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206B: World of Lost/Misplaced Things

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These were actually two youth novels I read as a kid, but I only need to find one to find the other, unfortunately I only remember enough detail from both books. They were a series involving a young boy who discovers that there is a world or dimension where all the things you lost wind up. For example, if you just misplaced your keys, it was because they actually wound up in this world, and they would be sent back, but usually ended up in a different place in our world. The world there is filled with lost junk.

I believe the title of the first book was just the name of this place “Other World” or something like it. I remember that at the end of the first book, he needs to send the world a milk carton. When he hears his mother say out loud that she can’t find her keys and she had just left them on the counter, he throws the milk carton at the spot where the keys were and the carton disappears into the other world. In fact, I think the cover of the novel had a floating milk carton with milk spilling out of it as if it were in space or something.

If it helps, in the sequel, he winds up back there, but with his annoying little brother, who likes carrying things in his pocket. There was something where a giant clock of some sort runs the entire dimension and without a stuffed bird that sits in a cuckoo nest in the clock, the clock won’t run and the world is doomed. In the end, he remembers that his little brother said the stuffed bird felt the same in his pocket as his favorite golf ball/putt putt ball, so the protagonist saves the day by putting a golf ball in the cuckoo’s nest.

206A: Rich Brother/Poor Brother

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This book was a children’s illustrated book I never was able to finish as a child because I was pulled away from the store as I was finishing. It seemed to have realistic (rather than cartoony) full page painted illustrations and was a wide, landscape book. The story was about two brothers who grew up and got married. One brother was successful and rich and the other was poor. The poor brother would go to his brother to beg for things they needed, and the rich brother would ask him for increasingly difficult payments in return for meager returns. At one point, the brother asks for food for him and his starving wife and the rich brother demands one of his eyes as payment and gives him a moldy piece of bread in return. I think in another exchange, he begs for fire or light, and receives a pithy little candle stub. I wasn’t able to finish the story, but from what I recall, I think the poor brother eventually gives up both of his eyes, but at some point, an angel appears before both brothers and its glory is so bright that the rich brother is blinded, but the poor brother is spared because he cannot see (perhaps he regains his sight?). If I remember correctly, the scene in which the rich brother is blinded showed him covering his eyes from the bright light. It gave me a feeling of being a holiday or Christmas book, much like The Little Match Girl, but that could have been because of the angel, or a time when the poor brother and his wife were freezing in cold weather.

I don’t know the title, but I only recall as a child thinking that the business with taking eyes was a bit mature/dark for a children’s picture book.

205E: some kind of inventor who had some contraptions

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I’m trying to remember a large (not a lot of pages, but physically the book was big) illustrated book. It was mainly drawings, with a little bit of text on the pages. It probably had a soft cover. There was some kind of inventor who had some contraptions, including at least one flying machine. Something bad happened at the end, there may have been some kind of disaster, the guy was really unhappy. It may have been some kind of activity book, with some perforated parts you could punch out? It would have been published no later than 1985, when I was 7. I’m guessing it was at least a few years earlier than that. I’ve been trying to think of this for years, so any help is appreciated.

205D: Dancing Shoes story

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There was a book which was read to me as a child that had a series of one page stories in it. I remember it being a thick book (but I was a child) The one story I remember the most was one about all the shoes that came out of the closet at night and danced around there room during the night. I tried Hans Christian Anderson but couldn’t find it. Have no other information. Would love to see read that story again.

205C: Teens Abandoned at Camp

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I am looking for a book from the 1980s. It was a chapter book about a group of children who were sent to a summer camp, but discover while there that their parents were planning to abandon them there. They were a mix of troubled kids and good kids who had made mistakes or let their parents down recently. My copy was a mass market paperback that was green.

205A: Uncle Elgin’s Attic Trunk

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I am looking for a book that was about, I think, two boys named Andy and Joe who found their Uncle Elgin’s attic trunk, and inside of it was a kaleidoscope and possibly other things. I remember one line that read “Goodness gracious,” Andy said to Joe, “I think I see an eskimo!” This book was probably published in the 1960’s. I was born in 1966 and a lot of my childhood books were Little Golden Books, various picture books, many published around 1969. I was a good reader by the time I was five, so this book was older than that. I have been unable to find the title or author of the book. My mother told me she looked everywhere for a kaleidoscope because she used to read this book to me and wanted to show me what a kaleidoscope was like.