Category Archives: Solved

239G: Old woman and a wolf? (Solved)

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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)

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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)

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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.

237B: Companion Novels from the 80s: The Victim’s Perspective, The Bully’s Perspective (Solved)

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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)

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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!)

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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.

235A: A young girl shares her weathervanes with her neighbors (Solved)

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I was born in 1953 and think maybe the book was for 8-10 year olds so, if it was newly-published, maybe it was from the early 1960s? I have only vague memories of it, of course.  The story of a girl who has moved somewhere new–a place that, to a kid like me from Los Angeles, stuck with me as exotic, like maybe Florida? I think the plot is that the girl has this collection of weathervanes and, when family relocates to a housing development where all the homes are identical, she gets this great idea of giving each neighbor one of the different weathervanes to make life easier for everyone! (The movie “Inside Out” made me think of this book–what happens when a plucky little girl moves?)

234E: A Book of the World (Solved)

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This book is at least 20 years old. It was a book for children showing all the different ways people live around the world (what they wear/eat/keep as pets/do for fun). There was little text, and what has stayed with me are the beautiful pen and ink illustrations. I also remember that the last pages showed how boring life would be if everyone was the same: a two-page spread of a street scene with everything all the same in drab colors, and then the next two pages a spread of a vibrant, colorful street scene instead. The book seemed quite large to me as a child, big enough to have lots to look at on each page… perhaps 12″x14″? Most vague of all is my memory of the cover… possibly, it had a drawing of the globe on a white background, and was just called “The World,” though that may be some other book! I’m from the US, but it’s possible this book was brought as a gift from another anglophone country.

Thank you for your help!