This book would have been published before 1978 but probably after 1960 or 1965. It was a children’s book with photos (probably black and white) of a pair of frolicking kittens. The kittens had black and grey stripes. There may have been short captions of the pictures. The pictures were of the kittens leaping and jumping in funny ways.
Category Archives: Solved
239H: Animal steals a cherry pie from window sill (Solved!)
I was read this book by my mom when I was about 7 years old. It was probably published before 1995. It’s part of a collection of stories, possibly with the word “treasury” or “collection” in the title. The book was hardcover, a royal blue color, maybe a little bigger than a standard piece of computer paper, and about an inch thick. It may have been designed to be a bedtime book, but I don’t remember anything about sleeping.
I don’t remember anything other than a bit about one of the stories. I think they may have all been about animals, though. The one story I do remember involved a raccoon or black and white animal (but not a skunk) that steals a pie that was set to cool on a different animal’s window sill. I think the pie was cherry and had a lattice top crust.
Please help me find this book. I’d love to read it to my son.
239G: Old woman and a wolf? (Solved)
I have been trying to conjure up what this book is that I had as a child. I could have sworn it was The Old Woman and the Wolf, but I’m not sure. I have stumbled onto The Wolf and the Old Woman, but I can’t find a description of what that book is about, plus the illustrations look wrong in the one image I saw of the cover (not to mention it was published in ’94, much too late for what I’m looking for).
As far as I can remember, it was about a lonely woman who lived by herself in the woods and a wolf would come to visit her. I think at first the wolf was pesty and she wasn’t fond of it, but over time she and it became friends and at the end, either she or the wolf dies. I remember it taking place season after season, over several years, and for some reason the winter season rings a bell. Like she keeps getting colder and colder every winter.
I know that it was a larger book, about the same size as Make Way for Ducklings. And it possibly had one of those medal insignias on its cover, although its possible that I’m mistaking that for MWfD.
I’ve been searching for this book for years and would do a great big happy dance if anyone at your store is able to somehow help me out with this. I want to get a copy for my own kids. And it certainly wasn’t a cutesy book by any means, had a darker vibe than a lot of children’s books.
I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed!
-Nicole
239F: Fuzzy Shoulder Friends (Solved)
I need help finding a children’s book, I can’t remember what it’s called!
It’s about a little village where all the people have little fuzzy creatures that sit on their shoulders. They look like fuzzy balls with eyes, and come in all different colors. These creatures make the people happy and build their self esteem. Then the people get greedy and start taking each other’s creatures to the point where the whole village is unhappy. They realize this and begin to share the creatures, the village is happy again. Moral of the story: when you take someone else’s confidence, you feel worse too. Published in 1960’s – 1980’s, perhaps.
Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!
239B: Mirror World (Solved)
I am trying to remember a book that I read in elementary school in the mid to late 80s. I don’t remember the title but it was about being trapped inside another world inside a mirror and anytime they showed mirrors they used holographic stickers. I remember it being a large picture book with great (Victorian style?) artwork.
237G: Majorette problems (Solved)
A girl tries out for majorette at her high school. She is so nervous that she has nightmares that the baton keeps getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier. She makes majorette but then her grades start to suffer.
237F: A girl tries out for cheerleader (Solved)
This is an older book from the fifties or sixties. A girl tries out for cheerleader at her high school. The school colors are navy blue and white and on the day of tryouts she realizes she is wearing a white shirt and navy skirt that looks almost like the cheer uniform. She is embarrassed about that. She later makes the squad.
237B: Companion Novels from the 80s: The Victim’s Perspective, The Bully’s Perspective (Solved)
In the early 90s or late 80s, I remember reading two novels for kids. They were both about a boy being bullied. One was from the perspective of the victim and one from the perspective of the bully. I can’t find them anywhere. The only other detail I can remember is that some of the bullying took place in the neighborhood. It’s a fuzzy memory and maybe I dreamed it. Maybe it was only a chapter or two in the same book even. I was sure it was Blume or Cleary but I searched their books and couldn’t find anything like this. I do know that Wonder has a new companion novel from the perspective of the bully but this is clearly different. Thanks!
236B: Stuffed animal disguises himself (Solved)
I borrowed a copy of a chapter-book from a preschool acquaintance of mine in Canada in 1991 or 1992. As I recall, though, it was a hardcover with slightly off-white pages, meaning that it might have been much older. As I recall, it was a medium-sized book of short stories about a group of bedroom toys, with black-and-white ink illustrations. The only story I remember in any detail was about a stuffed animal who goes into his owner’s closet and re-emerges wearing a pile of clothing and declaring himself to be ‘_______ _______ III’. At the age I was, I had no idea that this meant ‘the third’, so I always mentally read it as ‘I-I-I’ or ‘one-one-one’. The other toys are astonished at first, but I’m pretty sure there was the predictable unmasking by the end of the story. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
235D: Creepy anthology from the 70s (Solved!)
Anthology of monsters or horror. One of the first stories was about a boy and his sister (or baby-sitter?), and the boy has an ugly doll with a red yarn string as a mouth. I think the yarn doll has a wire in the arm, and it scratches the girl, and she thinks it did it on purpose.
At the end of the story, the boy is wearing pajamas that look like those of the doll, and the boy starts to smile, and his smile stretches out into a red yard mouth.
I get the creeps just describing it again! Probably from the 1970’s. My memory is that it was illustrated, and hardcover.