Category Archives: Anthology

157H: Girl awakes with stuffy nose, cant smell breakfast.

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Book of short stories (not fairy tales-more like stories with a lesson) with illustrations. presumably hard cover and 8.5×10 (although I suspect I was missing part of the book along with the cover) From the clothing worn in the illustrations, which were few but what I remember most-The book was probably from the 50’s-60’s-The earliest I would have read it would have been around 1979. The stories would be to my extremely fuzzy memory, no longer than 2 pages or so. The ones I remember are as follows: There is an illustration of a mother (very June Cleaver-esque) downstairs in the kitchen cooking breakfast while the smell of presumably bacon can be seen wafting upstairs to a bedroom where 2 girls (early teens) are awaking. I think the girl in the 2nd bed is a friend sleeping over. the 1st girl awakes to smell breakfast cooking but the friend doesn’t. The friend has awaken ill. The story touches on her senses and the mom explains that because she has a cold-her sense of smell is gone. Next story shows an illustration of a younger boy who has fallen and skinned his knee or arm, maybe off of a bicycle..he is crying and and an older brother comes to help him I don’t remember the point of the story but I remember the illustrator drew bags under his eyes to signify the distress from his crying and it looked extremely odd to me, even as a child I thought it odd. also I think he may have been missing some front teeth (due to his age, not the fall). Another story is a father and son at a camping ground or walking in the woods, one of them has a plaid jacket on. I think it is fall. They happen upon a camp fire that was not properly put out or they are about to leave their own campfire (dont recall) but the story is basically the dad telling the boy the dangers of not putting out campfires properly. The last one I remember is an illustration of 2 little girls with short bob cuts,almost identical but one is blonde one is brunette walking in unison in the rain. each one has on a raincoat, rain boots, and umbrella one is all red, the other is all yellow. I think they meet a 3rd girl along the way. She may have not had any friends but she looks like them also. She may have on all blue or green but dressed as the other girls are..this story is about friendship..the illustration reminds me of the morton salt girl X3. I’m pretty sure this story was near the end of the book or possibly the last story. for some reason, these are the only ones I remember reading over and over again..but surely there were more in the book. I’ve longed for this book for so many years!!! Please help!

 

156C: 1960’s lighthouse “boy and girl go to big city” “department store” escalator

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Only story I remember from a book of stories I received in the 1st or 2nd grade, mid to late 1960’s.  A hardcover book with color illustrations, about a boy and girl, lighthouse keeper’s children, who go with Mom to a big city department store with an escalator.  No title, author or publisher.

 

155B: Fairy Tale Collection

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I’m pretty sure that I would have used this book in the 1960s and 1970s.  I thought the background on the cover (hardback book) was predominantly red / orange with buildings that looked Russian.  My memory that it was “Once Upon a Time Fairy Tales,” or “Around the World…”  could have been fairy tales or folk tales.

I do know the stories were from many countries.  The pictures were in color and I thought maybe the editor / collector was a Russian name.  I can see the cover in my mind’s eye.

Included in the book:   Twelve Dancing Princesses,  The Three Sillies, The Bunyip (Austrlia), tale about an elephant and a tortoise, Egyptian story in which an arm is cut off, The Three Fates, a Nordic (?) tale about a woman and a witch with a stone boat, a tropic story called “The Bones…,”  Why the Sea Has Lost it’s Salt, a story about a leprechaun that plants gold in a field and marks the spot many times to trick someone,  The Frog Prince,  a story about a young Eskimo(?) princess in which someone becomes a wolf.

Hope this leads to something. Thank you for your help.

 

153A: Fairy tale and nursery rhyme book

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I had a Fairy tale and Nursery rhyme book when i was a child in the 80’s so i’m assuming it was printed before or up to the late 80’s. It was a big heavy red book and the title included Fairy tales and Nursery Rhymes. The cover had little red riding hood and various characters from all the stories inside. Stories included Cinderella, snow white, heidi, jack and the beanstalk,sleeping beauty, tom thumb, little red riding hood to name a few and some of the rhymes included the old woman that lived in a shoe, little polly flinders, jack and jill, little jack horner, twinkle twinkle little star. I managed to find some of the illustrations on the net but they had no information as to where they came from. I’ll include them with this post. They’re all beautiful color illustrations. So if any one has any idea of the name of this book it would be hugely appreciated

 

152B: searching for a book that my great aunt read to my uncle in the 1930s

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I am searching for a book for my Uncle Frank who was born in 1929.  It may be called the Witch of Windy Hill  and it may be a collection of stories.  In one story, there were these lines “Mrs. Mite and Mrs. Midge…underneath the wishing bridge…how I wonder when and whether she will lose her bonnet feather what a broom twood make”  and there was mention of Colonel Sand, I think.

 

151C: Anthology of Fairy Tales

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Hi, I had this book probably in the late 90’s. It was a paperback book of fairy tales, but not traditional ones, “different” ones, and I’m pretty sure it was an anthology. I’ve thought of quite a few of the stories and plots but can’t remember the name of the book or editor. Anyways, The borders of the cover were red and there was some kind of blue and green forest type scene on the front I think? The colors looked like a drawing, not a real photo or anything. One of the stories is about a prince crossing an ocean and his boat begins to sink. A mermaid kisses him all over his face and he can breath underwater. He goes to live with her for a while but also wants to go back and tell his parents he’s ok, he does, meets a girl on land and marries her, and when he crosses the ocean again the sea princess drowns him I think. Another one is about a girl getting ready to be married and she meets some kind of half man half stag in a forest and he puts a braid of his hair around her finger. When she goes back home and goes to get married, the ring won’t go on her finger and the stag man shows up to take her back to the forest. The third story I remember is just about a girl with blue hair (maybe a mermaid?) who’s missing and her brothers are coming to a town one by one to search for her. They all end up getting indentured to different people and she shows up in town (or something) riding a tiger. And last, a princess stitches her dog into a tapestry she’s creating and stitches herself in too. Wanted to escape the castle or marriage or something. I found a similar answered question about a story like my very last one, but I know this one was in a book with lots of other stories, not by itself.

 

145O: Lost Fairy Tale Book

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This was a hardback book, with a picture of a beautiful blonde girl on the front with a well and green hills in the background, and I recollect it being blue? But that could be wrong.
It was a compilation of different fairy tales and except for the ‘seven brothers into seven crows’ tale, none of them I have ever come across since.
The tales included stories about;
A little girl who lied a lot and then got given a ring and the ring squeezed her finger and went bright red when she lied.

 A little elf who went to a house with blue flowers in the garden and somehow he was invisible and he went inside the house where the other elves were baking and tried to steal toffee but got caught.

 A wicked magician who had a cloak made out of enchanted beads and somehow moths got to it and it disintegrated and beads spilled everywhere and the villagers took them.

And , the one I remember most clearly was a tale about a wicked mother who had two daughters, one beautiful and one plain – she went away and told the girls to cook clean etc. but the ugly sister wouldn’t do it and so the pretty one did everything but when the mother returned the ugly sister lied and said she did everything so the pretty sister ran into the woods. In the woods she found the house where an old woman lived and so she asked to stay, she made the woman delicious apple pie and cleaned her whole house and so the woman said pick a brooch and a cloak. She picked a ratty old cloak and a plain lark pin, even though the woman had many fine ones. When she left the house the sun shone on the cloak and it was rich velvet with precious jewels all over it. When she got home her mother and sister were so mean she went out to the well and cried but when she sobbed it came out sounding beautiful and a passing prince wanted to marry her. Her sister was jealous and so went into the woods and found the old woman but she did nothing and made the woman cook for her and then demanded a cloak and brooch. She took the fanciest cloak and a emerald toad pin. When she went outside the cloak turned into a motheaten piece of cloth and when she got home and went to the well and cried but it came out sounding like a toad croak.
There were more tales but I can’t remember them. I specifically want the compilation, rather than individual adoptions of the tales. If anyone knows about this it would make me so happy as my mum accidentally gave this book away and it was my childhood favorite.