A small girl visits (?) her grandmother or aunt who is a good witch albeit not a very powerful one. Somehow an evil witch who keeps as a pet an octopus named Otto gets both in danger. In the end the good witch prevails.
I am looking for book I read back around 1970 at our local library-already checked with them.
It is a short hardcover bound youth book written probably for ages 8-12. I suspect it was probably written no earlier than 1950 and no later than 1970, by I suspect a minor author.
The short story, as I recall, is about a young boy who obsessively thinks and dreams about going pheasant hunting, he eventually does go pheasant hunting, gets all scratched up in the thickets chasing the elusive ring necked pheasant and after a long unsuccessful day of hunting I believe his father ends up buying some pheasants to take home so his son does not feel unsuccessful.
As I recall the book had a blue cloth cover with black impressed line drawing of a pheasant or two and perhaps a shotgun.
I would like to buy this book, not really concerned about the price-want to give it to my son.
It is for sure not “Danny the Champion of the World.”
Thanks
I am looking for a book that was given to my brother in the late 70’s possibly very early 80’s. It was a beautifully illustrated children’s book, similar to Jan Brett. Woodland creatures in a snowy forest, including a hedgehog or porcupine, celebrating Christmas. The end of the book has them finding a candle lit carousel in the woods. Those are the only details that I remember! Have been looking for this book for a long time!
Thank you!
This was a book for littler kids, ages 8 and under, more or less. This book was read between 1972-1980. I vaguely remember it being a thin but large paperback.
The main characters were rain-forest animals and the book took place in a rain forest and at least part of it was set at night. There were peccaries as characters. Something was happening in the jungle, at night, that the animals were preparing for. The peccaries were really funny characters.
There was a cat named “Strawberry” and the characters/kids in the book traveled to the Land of Now Here. I think at least part of the journey was completed in a hot air balloon, and there was a train.
This was a paperback, and I was born in 1974 so I would have read this sometime between, day, 1980 and 1988. Probably suited for ages 6-12.
There were beautiful spidery-looking line drawing illustrations – almost like Edward Gorey’s but a bit more complex and not so cartoony.
There were witch sisters, Agatha and Hecate. They were not good witches. There was a misguided/bad man who worked for the witches named Oswald. The main characters were (maybe) siblings and the other main character was a girl they met who knew her way around the magical world where the witches were, and the lot of them got out of troublesome situations by stomping three times on a manhole cover. when they did that, they would instantly be whisked out of the place and land somewhere else. They used this at least once to escape the witches and Oswald.
My sister remembers this from our school library when she was little. She would have seen this between ~1976-1986. It was illustrated, a book intended for 10-and-under children.
She remembers there was a character who was very small, a dwarf of gnome-like creature who wore a gold ring intended for a human, as a a belt. I’d love to find it for her and her kids!
In this short story/book a girl finds herself in a night carnival. The climax in this story is very similar to the, Come Back Lucy by Pamela Sykes.
This short story, however, I found it at a library a library and was never ever to re-find the story on the shelves or in its database. I believe the story was in an anthology of short stories.
The story is centered in an almost 1950s style where a little girl interacts with another girl in a mirror. The girl (main character) mysteriously falls into her mirror and finds herself in a dark somewhat spooky place.
As I recall, she sees a carnival in the distance. I believe the carnival is a type of ethereal place and is ghoul like. My favorite excerpt, “she found herself on a path dimly lit by the dancing of fireflies.”
I recall she sits down and cries. She tries to get back into the mirror that she fell out of and it appears she cannot escape the dark, Gothic world in which she landed. Her sobbing countenance becomes the reflection that a new girl sees in her mirror. This temporal/spatial rift that the girl finds herself in is somehow a trap that is now the main character’s punishment for her self-obsession.
What was most intriguing about this story was that it was dark, twisted and yet eerily beautiful. Strong visuals paint the story and it was from the late 1960s to early 1980s. That is, within the time frame of the Reader’s Digest short story anthologies.
I am looking for a children’s book that I read repeatedly at the public library back in the 60s. It was about 2 brothers that fought nonstop. One evening as they fought down a road into deep woods it started getting dark and cold. They decided to stop fighting long enough to start a fire to warm up to. Spying some “ember” up in a tree they climb the tree to “fetch” it and start the fire. Once they get up the tree they realize that it is an wild animal or monster. The remainder of the book is the brothers trying to get away from it. I always thought that the title was the Strange Thing. But I must be mistaken as I cannot find anything at all on that.
Thanks Again!
I read a book of short stories in 1963. My memory is that the title or description following the title was “stories for girls to live by”. I believe one of the shorts was by Betty Cavanna. I do remember one of the stories had an excerpt about a girl on a sandy beach applying nail polish (crazy fragment to remember, I know). I have been searching for this book in vain forever. I lent it to a girl friend in 1964 and never got it back. If you can help me I’d so appreciate it as I would love to find a copy.
Thank you
Mary