Category Archives: Unsolved

334W: Boy Learns the Importance of Sharing

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I used to have a children’s book in the 1970’s about a boy who gets a wooden box with a trick to open it and candy inside. He walks home with it and refuses to share the candy with another child, a dog and a person (Rule of three). He gets home and has forgotten how to open the box. He has to walk back to where he got the box, and this time he shares the candy on his way home and knows how to open the box to get the last piece himself when he gets home.

334U: Children’s Story About the First Apple Pie

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I recall a children’s story (I don’t think it was a book but rather a story in a children’s storybook) that I read in the early to mid 1970's.  It was set in the times of kings and villages. The king (maybe it was a prince or even the town mayor) had a contest for the best pie.  Apparently only savory pies existed at the time, no fruit pies. The story’s heroine, having no meat at hand, made a pie with apples and tried to serve it to the king/prince/mayor.  I think she was prevented by the king’s flunkies who were aghast at the thought of a pie with fruit but eventually she got to the king, served her pie with a piece of cheddar and won the day.  Voila, fruit pies. No clue about the author or the title.  


Thanks!

334T: Young Boy Learns To Swim

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This was a very small (maybe 3” x 3”) thin paperback book(let) that was possibly free, as part of I think a bread purchase (maybe Colonial?) in the late 50’s or 60’s. About a boy, very scared of the water, who learns to swim, I think with his family on a camping trip. Name is something like Noah or Jonah, but it is not the book called Noah Learns to Swim. Also not Noah’s Swim-a-Thon.

334Q: A lizard uses a mushroom for shelter and becomes a turtle

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The book I’m looking for is a picture book from my childhood. It’s about a small green creature, probably a lizard, who is looking for a home. He might also be trying to get out of the rain. He winds up finding a mushroom to hide under. The mushroom top falls off the stem and lands on his back, making him a turtle. The style of the book is very 1970s, though I’m not sure when it was published. The mushrooms in the book are tall and red with white spots. I also remember a yellow mushroom in the book with the same style.
I have included a bad drawing of how I remember the turtle looking by the end of the story. The mushroom might have been larger than in this drawing.

334P: Unsuccessful Boy Struggles With Successful, But Strange, Sister

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I have not read this book, but saw it in a list somewhere about 3 years ago, give or take. Family who has genius or academically successful children, except one boy or the boy is different, but I can’t remember in what sense, book might be about this boy and his struggles in the family. Synopsis I read mentioned a sister (of the boy) who is exceedingly successful in school but is strange. Sorry, that’s all. It could possibly be YA but not sure at all. Thanks all

334L: Old lady looking for her missing glasses

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I am looking for a children's picture/story book about an old lady who lost her glasses. She looks everywhere in her house for them; under flowerpots, etc. The story ends when she finds them on her back. She had them on a string tied around her neck. There was a companion book about a farmer, but I don’t recall what that was about. It was at least 8x10, tan and not a thick book. Thinking it was 50’s/ early 60’s.

334K: Evolved Rats Vs Devolved Humans In Once Radioactive City

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When I was young, 12 maybe, I checked a book out of the local library, reading it several times, which initiated a life long live of post apocalyptic fiction. In the book a young boy about my age lives with a tribe outside the ruins of a large city that might have been Chicago. The tribe is at the hunter gatherer level of technology. And his main weapon is a spear. The city itself is a blast zone/dead zone no one is allowed to go in because it is supposedly radioactive. I don’t remember why but he heads into the dead zone and discovers the radiation is no longer deadly. But living in the ruins are a race of evolved rat beasts that are six feet tall, stand on their hind legs, and are spear wielding. The rat beasts come after him and he has a series of near misses until he escapes the dead zone and is rescued in a big showdown between the human tribe and the rat tribe, being saved by the adults whose rules he defied. The book had large-ish print and excellent pen and ink drawings sprinkled throughout. I went back to the library that I got it from but the destroyed my old library card and no longer have the book. It would have been published in the 1950’s or first part of the 60’s. Any help finding it would be greatly appreciated.