I am looking for a children’s book . . .
Title: (not sure) The Weiry Wax Alternate spellings: Wiery, Weary Wacks
Approx publication dates: older! I read it sometime between 1945 and 1950. It could have been a 1930s publication. I’m born 1941. Been seeking this book for 60+ years, for my grandchildren, and myself. Contemporaneous with PING, the Chinese duck and the junk boatman. I mean, I was reading these books at roughly same time. Also that Brownie book, of 1930s or ’40s. Barbar….that era.
Description: children’s book, roughly that picture book format/size, glossy cover, with the 30 or so pages of text and art.
The main characters, I believe on the cover, were the Weiry Wax (or ___ Wacks, or Weary ___), but I think the spelling was like a ‘weir’ (low dam) They were roundish, something like a mummer meets a sea urchin. Black. A coal-black snowball, with spines.
I’m reminded of them whenever I see the soot sprites in Miyazaki’s TOTORO–the little black dust balls. These guys were bigger than that, but not more than knee or waist high on a child.
I can’t remember the other characters….was there a human? don’t know. It’s just that the Weiry Wax themselves scared me mucho, but they weren’t too evil, I think, and I came to be fond of them. Wanted one for a pet. (They may have been dreadful: I was a weird kid, only child, active imagination.) Pretty sure they had eyes, like the Miyazaki sprites, and not much else. Stubby legs/feet maybe. Like a Shmoo, but definitely in the dark part of any shmoo universe. I don’t think they were there to help. Guess they lived in a forest. They might have carried a staff or spear, ergo hands/arms.
