Category Archives: Solved

139A: frog’s birthday party (solved)

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This is a picture book from the early seventies featuring, I believe, a frog who invites people to her birthday party but no one ends up coming. I think this is because she holds it in the water and serves foods that only she likes.  I have a distinct memory of an illustration in which the frog is sitting alone on a lily pad with a party hat askew on her head.  She has prepared many gelatin molds with flies and they are beginning to melt.  She ends up arranging a different party with food to suit her guests and everyone comes.  Please help me!

 

138A: Title character is Bernie (solved)

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picture book circa 1985
Title character is Bernie
Little boy running away from home. Stops at various shops in his neighborhood Shop keepers give him things for his journey Baker gives him a loaf of rye(?) bread Pet shop owner gives him a puppy Green grocer gives him four purple plums

The book was paper bound, oblong shape, and may have come from a book club subscription.

137D: Boy Flees Village (Solved)

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In 1973 I read an old hardcover book containing European children’s stories.  The stories were probably written in the early 1900s.  In one story a boy is working for a man in a village and unknowingly helps the man rob a house; the man uses a ladder to enter the second story of the house.  Someone pulls up the driveway and they flee.  Days later the boy returns to the village, is forgiven, and continues to be friends with the girl who lives in the house.  He tells her how he fled through the woods and fields for days.  He tells her that when he was fleeing, he met the man again by a lake, and the man said to keep running.  There is no magic involved in this short work; it is not a fantasy.  The story was written for ten to twelve year old readers.

 

136G: brother and sister, kitten soap carving, puppet show (solved)

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I have been trying to remember the title of a sweet YA chapter book I read in the early 90’s that was probably written in the 50’s or 60’s.  It was about a small family who had a little boy and a little girl and I remember two stories from it distinctly. One was about the sister; there was a soap carving competition at school and the sister had worked hard on her carving.  She left it in the basement, and the mother thought it was to be used for washing and used it to do the laundry.  The little girl was distraught, and the mother had her look at it to decide if it looked like anything familiar.  The little girl ended up carving it into a kitten, and I remember there was an illustration of it in the book. Another story concerned a puppet show that the children did with their friends; I remember it being something like a diorama depicting stairs down to a dungeon or something Hamlet-like. 

That’s all I can remember, but I appreciate any leads!

 

134E: Anthology, similar to East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Solved)

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I had an anthology of fairy tales, which I thought was called East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Whilst the format is very similar (girl traveling looking for something, told stories by the four winds), none of the versions I can find online match, so I may have the title wrong.
It definitely included the stories of:

 

  • The 12 Dancing Princesses
  • Long, Broad & Hawkeye (picture of a beautiful princess behind a curtain? one takes giant steps, one swallows a lake, one has a cloth covering his eyes)
  • ?The Selfish Girl (little girl who gave away items, including a honeycomb and watermelon, but returned a little while later to demand them back)
  • ?Something about watching a man sleeping and 3 drops of waxing dripping from the candle onto his chest.

The illustrations were beautiful but simple, maybe watercolour over ink lines. The characters were generally lithe with long, very straight hair.
It was a large book, with a picture on the front with a deep red/brown border around it. I would’ve been given it new somewhere between 1975-1985, in the UK.
Really hope you can help!

 

133B: Little Round Man Saves Children (solved)

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I am looking for a book with a story that my brother and I used to read in the 60s. We think it was called the Story of the Little Round Man. This funny round man lived in a ball-shaped house that could roll around very fast. In the story he saves some children wandering in the woods who find some beautiful shoes which, it seems, someone has left there for them to try. Tempted, they do try them on, but the shoes immediately force them to follow them all the way to a cave where a bad witch lives. They are her prisoners! The Little round man has to find a way to be directed to the witch’s lair. He puts on only one of the magic shoes, and, asking his rolling house to follow him, controls the shoe enough to discover where the witch lives, and can plan the escape of the children. The house is left outside the entrance and is spotted by the witch. Intrigued by the house, she steps inside, but the Little round Man jumps out from hiding, bangs the door shut, and orders the house to move as fast as possible with the witch inside (she’s all bones and angles), until she relents and accepts to save the children. I think the illustrations were black and white but can’t be sure.