Category Archives: Status

339Q: My House is Cozy – Bedtime Poem (Solved)

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I was born in the late 70’s and my mom used to recite a bedtime poem to us each night. I can remember three different verses:
Opening verse:
My house is cozy warm and wide.
It has the nicest things inside…
A knife, a fork, a yellow cup,
For drinking all my cocoa up…
Closing verse:
Outside my window I can see,
The moon and stars shine down on me.
Basically the poem was a tour of a child’s home. I believe there was a stop in the kitchen, bathroom then finally the bedroom. I don’t believe it was an original work, and seem to recall my mom saying that she got it from a book, although I don’t ever remember her reading it to us. She was born in the 50’s, so it could be from her childhood. My uncle (her youngest brother) was 10 years older than me, and it may have been a book from him that arrived in disrepair and so she memorized it to recite. My thought is that it is from a compilation/treasury of bedtime poems/rhymes/stories between 1950 and 1980. Googling hasn’t yielded anything. On a whim, I recently purchased Rene Cloke’s Bedtime Book to see if it was from there, but it wasn’t.
Thank you for any help you can provide! We lost our mom 4 years ago and I would love to find the source of this to share with my brothers and sister.

339P: A Girl, An English Boy, And Plaits

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Looking for a children's/middle school age book from 1960s about a girl. A boy from England moves in next door. I think the setting is rural/farm community. She likes the way the boy says bath (baahth). For a special occasion she "plaits" her hair more loosely than usual so the plaits will lie flat when she wraps them around her head or pins them up. She leans over kettle/ pot of steam to create tendrils. That's all I can remember. My mom got it for me from the local public library in Chicago.

339O: Children’s Book of Short Stories Published in the 1960s or early 1970s

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Hello. When I was around 5 or 6 years old (1972 to 1973) I loved a book of short stories. I think it contained around a dozen or so stories.

One of the stories was about a lost cat (or kitten). The cat is lonely, cold, and hungry. The cat wandered around and found a pond with a fish in it. The cat tries to grab the fish, but is pulled into the water. (I think there may have been a fishing pole, and the cat got tangled in it.) When the owner of the house heard the ruckus outside, he went out to retrieve the fish and cat. The cat then lives happily thereafter with the owner, and the owner cooks the fish for the cat.

Another story was about some people who went for a short boat ride on a lake in a rowboat. To make sure everyone person was accounted for, the organizer of the voyage had everyone wear a similar hat. Her plan was to count the number of hats before the journey, and then afterwards. If the number matched, then everyone was accounted for. I recall the voyage had some problems. I think the boat started to sink because someone forgot to install the drain plug. But it wasn’t dangerous because the lake was very shallow. At any rate, at the end of the voyage the organizer was worried & upset because the number of hats she counted afterwards was one less than the onset of the voyage. But someone pointed out that she forgot to count the hat on her head, and everyone laughed.

Thank you

339N: Who is the author? Begins with Stephen…not King or Crane (Solved!)

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I am recalling an early short story writer, from the 1930s and 1940s, he wasn’t known as a science fiction author but wrote a piece of science fiction about a take over of the world by machines. They weren’t AI or anything that sophisticated. No microprocessors. The takeover included automobiles and even irons and vacuum cleaners. The machines just revolted. I think that the story was told by a person in an enclosed room waiting to die, telling his tale. The writer’s first name was Stephen. My parents had a copy of “The Complete Works of Stephen….” or “The Collected Works of Stephen….” but I can’t remember his last name. Does anyone who it might be? I believe he also wrote some poetry included in the set.  I think there were two volumes.

339M: OLD book with uncolored illustrations where a girl saves 3 other girls from a dragons belly

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I’m guessing it was from the 70s or 80s, maybe earlier. softcover, fairly thin, and beautiful uncolored illustrations inside. From memory, it was about a girl who lived out of an old single carriage (starts with an illustration of her standing next to it) and traveled, with short stories of her adventures.

The one I remember best is her going to three towns, singing in one and being told singing is banned because a dragon took the towns best singer, dancing in another town and being told the same, and (I believe) telling a story in the third town? Later on, she finds the dragons cave where he has the three stolen girls in his stomach, and from the best of my memory, the three girls in his stomach tell him a story and sing him to sleep, then dance in his stomach until they’re spit up, and the main character saves them? I perfectly remember there’s an illustration at this part with all 4 girls escaping on a horse together, and I used to stare at that page for so long.

Later on in the book, all I can seem to remember is another point where she’s in a forest and meets some kind of shapeshifter / kelpie or similar creature… but that’s all I’ve got. I believe the girl is on the cover, and I seem to remember the cover art being very neutral/earth toned. I re-found this book on amazon years ago, but now I can’t find it again and cannot for the life of me remember the title or author. It was my absolute favorite book and i’d love to be able to find it again.

 

339L: Three Days Turns Into 30 Years

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I’m having trouble locating a children’s book. Here’s everything I remember:
Picture Book
I first read it in the late 90s so definitely published before 2000
A girl ends up in heaven/utopia for 3 days and when she returns to her mom 30 years have actually passed. Her mom has aged significantly.
She might have been fleeing from a war.
That is all I remember and I am completely stumped. Hoping you can help since google was unable to.

339K: Mr. Tell-Us-A-Story-Man

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There was a play–I suppose it was a children’s play and I don’t remember the name of it or the author–but the central character was named Mr. Tell-Us-A-Story-Man. I played that character in at least two different productions of the play–at school and at Sunday School when I was in the 3rd and 4th grades–so when I was 9 and 10 years old. I wish I could find that play–google-searching has been no help. I can see the text of the play in its published form, printed on cheap already yellowing paper.

339J: Children’s fantasy from 60s/70s with invisible magician/wizard/enchanter (Solved!)

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I borrowed this book from the library, probably during the 1970s, but it may have been published earlier. My vague memories include: two children, probably a boy and a girl, had magical adventures. There was a friendly witch or female magician and a good but scary male magician who was always invisible. This may have been by choice, and there was a backstory of a romantic relationship with the witch. One of the children was transported by the invisible magician and found it rather frightening but eventually trusted the magician. This was not the main plot!

The book was almost certainly British and would have been a chapter book (not a term used at that time).

Thank you!

339I: Children’s book about a Southern girl who wants to be a doctor

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I was eight or nine, and this was in the early 1960s. The book opens with a wedding; the girls’ sister is marrying a Mr. Quackenbush. It’s a big Scottish American family in the South. Later her brother is bitten by a copperhead snake, and the servants’ children—I am ashamed to say they called them pickanninies-and one goes blind. It’s the first time I read the verse “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”

Ideas?

339H: Measles and a Nurse

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I’m looking for a book that is about a nurse caring for a young man (he might have been a doctor) who is dying of complications from measles.  He is in a coma. I think it takes place in Ireland.  The nurse has substance abuse issues, works mostly at night.  He is in love with her and makes up stories and conversations in his head.