I read this book in the eighties but am not sure of the publication date. A girl must save her baby brother who has been taken by some kind of moon-witch and turned into a silver fish. If she doesn’t save him before the next full moon, he can never be changed back. She has to make a potion which includes an icicle from the moon witches’ cave (and maybe some tears?). I think she gets help from some animals, possibly a fox.
: I am hoping to find a much loved book from my childhood. I do not know the name of the book or the author. I read it in the 1950s. It was a picture book. It may have been a Big Little Golden Book. The story is of a mother and her two children who go to a cottage on the shore for the summer. In their hurry to settle in, they leave the mother’s pocketbook in the car. A wren builds a nest in the pocketbook. The family cannot get the money out of the mother’s purse, so they do not have any money for the summer. They have to find ways to get by without the money in the mother’s purse.
They plant a garden and wait for the birds to hatch and leave the purse. Of course, by the time the birds are grown, the family does not need the money. They are self sufficient. Mainly, I am hoping to locate the book because of the beautiful pictures of the little wren – or at least in my memory, they are beautiful pictures.
….And I found it in my high school library. It was newly released I think, so it must be six years old or so? Give or take a year or two on either side
It was this incredibly, indescribably creepy story about a young (pre-pubescent) girl living in a nightmare-version of government sponsored housing, a huge tower with individual apartments. If I’m remembering right, nobody was allowed to leave. The entire story took place indoors, and all of the characters, except a new resident and maybe the protagonist were horrifying, terrible people. The protagonists was the only kid mentioned, she didn’t have any parents or guardians, and survived by trading items/favors/information with the other residence.
There was a murder, and she was looking into it, I believe. There was a sub-plot about cannibalism in there somewhere, and the big climax of the book was this man (who the protagonist knew and did business with) carving a possibly Japanese-inspired design into her chest with knives and saltwater. Prior to that, he’d seemed like one of the nicer/saner characters.
At the very end, there’s a scene with the protagonist showing the new resident (she was a social worker if I remember right) how the business of trading worked in the tower and the new resident gave the protagonist jelly beans.
I think the protagonist’s name was Jem. But don’t quote me on that.
It was the most disturbing thing I’d ever read at that point in my life, and I’ve never been able to find it again.
An adventure/fantasy/fiction styled like opiate-induced hallucination involving an adventure through the kitchen with the Chief strike anywhere matchstick where all the items found in a refrigerator/freezer have lives and conflicts. The protagonist is amazed by the life that occurs under their very nose??, but there is an overture of fear and danger driving the trip. Somewhere, the freezer items are quite upset as they are melting and other dangers pop up as well. I read this in the last 10 years, but have no other hints……hope I didn’t dream it up.
I’m looking for a collection of children’s short stories that my mom read as a child (either read herself or had them read to her – her memory is fuzzy). She was born in 1944. She remembers illustrations in the book and the book having a story about a fox and a little red hen. Any information or leads you can provide would be awesome!
The real book title is unknown to me. But here are the details I know about it:
Language: Spanish, I don’t know if it had an english release.
Size: I think it was Folio (If not, something big), Ring Binded (maybe tan flat plastic rings)
Cover: Hard Cover, Color Light Brown With Draws & Details in others (maybe green, blue, etc.)
Genre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale. The book was about gnomes/dwarfs and dragons, not too epic, fun to read and with short stories and/or poems (I think)… I just remember the little guys
I am looking for a large (coffee-table sized) book of children’s stories that are beautifully illustrated by watercolor in full color with glossy pages. The illustrations could be kind of scary–they were artistic, but not childish or cartoonish. The stories were involved, with lot of text.
One was about a dragon that had a toothache because a baker’s apprentice brought him so many cookies and donuts. Another about the Chinese character Li Po trying to get the moon in a cup.
Another about dangerous mountainous adventures.
This was probably a scholastic book c.1978 or so. I recall it was orange, hardcover. Full of stories about science and maybe history. One story was about a cowboy who got shot in the belly and the doctor who cared for him dipped food into the open wound to observe digestion. Other stories like this
A children’s picture book in my library around 1986. A cute knight on some kind of quest. Detailed illustrations where each character has unique heraldry? At some point someone says to the knight “Good morning, good knight” to which he replies “that was a very short day”. Title maybe like Sir X?
A teen boy/girl is taken from home by the government and put on a spaceship. There is only a snarky robot and a caged feral girl (maybe an alien?) onboard. They try to escape via bedsheet rope. The cover is them climbing down the rope. Publish range of 1950–2000. NOT “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.”