Author Archives: admin

195C: The Magic Pencil (Solved)

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I’m looking for a book for my aunt. She remembers reading a story called “The Magic Pencil” to her boys (this would have been back in the 1980s and 90s), but the story is part of a larger book/anthology of stories that she can’t remember the name of. Based on the look and feel of the book, she thinks it was probably from the 1950s (though that’s just a guess). In the story, the pencil would only write if you used the magic word “please” (or something like that). Would love to find this for her for Christmas!

195B: Forgotten Book: Boy ducks wings

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I’m looking for a children’s story about a boy who leaves home or is lost and is adopted by a family of ducks (or geese?). He wants to learn to fly, like the ducks do, but has no wings, so he builds wings from mud, sticks and leaves. The illustrations are in a sepia tone. My wife read this book as a girl. She is 33 years old. She doesn’t think there were words – only pictures.

194H: children’s book about a girl that loved to read

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I’m trying to find a children’s book about a girl that loved to read. She surrounded herself with books and read all of her life, sometimes pushing away friends and family so she could read. The illustrations show her in rooms filled with books. I distinctly recall a picture of her in a big, comfortable chair and all you can see is her holding a book and surrounding by mountains of books. Maybe even by candlelight. I can’t even remember her name! All I remember are each piece of artwork in the book shows her reading and in places filled to the brim with loads and loads of books.

194G: Boy’s house overshadowed by buildings (Solved)

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I’m looking for a book my fiance read when he was in primary school.
He borrowed it from the Bookrunner Bus (a library van which visited primary schools), and he thinks he was 8 or 9 at the time. This means it will be from before 2000.
It was a short, children’s paperback, but had black and white illustrations – which he believes were in a similar style to Edward Gorey.
It was about a young boy living in a house with his mother and big buildings were being constructed all around, which cast shadows over his house. In the end the boy and his mother have to move to an apartment in one of the bigger buildings. There might also have been some sort of pet bird, but he can’t fully remember! He did mention that it was a really odd, creepy book.

If this sounds familiar to anyone, please let me know! I really would love to get it him for Christmas.

194F: 1960’s book about accepting disabilities (Solved)

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Looking for a Children’s novel. I probably read it around 1963 or beyond. It was a library book. It was about a young girl helping her friend (possibly named Sarah?) who had a disability (possibly Cerebral Palsy?). I remember the girl helping the disabled girl/Sarah and helped her in school and at play and to generally feel accepted by others.

194E: adventures of the toy soldiers that Emily, Charlotte, and Bramwell Bronte

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In 1968 when I was teaching 4th grade in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a read a book to my students that I think had been recently published and they loved it. I do not remember the title. It was a book about the adventures of the toy soldiers that Emily, Charlotte, and Bramwell Bronte had and wrote about in the imaginary country of Angria. The author took their stories and compiled them into a larger book. I thought maybe the author’s last name was Clark but I cannot find any thing under that name. Finding good books for good students aged 10-12, particularly boys, at that time was difficult and this book they loved.
Thank you for any help you can give me.

194D: Mouse Searching For House

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I’m searching for this book for a friend so I don’t have much of a description. Here’s what she remembers;

The character is a mouse that is looking for a house. The circle house blows away in a storm. There’s something unsatisfactory about the corners in the triangle house.

That’s it. I hope it’s enough!

194C: Like “Me Too,” but with human sisters (Solved)

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One book that I learned to read with really stuck in my head because it was very similar to my own situation: A little sister who kept tagging around after her big sister trying to do everything she did and saying “Me too!” in every instance. I could swear the big sister was a brunette and the little sister was a blonde (as we were). My mom was trying to teach my big sister how to read, and even though I was only about 3 at the time, I wanted to learn right alongside her, because, well, “Me too!” I know there is a 1983 Mercer Meyer book along these same lines, but it has non-human protagonists and the older sibling is a brother. The book I’m looking for would have been published at least 10 years before that.

194B: A walk in New York City

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In the late 1980’s t had a lovely book about a middle-aged woman who lived in an apartment with a cat. She gathers up her coat and shopping bag and purse and goes for a walk throughout the city including a stop at the Guggenheim Museum. There was no text, only the loveliest muted color drawings. I’d love to be able to share this book with my grandchildren.