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263H: A puppy waits for the perfect owner (Solved)

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Probably considered a “first reader” though might qualify as a picture book. Read to me in the late 70’s but could be as early as late 60’s. The book is about puppies in a pet store window waiting for their owners to choose them. The cover (or an illustration inside if not the cover) is a view of the pet store storefront with two windows on either side of the door. Puppies on both sides. In the book people keep coming in and choosing dogs and they all resemble the person choosing them. A take on the dogs look like their owner concept. Tall skinny people with tall skinny dogs…etc. The beagle puppy is waiting and waiting until a boy in a baseball hat (red?) comes in for him. I think the boy had previously seen the dog and had been told he had to save his money.

The illustrations might be mainly line draws and are in yellow/brown/red tones as far as I remember. My mother belonged to a book club that automatically sent books so this may have been a book club selection. It’s so frustrating to be able to remember it so clearly but not be able to find it. Hopefully someone can help!

 

Thanks!

263G: Lonely kitten and sad duck become friends (Solved)

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I read this in the mid-late 1980s, it was a paperback children’s book with soft purple cover, illustrations of cat and duck on front. I remember there were flap pages inside. The story was along the lines of a lonely duck and cat living in the same neighbourhood, I think a ball goes over the fence of one of their houses and they end up becoming friends. I think the kitten wore a hat? And the duck wore a dress? But I could be misremembering the clothing details. The cat was black/white and duck was yellow

263F: He slept on a bed of milkweed

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Hi and thank you.  It is a children’s book that my mom read with me in the early 70s.  Its pages are full illustrations with a fair amount of text on each.  It is about an elf or fairy or pixie. . . my mom and I cannot recall anything else except that he goes to bed on a snowy night in a tree or nut on an amazing bed of milkweed.

Any help is appreciated.

263D: A girl and her teddy bear (Solved)

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Hello, I’m looking for a book I had as a child. It’s about a teddy bear who is owned by a little girl, and on her birthday she has a party. He can hear all the noise and excitement and gets curious. So he sneaks down the stairs and watches what’s going on through the railing. The girl is opening her presents and is so excited and happy that the teddy thinks she must not want him anymore. So he goes back upstairs and crawls under her bed to hide and be forgotten. Some time later, the little girl and her friend are playing in her room and happen to look under the bed, and they find the teddy bear, he is all dusty and ripped up. The girl is so happy, and her and her friend get the sewing kit and play hospital while they sew him up.

 

I have been searching for years and so has my mom. She has suggested that perhaps I remember two books as one, but I know that’s not the case. Please help! Thank you so much!

263C: Fairy fantasy from the 60’s or 70’s (Solved)

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I read the book around 1978-1983. It was a fantasy with a child who stayed with family and went into the woods and found a passage to a fantasy world of fairies which she ended up traveling to. The book had a title that was a play on Maestro or some other musical name. The cover of the book was brownish red with the face of one of the fairies. The face was very large and very round(side-wise oval) and with a very wide mouth. I was between 9-12 yo when I read it but this is what I remember.

 

263B: Acrobat turned Food Taster

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A boy meets a mentor one day. They begin a journey together, leading to the emperor’s palace. On the way, they stop in a small village. The villagers feed them, but due to a rude remark the boy makes, they are placed in prison for seven days with no food, with the quote “Water you may have, though it be slightly brackish.”

Eventually, they are released and reach the palace, where the boy becomes an acrobat. In the palace, the boy meets the chef one day, who is crying that he cannot taste all the food. The boy willingly becomes the taster, though he discovers in dismay that he is gradually becoming too large to serve as an acrobat.

He and the mentor eventually aid the emperor with a problem, and it’s here my memory breaks up. Many thanks for the assistance.

263A: Old man with mustache tells grandson the story of how his hair turned white (Solved)

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I would have read this book in the early to mid 90’s but I’m not sure if that’s when it was published. I remember that it was shelved with the Halloween books at my local library. An old man who has a white mustache is telling his grandson (may have been multiple grandchildren) about how his hair turned white. In his story he is pictured as a young boy but he still has the mustache, I remember thinking this was hilarious as a child. The gist of the story as far as I remember it is that when he was young he went into a haunted house or witch’s house on Halloween night and when he came out his hair had turned white. I have been wracking my brains for ages trying to remember the title of this book, I would love to read it again. 

262J: Heroes fight a green monster

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Trying to find the name of a kids picture book I used to read.  It was between 1985 to 1995; it was an action book bout a hero or heroes fighting against a green monster.  The only thing I remember about one of the books is the heroes chase the green monster, with two orange tentacles things from his mouth, into the water and the book said “to be continued.”

If you can find what those books are called I’d be so happy.

262H: Friendship and toy soldiers

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I remember reading a book in elementary school (sometime around 1990 – 1995 or so) about a young boy who may or may not have had some kind of disability but had very few or no friends. I think it may have had to do with him making friends with a young girl that was more ‘normal’ but could understand his unique qualities.

The big part of the book that sticks out to me was that he kept having funerals for his imaginary friends and would bury them with a stone or something like that as a symbol of the imaginary friend.   I also think there was a tin box that he kept the stones or his toy soldiers in or something.

Also, it took place in summer (I almost want to think it was called The Summer of the ….. but I know there is a different book called The Summer of the Swans that I might be confusing part of it with), little toy soldiers were possibly a symbol or theme that occurred in the book. And I think the book concluded with the boy having some sort of personal growth and or discovery and no longer having funerals for his imaginary friends. (Maybe because he now can have real friends??)

I even have an image in my mind where the toy soldiers were part of the illustration on the cover of the book, but I am not sure about that.

One more thing, even though it contained a little bit of dark imagery (imaginary friend funerals) I remember the book just felt so atmospheric and beautiful and I was really moved at reading something that produced such subtle emotions in me.

I think there is a scene in the book where the girl is drawing ball point pen tattoos on someone (herself?) him? or I might be mixed up with another thing. Because when we were given a poetry assignment I recreated that scene in our back garden sitting on a stone and wrote a poem with the line ‘drawing ball point pen tattoos in the summer heat’ and my fifth grade teacher got all excited and told me my poetry was really good.

Every few years I have tried to find this book, and I have failed after exhausting attempts over and over again. If anyone can shed light on this and resolve my dilemma of many years, I would be very grateful and very interested in buying the book!

Thank you very much!!