Category Archives: Status

370B: Girl is bored by being in a whale’s stomach

2 Replies

I would like help finding a book from my childhood, please. I think I read it around 2004, but I often read older authors like Enid Blyton as a kid, so I don’t think this date narrows it down much. From what I remember, it was a book about a book. The characters were self aware, and had to relive the events of the book as it was being read. I recall a girl (possibly a princess) being bored as she was eaten by the same whale for the umpteenth time, and being unimpressed by her love interest. Outside this book, the lives of the readers went on. The book was read by a girl, and then left on a shelf until it was read by her granddaughter. The characters were aware of time passing, and missed the girl, and were surprised she had grown old. I’m sorry I can’t give more details.

370A: Book about a Japanese Girl & Girls’ Day (circa 1959) (Solved!)

6 Replies

I’ve been trying to remember the title of a book that I read many times back circa 1959. The book was fiction about a young Japanese girl living in Japan. She was learning about Girls’ Day, which involved setting up an elaborate display of traditional dolls representing the Japanese Emperor and Empress and other figures. The girl and her mother had tea and tradition food so that the girl could learn manners and decorum. The book was hard-covered and illustrated with hand drawings in black and white. I don’t remember if the entire book was about Girls’ Day, or if that was just my favorite part of the book.

369Z: Kid’s Picture Book About Too Many Cats Living in a Grocery Store Until They are Given Away to Customers (Solved!)

1 Reply

I am hoping you can help me. My mom read a book to me as a kid but I cannot remember the name or find it on Google for the life of me. It’s driving me crazy! 
It is a picture book about a man who owns a grocery store and a cat lives there (or comes to live there at the very beginning maybe). More and more cats come to live at the store until they are causing all kinds of trouble for customers, like knocking stuff over. I remember one page was a drawing of a cat popping out of the fish kept in the ice section and scaring a customer. The store owner decides to give away a cat with every bag of groceries purchased. One page is a customer (an older woman I believe) taking home 2 cats with 2 bags. The bags are brown paper bags. It ends with the store owner only keeping the original cat. I think the original cat was an orange tabby but I am not sure about it, sorry.

I remember the pictures take up the page or at least most of it.

It was a softcover book (or at least my copy was).

My brother and I were born in 1993/95 and both remember it so I’m guessing it was read to me in the late 90’s or maybe early 2000s. I think it wasn’t an older book when I read it because of the drawing style- at least it didn’t look old fashioned. It’s a colorful, but not unrealistically colorful picture style. Not overly artistic/beautiful. Just fun, clear, and kid-like pictures. 

The book is in English, but I don’t know where it was published.

I’m guessing it was not a super popular book because I have googled it like crazy and can’t find it.

369Y: Strange episodical book about young woman’s (sometimes erotic) experiences

Leave a reply

Hello, I am hoping you can help me to track down  a book that I read years ago, likely between 2000-2003, although I doubt it was a new book at that time. It was absolutely weird and wild and no one seems to have read or heard of it besides myself! I believe the cover was light pink with black script. The book itself is about a young girl’s life and sexual experiences, thoughts, fantasies, and imaginings, some very strange, including a party of men holding golden dicks on sticks that are used in a sort of ritual-like scene.I believe it was arranged episodically. 
 I distinctly remember a very strange passage where the girl goes into what may have been some sort of club, then up some stairs. I believe she is led up the stairs by a man. She ends up in a dark room with a lot of scantily clad or naked men who have all these golden penises on long rods and are sort of parading them around. At one point I think they all formed up around her while she laid on a bed. It was a very erotically charged scene and that’s why it stuck out to my young self, but the book itself was not erotica, I think, though it had some sexual themes. It was more about the girl’s thoughts and point-of-view rather than about the suggestive scenes.  I THINK the book also involves the girl talking about her mother and their relationship, maybe some men the mother dated as well? I feel like I remember a part where she was attracted to a man her mother was seeing, but that could be incorrect.
 I also feel like I remember a passage from the book where the girl was talking about a guy that I think liked her and perhaps wanted to get physical with her, but she couldn’t get over his pimples. She describes his face and the pimples in detail and how gross she thinks it is.
This is something that has been driving me WILD every time I think about it (it’s been many years forgotten) and I’d love it if anyone could help me figure it out!

369W: Illustrated Children’s Book with Child-snatching Witch

2 Replies

It was a large hardback colour illustrated book. The story features a boy, a girl and a dog or cat, I think they have to stay inside because it’s raining. I think the girl is trying to scare the boy by telling a story about this witch that snatches children. The witch rides around on a vacuum cleaner like thing I think. I vividly remember the illustrations being the main focus, some taking up the entire page and I think some pages had special printing like glow in the dark patches. I think the girl was emphasising how she wasn’t scared of all these fantastical things going on and I definitely remember at the end of the book she is scared by a spider or mouse.

I read this book as a child, but I can say for certain when, I think the time frame for when the book was released is 1985-2005 though could be earlier. It was in the UK if that makes any difference.

It’s been bothering me a lot because every time I try to search it I end up getting the same results of Badjelly the Witch, Terry Pratchett’s The Witch’s Vacuum, Winnie the Witch, The Wednesday Witch, The Littlest Witch, etc – it isn’t any of these.

369V: After the Nuclear War

1 Reply

Looking for a paperback book series that I read on base, in Honduras in 2001-2003. It is based after a nuclear war and the protagonist has a group of folks he scavenges with. . . I think he is like a Clint Eastwood type gun slinger. When he gets mad (?) his vision turns red and he enters like a berserker state. In 1 book, they visit Philadelphia(?) a nuke site that was turned to glass. Another book has them visiting a research bunker in Alaska(?), where the scientists are either holed up or coming out of a hibernetic chamber or something. . . any help is much appreciated!!

369T: My Busy Day

3 Replies

I am looking for a book my father often read to my sister and me when we were very little. She was born in 1978; I was born in 1980. The book title (I think) was about a “busy day.” There are two lines/quotes from the book that stand out to me that my father recalled years later:

I start my day with breakfast. I drink from my own cup.

Next I play dress-up. Look! That’s me, the fire chief!

The book definitely seemed to be written in the first person, and it contains some kind of reference to drinking from a cup and playing dress up as a fireman.

Any ideas? Thanks for any potential leads you can give. My father died in 2015, and my sister and I are always looking for ways to help our own children know him. This book would be such a special connection!

369S: Dragon Obsessed With “Mutt”

Leave a reply

I saw an ebook that had a woman in pigtails at a bar on the cover. She looked alternative and edgy. The book was a paranormal romance or urban fantasy. The woman is a mutt. A mix of different shifters with no special powers. The back cover blurb called her a mutt. She works in a bar. The setting was mentioned on the back cover.  A dragon comes in and becomes obsessed with her. She can’t figure out why she’s nothing special in their world. I can’t remember the author or title. But the tone had a bit of humor and I went to click on it later and couldn’t find the ad and link. I really want to read this book. It sounded fun.

369P: Overconsumption

Leave a reply

I am looking for a children’s book I read in class as a kid.  1974-1977 I remember it had a big gold award seal on the cover. About a society that the people replaced household pieces every day.  Specifically I remember plumbing pipes being replaced and then a landfill was piled high with all this junk that had only been used one day.