Tag Archives: poem

357U: Children’s Book with Blue Shoe or Boot on Cover


Looking for a vintage children’s book that has a blue shoe or boot on the cover.  The story is based on the “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe” nursery rhyme.  However, in this version the woman is nice and gives the children supper stew, not broth without bread.  It was published before 1980 but the exact date is unknown.  Please help identify this book!  Thanks!

339Q: My House is Cozy – Bedtime Poem (Solved)

I was born in the late 70’s and my mom used to recite a bedtime poem to us each night. I can remember three different verses:
Opening verse:
My house is cozy warm and wide.
It has the nicest things inside…
A knife, a fork, a yellow cup,
For drinking all my cocoa up…
Closing verse:
Outside my window I can see,
The moon and stars shine down on me.
Basically the poem was a tour of a child’s home. I believe there was a stop in the kitchen, bathroom then finally the bedroom. I don’t believe it was an original work, and seem to recall my mom saying that she got it from a book, although I don’t ever remember her reading it to us. She was born in the 50’s, so it could be from her childhood. My uncle (her youngest brother) was 10 years older than me, and it may have been a book from him that arrived in disrepair and so she memorized it to recite. My thought is that it is from a compilation/treasury of bedtime poems/rhymes/stories between 1950 and 1980. Googling hasn’t yielded anything. On a whim, I recently purchased Rene Cloke’s Bedtime Book to see if it was from there, but it wasn’t.
Thank you for any help you can provide! We lost our mom 4 years ago and I would love to find the source of this to share with my brothers and sister.

232D: A much loved collection of poems

I’m looking for an old book of children’s poems. It was rather thick. My mom would read it to me when I was around seven years old back in the late fifties.

It was hard covered and if memory serves had a light colored cover. I don’t remember any illustration on the cover. Looking back, the book design reminds me of a series of Grimm’s Fairy Tales books we had in the house they had plain beige covers on them.

Anyway, I checked your list of books on your site and while one book of poems comes close in content, the cover is not the same and it is missing at least one of the poems, Jabberwocky.

Here are the poems I remember that it contained: Winken and Blinken and Nod (sketch showed 3 boys in a balloon, pic was on the right side of the page), The Owl and the Pussycat (one sketch showed the piggy with the ring in his nose in the wood – pic on the left side of the page), The Duel (The Gingham Cat and the Calico Dog – the stuffed animals were depicted and the clock), Wadsworth’s’ The Girl with the Curl (when she was bad she was horrid – this short poem was at the bottom of a page on the right), The Walrus and the Carpenter (depicted the little oysters following them with little legs to carry them. Also a pig with wings), e.e. cummings, a poem that started,” I’ve never seen a purple cow” and ended with. ” I’d rather see than be one” (which I’d thought was by e.e. cummings but it’s not), I think it had an e.e. cummings poem or two, and Jabberwocky.

I’m trying to remember other poems in the book. If I do, I’ll send you more identifying information. I loved this book. I loved reading it over and over. I’ve loved to read and read voraciously. My mom had a great sense of humor and always loved the Walrus and Carpenter especially when the little oysters turned blue (starting to realize they were to be eaten).

I wanted this for so long and tried searching the internet several times. I’m usually pretty good at finding information and have found several books of which all I could remember was the story, but I cannot find this way. Searching recently, I came upon your site! I hope you can figure it out and I don’t stump you!

Keeping my fingers crossed….