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291J: Boy befriends man with a donut cart (Solved)

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I read this book in maybe 1978. Black and white Illustrations with hidden objects throughout, like a giraffe under a man’s hat, etc. A boy runs away from home and befriends a man who sells donuts from a cart on the street. The donut salesman falls in love with a woman who has a pretzel cart and this makes the runaway boy jealous. Then a bull escapes from a pet store and runs into a giant tank of coffee, which the boy is sure to drown in as he gets trapped in a basement filling with coffee. The donut salesman saves the boy by dumping all his donuts in the coffee. The boys goes home at the end.

291I: WWII drawings and cartoons

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This was a large (maybe a foot tall) book of drawings from the WWII era that belonged to my father, a WWII veteran. I think some of it was actual cartoons with dialog but what I remember most was wordless cartoon-like sketches/line drawings. There was (I think a full page) drawing of a bunch of soldiers in a huge room full of cots, with high ceilings and tall windows The soldiers were mostly half dressed, some playing cards, some sleeping, some (I think) cooking over little stoves. The general feeling was of a room in a huge mansion in Europe taken over to house soldiers. It was an amusing image but had no words. Another wordless picture was a line of army vehicles driving along a road with lots of people on the roadside including at least one man wearing a turban and a loin cloth and (I think) nothing else squatting at the side of the road. It felt like India. I looked at this book dozens of times over 50 years ago (it was old then and falling apart), but those are the only two drawings that really remain in my memory. I think, but I’m not at all certain, that the whole book was the work of one artist. I think, but again am not at all sure, that it was a paperback.

I would so love to see this book again, to have it. It fascinated me then and has haunted me for years. I’ve tried other on-line forums with no luck.

291B: He forgot to go “widdershins” (Solved)

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Children’s book, enjoyed in ’60’s but probably from ’30’s or 40’s, possibly English.  Included a story about young brother and sister in a churchyard (castle yard?), playing with a ball.  The brother (possibly named Roland) went to retrieve the ball when it went over a fence, but forgot to go “widdershins” and was taken by a witch.  The little girl goes in search of her brother.  (It is possible the girl was taken and the boy went to save her, but I remember it as the girl.)  Illustrated with sweet old-fashioned colored drawings.

The story “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” may be in the same collection, or may just have been in the same bookcase.

291A: A Native American parable

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Wow! I just read in the NYT that there is a possibility of finding this book that I remember ! I believe I read it in the 1970’s or 80’s. As I remember it, it is a  Native American story. A  father does many things for his child. The child says to the father, “when I grow up I will do things for you”  The father replies,” when you grow up the important thing is not that you care and do things for me, but that you care and do things for your own children .” Or something to that effect. The moral of the story being that a parents actions are to teach a child how to be a good and loving person, a parent does not teach a child how to be good using the idea of reciprocity.