Category Archives: Anthology

301X: Shoes that looked like ballet slippers and a string of pearls

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The book that I have been unsuccessfully searching for is a book of short stories for girls that was published in the mid 1960’s.  I recall purchasing it at a school book fair, most likely in junior high.  The stories were mostly coming of age stories for teenage girls.  One story told of a girl who did not fit in in high school, and she wanted new clothes that she believed would help.  I remember she wanted to buy “shoes that look like ballet slippers and a string of pearls.  I seem to recall that she also played the piano.  Another story was about a girl who felt very unattractive and her dad said something to the effect of she was not a pretty girl but she was going to be a beautiful woman.  I have searched for this collection of short stories for many years and have found many collections, but not this particular one.  I would be very grateful if you might have any information about this elusive book.  Thank you for any suggestions you may have.

301N: Kid and (possibly imaginary) tiger have adventures, drawings break the 4th wall

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I have been searching and searching for a set of books I loved as a child. I grew up in Ireland so they are probably UK based. I would rent them from the library when I was about 7 or 8 I think, so around 1992 but I suspect they were older than that.

From the little I can remember these were hardback books in primary colours (I seem to remember orange) where a kid and an animal (I am 99% sure a tiger) would have adventures. There may have been a third character also. There was a lot of text with some informal / childlike pen and ink drawings that would sometimes interact with the text.

Any help or further info would be so appreciated. I’m expecting my first child and would love to be able to share these books some day.

300X: The fertile farm bought with three moths (Solved)

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This is for my husband. He said he had a reader he loved as a kid. It was published by Scholastic. He said it is about a family who loses everything. The father, mother and at least two kids get in their car and head out. They end up buying a farm which is not fertile because they were taken advantage off. However, the farm is kind of magical and becomes fertile. The farmer who sold it to them comes back at toward the end of the book and wants it back. He says that the father of the family had said he would buy the farm with everything in his wallet and that he did not hold his end of the bargain because there were three moths in his wallet he did not give away. The farmer proceeds to plant trees which grow immediately and turn the day to night because of the shade of their canopies. The family goes hunting for moths with a flashlight and find three moths to pay the bad man with.

 

299Z: Children’s bedtime anthology

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I’m looking for this book of illustrated stories I read during my school days (would have been ~15-20 years ago). It had a light blue hard cover and the title I believe was something along the lines of “365 Illustrated Bedtime Stories” or the like (I have tried searching various book websites with various combinations of this name but no luck).

It was a collection of 365 illustrated stories, each a few pages long. I remember details from a few –

1) There were a few stories about a young boy wizard who is getting trained. In one of the stories he had a long day and fell asleep (there was a specific illustration about this)

2) There were a few stories about a family on an alien planet in space (terraforming it?), assisted by a bunch of sentient construction robots. The family consisted of a mum, dad, son, daughter and pet dog. In one story, there is an infestation of mechanical crab like creatures – one of the children get carried off and is later rescued by the robots. In another, they accidentally puncture the crust of the planet which starts flooding the surface with the underground ocean that they were unaware existed. They are unwilling to leave the robots but have to evacuate the planet. Thankfully, the robots modify themselves into a spacecraft and manage to evacuate as well (I remember a few lines that were along the lines of – suddenly there was a bright flash of retro boosters from the surface… the robots has transformed [one of them] into a spacecraft etc etc)

I believe there was a companion book of “365 Illustrated Daytime Stories” with a light peach cover, and I believe a basket of curled up puppies / kittens or a large curled up squirrel with a bushy tail on its cover.

Sorry I know this might not be much to go on, but I really loved these books as a child and am very keen to get my hands on them if possible.

Any help would be very much appreciated!! Thanks in advance

299M: Like brightly colored Hummel characters

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I’m looking for a children’s book that was a collection of fairy tales or stories.  My father brought it home to me around the mid 1980’s from one of his trips abroad.  The book was written in English, largish font, and beautifully illustrated.  The pictures stand out the most in my memory, reminding me of brightly colored Hummel characters.  I believe the front cover had a boy and girl on a wagon.  The stories were unique, I’ve never read them anywhere else.  The only bits I can recall is that one story was about a princess or young girl who was picking peaches and either in the same story or a completely different one there were elves or fairies picking leaves of gold and they had to wear special sunglasses to do so.  It was either leaves or apples of gold.

I hope what little information I was able to provide will help you in figuring out what book this was!

 

298U: Look at me, Mama! (Solved)

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The book I am looking for was published in the early 1970s or possibly late 60s. It was a large format children’s book (probably around 15″ tall by 10-12″ wide). If I remember right, it had a black and white checked border on the cover, similar to The Real Mother Goose. It was an anthology of children’s stories. There was a story about a little girl who picks her neighbors flowers, and her mother explains to her that she shouldn’t do that and they plant a garden for the little girl so she has her own flowers. There is another story about a little boy picking huckleberries and pretending to be a bear or maybe running into a bear in the woods. There is another one about a little girl who reads The Little Red Hen and then she pretends to be the red hen. There is also a poem called “Look at Me, Mama” wherein a bunch of different bugs do things and tell their mothers to look at them – there is a line that goes something like “And when a little water bug sticks his face – his WHOLE FACE – into the water and says ‘look at me, mama!’, she does!”

The graphics in the book are all very much straight out of 1968 – 1975.

For the life of me, I cannot remember what this book was called and I’ve not seen a copy of it for years. I’ve been googling everything I can think to google. It was one of my favorite books when I was a kid and I want to share it with my son, who is now about the age I was when my mom used to read it to me.

I hope you can find it – thank you!

298R: Late 1970/ early 1980s fairy tale book with 12 Dancing Princesses

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I checked in the fairy tales page but didn’t find my book amongst the ones listed. I am looking for a child’s fairy tale book that was probably published in the late 1970s or early 80s and possibly in Canada as my parents lived in the Niagara Falls area and it may have been purchased in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The book was oversized and probably around 100 pages with a pale bluish cover and contained many tales including The Nightingale and I think the very last story was the 12 Dancing Princesses. It was heavily illustrated with beautiful colour illustrations that had a very “silky” look to clothing and hair of the characters. I’m pretty sure it was a generic title such as Fairy Tales or maybe World’s Best Fairy Tales  and it is NOT the Reader’s Digest book from that era. I think there may have been a prince and princess on the front cover and there was a round vignette illustration on the back of scenery I believe.  Any help would be appreciated!

298M: A collection with “Many Moons”

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Hello! The book I am thinking of could *possibly* be a school book, it was hard cover, and grey-blue in color. It had “Many Moons”, by James Thurber, the last story was by, I believe, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and there was a story about a toy maker making wooden animals for a farm set. The lights went out and he painted all the animals the ‘wrong’ colors and was very upset until someone told him they were even better that way.

I would love to find this collection of stories again!