stories was about a poor brother and sister who had to walk past a bakery every day. The owner was rude to them. One day as they walked by, they saw the frosting machine had tangled the owner, and frosting was everywhere. They helped her and she was nice and gave them baked goods. Another story was about a girl with 2 sisters who were trying to woo a prince. She baked him a pie, I think it was strawberry. And it won his heart. I hope this is enough info. Thanks!

304Y: A wave in the moonlight

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My memory is it is Christmas Eve, and a mother rabbit comforts her son who is missing his grandpa that died. She goes to the window and waves her hand in the moonlight to cheer him up saying that is what grandpa did for her when she was little.  Then her son shares memories of grampa and says while mom is cooking the next day, he can carry on traditions of what grampa used to do like help the younger kids ride a bike, letting them win games, etc.

Thanks for your help tracking this book down.

304X: Volunteers for an experiment

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This was the best story I ever read.  I was in maybe the fifth grade, in 1959(?) and it was in a collection of short stories that was in our classroom for when you had finished your work early.  It was not a brand-new book then, either.

But the story!  These two unemployed guys are looking through the want ads, and they find a doctor who wants volunteers for an experiment.  He has a diving board that faces a black window.  The volunteer is supposed to jump from the diving board into that unknown space.  Well, one of the guys does it, but he never comes back.  So his friend returns to the doctor’s office and jumps through it himself.  He describes what it was like:  dim and twilit, with backwards writing on can labels, a sort of wasteland with boulders, and here and there a glowing luminescent ultra-violet hint, not too bright, but noticeable.  Maybe two or three of these lights in the whole landscape.  He figures out that his friend fell in the rocks and was killed, because of the improper alignment of this other world with our own.  I mean, you can’t just jump into it and assume you will be all right.  So he thinks some more, and realizes that the glowing spots are places in our own world.  One of them is the University, and the other appears to be the doctor’s laboratory.  So with great effort he leaps in some way back into the doctor’s laboratory, and then throw the doctor himself through the window into the blackness.

So, does this sound at all familiar?  I’ve never been able to find it again.  I think of it as The Diving Board and the Black Window, but that’s probably not the name of it.

 

If you can find it, I would be so happy!

304W: A father’s adventures during WWII

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I am looking for a book in which a father in France tells his son how he and a friend (or 2) were up to some mischief during WWII and were captured by a German soldier and held in a pit, but later somehow released. After telling this story, the father tells his son that they are going to see a movie. The movie they see is “The Bridge. ” It turns out that the German soldier who held them in the pit was Bernhard Wicki, who directed the film.

304V: Boys Bring Apples to Old Woman/Witch

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Looking for children’s book with beautiful mostly dark red and black illustrations (award winner?) about three boys who are tasked by an old woman to bring her a perfect apple.  The first two boys apples she finds unacceptable and punishes them by turning them into something (an animal perhaps?).  The third boy brings his apple and is rewarded and the old woman reveals herself to be a witch.  I’m not positive on those plot details.  Also not sure of the age of the book…I used to read it as a kid (1993/94).  Thanks for your help!

 

304U: The Pig Tree (Solved)

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Illustrated young children's book about a chef who buys a little bush, thinking he'll grow figs, but it turns out it's a Pig tree. After many shenanigans and difficulties, he replaces his bush with what he thinks is a proper fig tree bush. . . however it looks at the end like it's gonna be a frog tree! I was a child in the 1970s and guess the book dates from early 70s, but could be mid 70s, or possibly late 60s. The book was probably written for age range 4-7. My searches on Google/Amazon/eBay for "The Pig Tree" or "The Fig Tree" - the titles my memory has provided - haven't found the right book.

304T: Making things weigh less

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I’m looking for a juvenile science fiction book I read in the early 1970s. I must have been about 11 or 12 years old. I borrowed it from the public library. It was about a teenager (or youngster) who discovered a mysterious method of making things weigh less, have less mass. In the process of making things weigh less he was able to harness the seemingly limitless energy to power things like an automobile. Pretty vague, but that’s all I can remember.