Category Archives: Solved

161A: Snowman delivers flavored snow-cones around the world (solved)

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I am trying to locate a book for a friend of mine. He is not sure when it was actually published, but remembers reading it the early 60’s as a child. The snowman could fly, and he delivered flavored snow-cones to kids all over the world. The illustrations were typical for a lot of children’s books from that era – soft watercolor or gouache – and the snowman closely resembled contemporary “Frosty” snowman characters we see today – top hat, cherry/carrot nose, coal eyes, etc. He thinks it could be a Little Golden Book, but he has not found any evidence of that yet.

My friend is a cancer patient and this would make him really happy!

 

160F: Children get humped backs because they ask a wizard if they can see their sins and have to go on a journey (solved)

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A stranger comes to a small town and he has a large hump on his back. The villagers are curious and ask him about it. He tells them the hump is a view of all the sins he has committed throughout his life. Some of the villagers don’t believe him and ask to see their own humps. He grants their request and they end up with humps of various sizes. They then want the humps  removed but the stranger can’t do that and advises them to go on a journey to ……. somewhere I can’t remember which I think is the title of the book. The main characters are two children who have to go on this journey with other hump-backed villagers who gradually drop out along the way.

I vaguely remember reading this book in the 1970’s. It might have had a tree design on the front cover.

 

157N: Children’s Adventure Book (solved)

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I am looking for a hard cover children’s book with 2 children, a brother and sister (name might be ginger) who start out on a plane and end up in a jungle with a monkey named Monkey Monk and a tiger named Tiger Rag. They have lots of adventures and go through a Purple City and many other exciting places with a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter. 3rd-6th grade?

156E: Miser’s Old Shoes Must Go! (solved)

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I’m looking for a picture book that I read to my kids in the 80’s about a miserly man in the middle east who refuses to throw away his old, stinky shoes. He gets in trouble with the Sultan at the public baths for his old shoes. He then tries many different ways to throw them away, and they keep coming back to cost him money and grief – he throws them into the reservoir and they end up clogging the city water pipes; he dries leaving them on the roof to dry, and a dog throws them off the roof onto a woman passing by down on the street – until he finally learns the lesson of throwing old things away when they are no longer useful.

 

156D: Haunted House Pop Up Book (Solved)

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When I was a kid, sometime between 1987-1992, my grandmother bought me a hardcover book that contained 2 or 3 haunted plays that all took place in a mansion (or maybe a hotel?). In the front cover of the book was a pop up of the mansion, that included several rooms, to be used as the set for the plays. If I remember correctly, it also included cardboard cut outs of the characters to move from room to room as you “acted out” the play. My cousin and I played with this book for hours, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the title or the author. It’s not the haunted pop up book by Jan Pienkowski and it’s not the Disney haunted house book. If anybody can help me figure this out, I would GREATLY appreciate it.

 

156A: Girl makes up imaginary world in Central Park (solved)

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A girl (Girl A) lives with her parents in a brownstone(?) or apartment building across the street or adjacent from Central Park. She has a good life but would like a friend of similar age. Very early on in the book, a girl about her age moves into the building! Girl A makes friends with this girl, has many high spirited adventures in and around Central Park & NYC.

This book is titled something like “The World of Xanadu” or “Xenon” or “Xenia”, but “Xanadu” sounds most right to me. the X-word is the title of the imaginary world that the girls have made up. Early on, Girl A daydreams that she will find a friend her age and when she does, she says “We will make a fantasy realm called ‘Xanadu'”. This aspect feels like it has a “Bridge To Terabithia” element to it.

The setting is very close to “The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline” by Lois Lowry, but it isn’t that, because that book has more of a mystery/suspense nature to it.

Any help would be wonderful! Thank you!