Category Archives: Anthology

145G: 90’s horror anthology (solved)

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A horror anthology read in the early 90s, found at a school book fair.

-A girl has the power to shrink people who she feels betray her and keeps them in a dollhouse or birdcage.
-Two siblings befriend the new neighbor only to find that she’s a vampire
-A girl keeps hearing something in the cellar begging her for help. It turns out to be some mummified creature that drags her under the floor and that it had meant “help” as in “I’m hungry”
-SHADOWS COME TO LIFE AND KILL PEOPLE. There’s this big scene at the end where the latest victim family is desperately trying to light matches to keep the shadows away.

145A: Unicorn History (solved)

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This was a book read in the late 80s which presented the unicorn as history instead of myth. The drawings were in brown and white and done to look as though they were very old.   The basis of the book was the unicorn as an angelic creature, and one of the stories described it fighting demons disguised as dragons.   I’ve already checked the books of Bruce Coville and Jane Yolen – nothing. 

 

141R: “Our Boys”

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“Our Boys”: very old book I had as a child. I estimate it was between 1880 & 1930(sorry!).  It was an anthology of children’s stories & included The Little Match Girl & Hansel & Gretel.  Other than that, I remember it was blue or green binding, oversized & with b&w lithograph illustrations. Thanks!

 

137I: collection of short stories, the title of the book had the word ‘bedtime’ in it

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I’m really hoping you can help me, I’ve been searching the web for a couple of weeks trying to find my favourite childhood book with no success!

It was a collection of short stories, the title of the book had the word ‘bedtime’ in it but I can’t remember any more than that. It was a hardback book with a blue cover and there was also a yellow hardback one of the same characters and author. In one of those books was a story about Mrs mouse who loses her ring in a teacup/teapot. I would have had this book in the 80’s perhaps early 90’s. This is all I can remember!

 

134E: Anthology, similar to East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Solved)

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I had an anthology of fairy tales, which I thought was called East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Whilst the format is very similar (girl traveling looking for something, told stories by the four winds), none of the versions I can find online match, so I may have the title wrong.
It definitely included the stories of:

 

  • The 12 Dancing Princesses
  • Long, Broad & Hawkeye (picture of a beautiful princess behind a curtain? one takes giant steps, one swallows a lake, one has a cloth covering his eyes)
  • ?The Selfish Girl (little girl who gave away items, including a honeycomb and watermelon, but returned a little while later to demand them back)
  • ?Something about watching a man sleeping and 3 drops of waxing dripping from the candle onto his chest.

The illustrations were beautiful but simple, maybe watercolour over ink lines. The characters were generally lithe with long, very straight hair.
It was a large book, with a picture on the front with a deep red/brown border around it. I would’ve been given it new somewhere between 1975-1985, in the UK.
Really hope you can help!

 

134D: Readers Digest Collection

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This was a collection of tales that had been published originally in Readers Digest. Included was a story about a family being slowly poisoned by the lead in a decorative pitcher they drank from every day. There was also one in which a car breaks down in the desert and the children coat their lips with the mother’s lipstick to avoid them drying out. (At one point they get so hungry they eat the lipstick, I think)

 

121I: Pre-Teen Romance Anthology (Solved)

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I read this book sometime between 6th and 8th grades, so between 1976 and 1979. It was not great literature but catered very much to pubescent and pre-pubescent girls. It was a mass-market paperback anthology of short stories, and I think they all dealt with romance and/or the characters’ first kisses. There might have been some that were just about the trials and tribulations of being that age, but if so, I don’t recall specifics. I do remember one of the stories mentioning chocolate pudding. In another -or maybe the same story- the protagonist went on her first date (possibly a school dance?), and when she and the boy walked home, he kissed her, and she said his lips tasted sweet like Coca-Cola.