Category Archives: Anthology

236B: Stuffed animal disguises himself (Solved)

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I borrowed a copy of a chapter-book from a preschool acquaintance of mine in Canada in 1991 or 1992. As I recall, though, it was a hardcover with slightly off-white pages, meaning that it might have been much older. As I recall, it was a medium-sized book of short stories about a group of bedroom toys, with black-and-white ink illustrations. The only story I remember in any detail was about a stuffed animal who goes into his owner’s closet and re-emerges wearing a pile of clothing and declaring himself to be ‘_______ _______ III’. At the age I was, I had no idea that this meant ‘the third’, so I always mentally read it as ‘I-I-I’ or ‘one-one-one’. The other toys are astonished at first, but I’m pretty sure there was the predictable unmasking by the end of the story. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

235D: Creepy anthology from the 70s (Solved!)

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Anthology of monsters or horror. One of the first stories was about a boy and his sister (or baby-sitter?), and the boy has an ugly doll with a red yarn string as a mouth. I think the yarn doll has a wire in the arm, and it scratches the girl, and she thinks it did it on purpose.
At the end of the story, the boy is wearing pajamas that look like those of the doll, and the boy starts to smile, and his smile stretches out into a red yard mouth.
I get the creeps just describing it again! Probably from the 1970’s. My memory is that it was illustrated, and hardcover.

234D: Large Children’s Anthology of Short Stories from the 90s

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I’m looking for a treasury/anthology of short stories for children that was most likely published in the early to mid 90s. I can’t remember too much about it, but the pages were yellow (or maybe had a thick yellow border?). It was about 2 inches thick, and was about 8 1/2″ x 11″. There were all different types of stories and were unrelated to each other. The only one I can actively remember was about the father of the family was trying to cure sunspots. The book contained pictures with most, if not all, of the stories. The stories were probably geared towards ages 6 to 11, as opposed to younger children. I have no idea about author/title/publisher because for as long as I can remember, the front and back covers had torn off!

232D: A much loved collection of poems

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I’m looking for an old book of children’s poems. It was rather thick. My mom would read it to me when I was around seven years old back in the late fifties.

It was hard covered and if memory serves had a light colored cover. I don’t remember any illustration on the cover. Looking back, the book design reminds me of a series of Grimm’s Fairy Tales books we had in the house they had plain beige covers on them.

Anyway, I checked your list of books on your site and while one book of poems comes close in content, the cover is not the same and it is missing at least one of the poems, Jabberwocky.

Here are the poems I remember that it contained: Winken and Blinken and Nod (sketch showed 3 boys in a balloon, pic was on the right side of the page), The Owl and the Pussycat (one sketch showed the piggy with the ring in his nose in the wood – pic on the left side of the page), The Duel (The Gingham Cat and the Calico Dog – the stuffed animals were depicted and the clock), Wadsworth’s’ The Girl with the Curl (when she was bad she was horrid – this short poem was at the bottom of a page on the right), The Walrus and the Carpenter (depicted the little oysters following them with little legs to carry them. Also a pig with wings), e.e. cummings, a poem that started,” I’ve never seen a purple cow” and ended with. ” I’d rather see than be one” (which I’d thought was by e.e. cummings but it’s not), I think it had an e.e. cummings poem or two, and Jabberwocky.

I’m trying to remember other poems in the book. If I do, I’ll send you more identifying information. I loved this book. I loved reading it over and over. I’ve loved to read and read voraciously. My mom had a great sense of humor and always loved the Walrus and Carpenter especially when the little oysters turned blue (starting to realize they were to be eaten).

I wanted this for so long and tried searching the internet several times. I’m usually pretty good at finding information and have found several books of which all I could remember was the story, but I cannot find this way. Searching recently, I came upon your site! I hope you can figure it out and I don’t stump you!

Keeping my fingers crossed….

232C: Anthology of folklore and fairy tales

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Multiple fairy tale/folklore children’s book 1960s. Stories include, Billy Goat Bluff, a wolf that got attacked by geese and had all red welts all over him, the Sun and the Wind story, a man trying to dig the moon reflection out of the water, a little boy (prince maybe) who kept pulling off his hat but another one would show up on his head. More stories in this one book but I can’t recall details.

228A: A collection of short stories with a black and white cover

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My grandmother used to read this to me when I was a child. I don’t remember a whole lot of details but I’ll do my best. It was a very thin book and I believe it was stapled as opposed to bound. It was a collection of children’s short stories, and I mean SHORT. It was a black cover I think with a white border around it and white lettering, maybe some red? Two stories stand out to me, but there must have been 5 or 6, maybe more in the whole book. One was about 2 little girls, one was over at the other’s house I think and was a bit of a whiner or always trying to one-up her friend. The other was about an old man, I think he wore cowboy boots and hat and had like a long stalk of grass he chewed on in his mouth, and lots of different characters in the town including animals. Illustrations I believe were only black and white, and were very Shel Silverstein-esque, but it wasn’t his. I don’t even know if all the stories were written by the same person or not. My grandmother used to own a bookstore in Hartland, WI the early 80s so I suspect it was from there around that time, but could have been older, I don’t know.

227M: A forgotten anthology (Solved!)

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I think this book is an old vintage reader from the 1950s or 60s.  It has some very good stories in it I’d like to read again.  In one story there is a flood and a grandmother and a boy or girl move up to the attic.  There is a cook stove up there and Grandmother makes cookies while the water rises.  The illustrations show her rolling out the dough for the cookies. In another story a young boy tries to teach an old Indian how to drive.  I’d love to read these stories again as I cannot remember how they ended.

Thank you!

223A: Poem about girl eating her first peach (Solved)

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This was a book I had when I was very young. The illustrations had children dressed in early 1900 clothing and it may have been published in that time frame. It was a compilation of stories and poems. One poem was about a little girl eating her first peach. I do remember a line from that poem “I’ve eaten it cloth and all Mama but what shall I do with the bone?” She was referring to the peach pit. Another story in the book was about a little girl who was picking blackberries and could not reach the best ones high in the branches. A gentlemen offers to bend over leaning, on his walking stick and let her stand on his back to reach the berries and she refuses saying she would be to heavy etc. The young man remarks that it would be rude to refuse a kindness and the little girl accepts his offer. There was a picture of this scene in the book of the little girl standing on his back and picking the berries.

217G: 3-year-old tiger; duck with duck-head umbrella (Solved)

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I was born in 1947 and probably owned this story book (illustrated with line drawings) when I was 4–6 years old. My memory is fuzzy, but here goes! One story, more or less in verse, was about a 3-year-old tiger who “lumbered along and lumbered along,” searching for 3-day-old meat. (He eventually found that 3-day-old meat was too old to eat.) Another story was about a mother who took her son clothes shopping and bought him 3 of everything: 3 shirts, 3 belts, 3 pairs of shoes, etc. A third story was about a duck who had a umbrella with a duck-head handle. I believe there was also a story about a stray cat who eventually found a home; the story possibly involved bottles of milk outside the door of a house.