I don’t know the title or author; it was a children’s book for preschoolers that was read to me more than 80 years ago. One of the characters was a wise old owl who sat in a tree, saying, “I am thinking important thoughts I didn’t have time to think yesterday.” this line has been quoted in my family ever since to anyone who was staring into space, daydreaming. I have long wondered what the book was. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Category Archives: Solved
292F: Boy teaches children to fly (Solved)
I believe I read this book in the mid-1960s from the school library. A new boy shows up in the community and, over the course of the summer, teaches all of his classmates to fly. Spoiler alert: it turns out he is actually a bird temporarily in boy form, and when he leaves at the end of the summer (presumably to migrate), one of the girls (maybe a loner who has no family?) goes with him, as a bird. I don’t think it’s the girl from whose point of view the story is told, but that’s possible. The title that sticks in my head, but which I think is wrong, is That Summer, the Birds. THANK YOU!!!
292C: Inquisitive children involved in magic (Solved)
This story involved red and green apothecary jars in the window of a store, with different magical potions in each. Two or three inquisitive children who get involved with magic. I learned the word “widdershins” in reading this book. It may have been one of a series, possibly British. I read it/them in the early ’60s.
291W: Girl wants tassels for her sled (Solved)
This book must date back to the 1940s. I remember finding it at our summer home in NH, where there were all kinds of odd books for young people about.
It is a picture book. The illustrations are similar to pen-and-ink drawings that have been colored in, quite bright, beautiful sense of line.
The story is about a girl (and her brother) in a northern country (Scandinavia?). In the winter (Christmas?) they decorate sleds with strings of colored tassels for some procession. The girl cleans house for an old woman who makes her the tassel string. The girl gets caught in a terrible snowstorm on the way home and takes shelter in the root-hole of a much loved ancient oak tree. (The oak tree is a character in the story too.) This is where she is found.
I have never encountered this book anywhere else. It doesn’t ring a bell with anyone I have ever talked to.
Thanks for your suggestions!
291R: It’s so hard to say goodbye (Solved)
This was a children’s book that I read around age 5 or 6 around 1969. The main character is a bear who possibly befriends someone (a little boy?) and has to leave and say goodbye. All I remember is the ending is sad and it involves a bear and it made me cry and made my mother ask, “What’s wrong?’
291Q: Selfish Girl Loses Candies and Finds New Friends (Solved)
This book would be from mid-late 1950s. Color illustrations throughout, done in a painterly style. A girl (with pigtails?) named (Belinda?) gets some money somehow. She sneaks off to the penny candy store to spend it and doesn’t want any of the other children to see her. In the old-fashioned candy store, they wrap her purchases up in a brown paper cone. As she runs home to avoid the others, the candies fall out one by one. The neighborhood children pick them up and return them to her. She learns about selfishness and makes new friends. I think she is wearing an old-fashioned coat with muff. I tried to find this book when my daughter was little, to no avail.
291N: Keyo the cave boy (Solved)
I read this probably in the early 80′ maybe late 70’s. The title may in fact by Keyo but I can not find it anywhere. Keyo is a boy. Probably a Neanderthal. Or an early modern human. In the opening scene he leaves the cave. He hunts some small birds perhaps with a sling. He has a grandfather and sister(s). Later he takes part or witnesses a woolly rhinoceros hunt which I think involves a pit trap.
291M: Sad tears of space slug grant immortality (Solved)
In a sci-fi anthology ~1970, the protagonist is sole crew on a space station with giant slug. Somehow his job is to keep it sad so its tears can be harvested for human benefit.
Probably he doesn’t understand the job at first.
Short story
291L: I’ll be the mommy (Solved)
The title is something like, “I’ll Be The Mommy and You’ll be The Little Girl”or vice versa. It also may include “I’ll be the Daddy, you be the Little Boy,” (or vice versa as well.) The book is from the early 1980’s, I think, suitable for early primary children. It is two stories in one book The first part is about a mommy and little girl going for an outing and they change roles briefly. If they book is turned over and similar story involves a daddy and a little boy doing the same thing. In the middle of the book is a two page illustration of the parents and the boy and girl meeting up in the home…just adorable. It is nicely illustrated and while I don’t see it listed on any Sesame Street lists, the illustrations of the characters remind me of that company’s type of drawing.
291J: Boy befriends man with a donut cart (Solved)
I read this book in maybe 1978. Black and white Illustrations with hidden objects throughout, like a giraffe under a man’s hat, etc. A boy runs away from home and befriends a man who sells donuts from a cart on the street. The donut salesman falls in love with a woman who has a pretzel cart and this makes the runaway boy jealous. Then a bull escapes from a pet store and runs into a giant tank of coffee, which the boy is sure to drown in as he gets trapped in a basement filling with coffee. The donut salesman saves the boy by dumping all his donuts in the coffee. The boys goes home at the end.