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Maybe one of the Rick Brant Electronic Boys series? They were written by John Blaine in the late 1940s. Rick and his friend Scotty lived on Spindrift Island with Rick's father and other scientists and solved mysteries. No idea about UFOs, though. Maybe The Rocket's Shadow 1947?
Raymond F. Jones, SON OF THE STARS. 1952.
Jones, Raymond F., Son of the Stars, Winston 1957.  More information on the suggested title, but it doesn't confirm anything. "In 'Son of the Stars', Raymond Jones has written of a forthright friendship between a young castaway from space and his earthly counterpart. How a cold and suspicious military, recognizing Clonar only as an alien from an astonishingly advanced civilization, turns friendship into treachery that threatens earth's existence, makes this an electrifying story with a thought-provoking theme. In scenes uncomfortably vivid, you'll meet soldiers and citizens of a typical American city  people like calculating General Gillispie and frightened Mrs. Barron, whose reactions to an 'interplanetary' situation bring the world to the brink of destruction.." The term 'castaway' suggests that there may be UFO crash technology involved, but only the alien boy Clonar and his friend young Barron are mentioned, not 3 boys. If it helps, Clonar has 6 fingers.
I don't know the teens and UFOs novel sought, but it's none of the Rick Brant series.  Rick Brant gets involved in some mildly sftish situations with new inventions and such, but the only trace of aliens in the whole series are some thousand-year-old ambigious radio signals from space picked up in THE EGYPTIAN CAT MYSTERY.

#U5--Unexpected wilderness survival experience:  The plot is somewhat like Walt Morey's Canyon Winter, but not enough to be the book described.  The main differences are that the stranding was due to a plane crash and I don't believe there's anything about deer hide tanning or metal ore--just a lot about tree conservation. The deer hide tanning is like My Side of the Mountain, but that wasn't an accidental experience--Sam did spend the
winter, and did have a friend, but went up there on purpose.  It is also definitely not Viereck's Terror on the Mountain, as that takes place during the summer.
Would this be one of the Gary Paulsen books?  I was reminded of either The River or Hatchet.  Neither match exactly, though.
U5 unexpected wilderness survival: Not an exact match, but there's Lone Woodsman, by Warren Hastings Miller, illustrated Kreigh Collins, published Winston 1943, 230 pages. Dan Pickett loses all his supplies when his canoe capsizes on Lac Seul, leaving him with his belt knife, swim trunks, and dog Pepper. He makes his way to Factory St. Joseph to meet his father, foraging for food, killing animals with a hand-made bow and traps, tanning hides, smoking meat and so on. He loses supplies and shelter once to a wolverine and once to a moose. Diagrams are provided for several of the things he makes. Couldn't find a reference to cinnabar, though. Most of the journey takes place in snowy weather.
Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain.  A long shot.  Parts of the plot don't match, but the parts about a boy tanning deerskin and surviving a winter alone in the mountains do.
U5: Unexpected wilderness survival experience - just a note from the original poster of this puzzle. I have checked in every few months and pursued the suggestions. In fact, I have enjoyed purchasing and reading My Side of the Mountain. Unfortunately, none of the suggestions is the book I remember. Thanks for making this forum available - and I hope someone will yet be able to help me find this book.

Goudge, Elizabeth, Henrietta's House, London, Hodder, 1942.  I wonder if it might be this. Henrietta, her brother Hugh
John, and assorted adults go for a picnic in the hills. The story blends fantasy and reality. There is a sinister hulking gatekeeper who is like the Giant who had no heart in his body, and an old gentleman who builds bowers in the forest for imagined Sleeping Beauty and Babes in the Woods, and a mysterious house fitted up just as Henrietta had dreamed. Hugh John and the Bishop find an underground river and a boat, and go down it, to find a robbers' den and the place where the young saint of the hills may have prayed. I believe there is a ladder out of the den.

Mollie Clarke, The Useful Cart, 1966. No description, but the title's right, it was published in the UK, and there was a
reprint in 1969.
U14 Do you want me to look in Petersham's The Box with Red Wheels to see?
I don't think The Box With Red Wheels fits the description; it's a very short story about some animals wondering what could be inside that box with red wheels (it turns out to be a baby).

U20 Sounds like it could be REVENGE OF THE DOLLS by Carol Beach York, 1979. Definitely creepy. The old aunt makes ugly evil dolls. They do not have patches for eyes, tThey have glass button eyes, and they do watch. Although, as revenge for Paulie destroying one of her dolls, she creates a sinister pirate doll which has an eye patch. So it might be worth looking at. ~from a librarian

There are several Wonder and Elf books that fit this upside-down theme: Good Morning and Good Night by Frank Luther, The Goody-Naughty Book and The Sunny-Sulky Book by Sarah Cory Rippey, and  The Goody Naughty Book by Mabel Watts.  If these were longer juvenile stories, there's a whole series of Dandelion Books, but the stories aren't necessarily related.  Check the Solved Mysteries pages to see if any of these work.
Upside down books.  I had one of these books in the 50's when I was a child.  It wass called Just Like Mummy/Just Like Daddy.
Charlotte Zolotow, When I Grow Up???, 1950's.  CZ has  a book like this where one side is a little girl, "when I grow up, I can wear party dresses to school, etc."  The other side is a little boy. Maybe this?
Margriet Heymans Annemie, The Dolls' Party
Annemie and Margriet Heymans, The Doll's Party.

I want to say that this is an Enid Blyton story.  There's a vauge recollection of having read this, and I had a lot of the Blyton short story collections as a child.  However, there are a lot of short story collections of hers to check!  The smuggler's cave and other stories has a story called "The surprising broom."
I think this sounds a lot like Stumper D186.  Both have unbrellas, which seems unusual.

Brown, Palmer, Beyond the Pawpaw Trees.  When I read this stumper, my first thought was of this book.  Didn't she always carry her umbrella?  And the description of her jumping off a cliff and floating down with her umbrella sounds familiar.
Palmer Brown, Beyond the pawpaw trees: the story of Anna Lavinia, 1954.  I also think this could be the book you're looking for. Maybe some of this description will sound familiar?  Pages 60-63 of the 1973 Camelot Book reprint describe how Anna Lavinia has thrown stones, a tea cosy and a jar of pawpaw jelly over the cliff and noticed a peculiar phenomenon. She has then watched her cat Strawberry fall over the edge of the cliff with no ill effects.  She decides she has no choice but to follow him, pushing a carpet bag and gardenia bush over the edge ahead of her. "Finally, just to be on the safe side, she opened her umbrella and reached into her pocket to squeeze the silver key for good luck.  Then she took a deep breath and stepped off into the air."
Just to confirm, U30 is indeed Beyond the Pawpaw Trees: The Story of Anna Lavinia by Palmer Brown. I just read it a few weeks ago and remember the scene quite clearly.

This description is nearly identical to B282, which is still unsolved.
Also, just so you know, I was indeed the one who posted B282--perhaps two years ago.  I too hope the mystery is solved soon.
Ruth Cavin, Timothy the Terror, 1972.  Very rare and hard to find, expensive too (saw a copy for sale which cost $104.99). Great story though.

U32 Do they remember if it was 8 1/2 x 11?  If so, it might be this:  The Scholastic Funfact book of UFOs.  Scholastic, 1977.
U32 Please keep trying :-) The short stories I'm trying to find were purely fiction. Thanks.

Perhaps it was one of the books by Elizabeth Koda-Callan. She wrote a bunch of books that came with charm necklaces around that time and some are still in print, I think. Good Luck!
Thank you for the response.  I checked into this author, though, and she doesn't appear to have written any books about unicorns.  Also, my friend who had the book was a boy, and these are all books for little girls. 

Could this be George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin? You can read it online here.
Thanks, but it's definitely not The Princess and the Goblin.  It's not a fairy or folk tale, I'm sure, but a modern fable of some kind, with the emphasis on the artwork and strange underground monsters.
I remember reading this book but i haven't a clue waht it's called, although i recall the pictures looking vaguely like those in where the wild things are by maurice sendak, maybe it was by him?

Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Below the Root, 1975.  I think you're looking for the Green-sky trilogy - the books are "Below the Root", "And All Between", and "Until the Celebration".  The novels are about a planet with two different groups of people - the Kindar, who live in villages in the treetops and wear long, wing-like outfits that allow them to glide from tree to tree, and the Erdlings, who have been imprisoned underground and developed an industrialized society.  A Kindar teenager named Raamo is invited to join the ruling council, and finds out about the existence of the Erdlings.  The clues you provide sound a lot like descriptions of the Erdling tunnels.
The book or series described in the query wouldn't be Green-sky. No child abuse (almost no violence at all) or gender segregation in those books. Could you be remembering two different series with similar ideas?
Ayn Rand, Anthem, 1937. Not everything matches, but you might be looking for ANTHEM.
Jean Duprau, City of Ember. The plot sounds like Duprau's book about Ember, where people had gone to escape some coming global catastrophe. By the time of the book, two children had discovered a route "up there". The time doesn't sound right for it though.

Not a direct solution, but I found reference to your Uncle P. character being in a book titled Alternative Alices (Twenty stories by different authors giving an alternative picture of the heroine of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Often less flattering than the original, they were written between 1869 and 1930) --   so here's the contents of that book.  Hopefully, you'll recognize the story you're looking for in there.  Contents: Mopsa the fairy : Reeds and rushes;  Queen's wand;  Failure / Jean Ingelow -- Amelia and the dwarfs / Juliana Horatia Ewing -- From Speaking likenesses / Christina Rossetti -- Behind the white brick / Frances Hodgson Burnett -- Wanted-a king, or, how Merle set the nursery rhymes to right / Maggie Browne -- New Alice in the old wonderland : Peggy the pig;  Dutchess and her house;  Tweedles
 Pageant / Anna M. Richards -- Justnowland / E. Nesbit -- Ernest / Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen -- From nowhere to the north pole: a Noah's ark-æological narrative : How Frank fared in Teumendtlandt;  What happened to Frank in Quadrupedremia / Tom Hood -- Down the snow stairs, or, from good-night to good-morning : naughty children land / Alice Corkran -- Davy the goblin, or what followed reading "Alice's adventures in wonderland" : the moving forest / Charles E. Carryl -- Wallypug of why : Way to why;  Breakfast for tea;  Girlie sees the wallypug;
 What is a goo? / G.E. Farrow -- New adventures of "Alice" : Found in the attic;  To Bunberry Cross, or along came a snipe;  Peevish printer
 Fire!! / John Rae -- Uncle Wiggily in wonderland : Uncle Wiggily and wonderland Alice;  Uncle Wiggily and the march hare;  Uncle Wiggily and the cheshire cat / Howard R. Garis -- From David Blaize and the blue door / E.F. Benson -- Westminster Alice : Alice in Downing street;  Alice in Pall Mall;  Alice and the liberal party / Saki -- Clara in Blunderland : in a hole again / Caroline Lewis -- Alice in Blunderland, an iridescent dream : off to Blunderland;  ownership of children / John Kendrick Bangs -- Alice and the stork: a fairy tale for workingmen's children : Alice visits the American eagle / Henry T. Schnittkind -- Alice in the delighted states : Through the drinking glass;  Jealous island;  Humble pie
 Censor incensed / Edward Hope
Benson, E. F., David Blaize and the Blue Door,1918. Acting on the above information, I found that the story in the book Alternative Alices with Uncle Popacatapetl is "David Blaize and the Blue Door," by E. F. Benson.  I'm not certain it's the right book, because there is only an excerpt available in that book, but it seems like a good lead!

James Flora, Pishtosh, Bullwash, and Wimple.One of my favorites as a child.  A boy has three friends (Pishtosh, Bullwash, and Wimple) that take him on wonderful adventures.  One place is upside down land, another is growly forest (where trees growl), another is chocolate lake (my favorite!) where they go fishing for marshmallow fish with vanilla wafer fins and he catches a big chocolate fish with a peanut eye.  Once he catches a peppermint turtle.  At the end of the book they have to find the north pole (taken by a polar bear to share with his homesick relatives in a zoo) before all the gravity spills out of the earth.  They replace it in the nick of time, just as everything is floating off of the earth.
Not a solution, but this sounds similar to a book I've been trying to unearth from my memory for a long time. The one I read would have been in the 70s.
Mattel, Upsy-Downsy Land,1969.You may be thinking of Upsy-Downsy Land - one of our all-time favorite books!  It lists no auther - just "Mattel."  Brilliantly colored cartoon pictures where everyone walks on their hands...

Gordon Boshell, Captain Cobwebb.  That could be this long series - the uncle was Septimus Cobwebb (and was invisible) but Toby was one of the boys (his older brother was David). If Fanty the elephorse, the Leopillar, the Golden Cactus, the shershl (an invisible bus) and/or being kidnapped by a sort of ground-effect horseshoe crab with tentacles ring any bells then the requester's looking for this.

Miriam Clark Potter, Mrs. Goose series.  The story "Hatbox Cake" is anthologized in Let's Hear a Story - 30 Stories and Poems for Today's Boys and Girls, ed. by Sidonie Matsner Grunberg, c. 1961.  The story is from one of Miriam Clark Potter's "Mrs. Goose" books, but I'm not sure which one.  Titles in the series include "Mrs. Goose of Animal Town" (1939), "Hello Mrs. Goose" (1947), "Here Comes Mrs. Goose" (1953), "Our Friend Mrs. Goose" (1956), "Mrs. Goose's Green Trailer" (1956), "Just Mrs. Goose" (1957), "Queer, Dear Mrs. Goose" (1959), "Goodness, Mrs. Goose!" (1960), "No, No, Mrs. Goose!" (1962), "Goofy Mrs. Goose" (1963), "Mrs. Goose and Three-Ducks" (1964), and "Mrs. Goose and her Funny Friends" (1964). "Hello Mrs. Goose" was reprinted in 2000, and "Just Mrs. Goose" was reprinted in 2004.
Miriam Clark Potter, Mrs. Goose, 1957, copyright.  This sounds like it could be a Mrs. Goose book. There are at least three of them: Just Mrs. Goose, Mrs. Goose and her Funny Friends and Goofy Mrs. Goose.
It's the only reference I could find to a 'hatbox cake' so maybe------Let's hear a story: 30 stories and poems for today's boys and girls / Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg / 1961 [1st ed.]. English  Book : Juvenile audience 160 p. illus. 29 cm. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday.
Miriam Clark Potter, Our Friend Mrs. Goose, 1951, copyright.  This is in response to a question about where to find "The Hatbox Cake" story by Miriam Clark Potter.  The story, according to the acknowledgments in an anthology containing the story, was originally in Miriam Clark Potter's "Our Friend Mrs. Goose," published in 1951. The anthology referred to above is:  Let's Hear a Story, by Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg (1961).

Stahl, Hilda, The Covenant, 1991, copyright.  I FINALLY found the book!  I did another search on a Christian bookstore website and got a hit!  Ive been trying to remember this book title for more than 16 years. :)

Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident. Just to eliminate the obvious, could your friend be thinking of the Artemis Fowl series? One takes place in the arctic.

No, it wasn't Artemis Fowl-he's exploiting the fairies that he found, and this was published before "The Arctic Incident"'

Bill Harley, Nothing Happened, 1995, copyright. A possibility. Jack stays up all alone one night because he believes that everyone else stays up and has fun all night, but all he experiences is the small noises of his quiet house: a cat, the furnace, etc.
Teddy Jam, Night Cars. Maybe Night Cars?  Daddy and sleepless baby looking out the apartment window at the night's goings-on, told in rhyme. "Chocolate for baby, coffee for dad, even night cars go to bed."
Harriet Ziefert, I Won't Go To Bed!,1987. It sounds a lot like this one.  Harry refuses to go to bed, so he stays awake all night and finds out that it's not so much fun being awake alone.

V 1's search might focus on part of the "Plupey" (Plupy?) series my brother read as a young boy.
Although the name "Plupey" doesn't sound familiar at the moment, this is the first clue I've received.  I'll do searches under that name and will let you know of any positive findings. Thanks so much for the information!!
The Plupy series was written by Henry Shute and published in the 1900s. It was set in small town America, NOT Edinburgh, and had no apparent mystery themes. Sorry to be negative, but it's a false trail.
Not likely, because of the date, but William Mackellar wrote The Mystery of the Ruined Abbey, a boy's mystery set in Scotland, 1954; Danger in the Mist 1956; Ghost in the Castle 1960; and many sports stories. I haven't been able to track down any earlier books, though.
Well, a possible author, anyway. Agnes Mary Robertson Dunlap, who wrote under the name Elizabeth Kyle, was writing juvenile mysteries in the late 1940s to early 60s, published in England by Peter Davies and in the States by Houghton. Several are set in Scotland. Titles include The Provost's Jewel 1950, The Holly Hotel Mystery 1947, The Mirrors of Castle Doone 1947, Mally Lee 1947, Mystery of the Good Adventure1950, etc.
Oswald Dallas, The Valley of Mystery. I haven't read the book but at any rate it's the right title.

I think of  Tana Hoban's work, and a picture book called Black and White which tells one story front-to-back, and another when you turn the book upside down and read it again, but I don't think either is your book. I'll post this as a stumper and see what other ideas come up.
V11 Visual Perception: Maybe Mitsuma Anno'sTopsy-Turvies Walker-Weatherhill 1970? I don't recall that specific illustration, though.
V11 - Anno's Topsy-Turvies is about a pack (deck) of cards, but this picture could be in one of his other titles.
Perhaps - Topsys and Turvys, author-illustrator Peter Newell, published by Dover 1965, 72 pages 9"x6" "Selections have been made from two of Peter Newell's books, first published in 1894 and 1902. The pictures are to be looked at first rightside up and then upside down, a device that used to delight six- to eight-year-olds" (Horn Book Aug/65 p.406)
Not a lot to go on, but maybe - Now This, Now That: Playing with Points of View, written and illustrated by Howard Baer, published Holiday House 1957. "Through simple text and bold, full-page drawings, the young observer is encouraged to discover the fun of looking at things in different, imaginative ways. Ages 3-6." (Horn Book Oct/57 p.338) The illustration shows a thin book wider than tall, with a cover showing two boys with backs to each other, each with short dark hair and slightly old-fashioned clothes, wide collars and Norfolk? jackets, one smiling, the other looking surprised.
I immediately thought of Beau Gardner's books from the 1980's.  On each page is a bold, 2-color graphic. The reader can turn the page a quarter turn and the picture appears to be something else (ex. - teddy bear foot, pipe bowl, periscope, & lamp).  I've checked The turn About, Think About, Look About Book and The Look Again...And Again, And Again, And Again Book but didn't see any wine glasses.  However, he does have several other books (What Is It: A Spin About Book, etc.) that may have the wine glasses picture.  Incidently, I think the black & white book mentioned above is Round Trip by Ann Jonas.  It portrays a trip out to the
country, then you turn the book around and the pictures become a trip back to the city.  Hoban's Black On White & White On Black are board books with simple outlines of common items for babies to look at.
I wonder if the bookstumper V11: Visual Perception might be Graham Oakley's Magical Changes. There are no wine glasses and the book is not turned up-side down, but it is definitely a "large book with grand illustrations of scenes and  objects" and there are many pages with items that have long stems similar to wine glasses.  The pages are split horizontally and you flip them to make different combinations.  I've had the book at least twenty years, so the time frame is right. Thanks for maintaining this wonderful site!

DMIRAL W.H. SMYTH, THE SAILOR'S WORD-BOOK OF 1867, 1867. AN ALPHABETICAL DIGEST OF NAUTICAL TERMS.  This book has been re-released.  I don't know if it has pictures or not.  Just a long-shot

Sounds like Vegetable Children in your solved pages.
V14 vegetable children: maybe Mother Earth's Children: the Frolics of the Fruits and the Vegetables, by Elizabeth Gordon, published Volland 1914, 95 pages, reprinted Derrydale 2000. Less likely is When the Root Children Wake Up, by Sybille Olfers, English text by Helen Dean Fish, published Lippincott 1941, 22 pages, reprinted by Green Tiger 1976.
The Elizabeth Gordon books (Flower Children, Vegetable Children, etc.) feature animated creatures (ie, Daisies or Carrots with human baby faces and hands) with short rhymes underneath each illustration.  I do not believe the rhymes are related to each other in any way, but they do often have cute names.  So if the book sought is a portfolio of characters rather than a story with a plot, the Gordon may well be the one.

Not a solution, but a possible lead.  There was a beautiful Viking chess set discovered about the time the enquirer read the book, and perhaps the book was published by a museum, like the British Museum?  I'll try to find out more.
Moyra Caldecott (pseud of Olivia Brown), Weapons of the Wolfhound, 1976.  This may not the book you're remembering, but the Lewis Chessmen almost certainly are the game pieces the boy holds. Here's an interesting note on them from the Guardian 30 Oct '99: "The Lewis chessmen Probably Scandinavian, walrus ivory, 12th century, when the Outer Hebrides were part of the kingdom of Norway.  Finest medieval chess set in Europe. Confused records of discovery, 93 pieces found buried in a sand dune in Uig in 1831, possibly in a stone lined burial chamber. Some in National Museum of Scotland. Isle of Lewis council has repeatedly requested the return of the set."
Would the following word help solve the mystery? There is an ancient Viking game something like chess called hnefatafl.

Hallowell, P. C, Dinah and Virginia. Great horse story, very nice illustrations.  Virginia, the horse,teaches Dinah, her owner, to ride and jump.  They didn't win a race, but the open jumping event at a horse show.  Virginia retires from jumping to have a foal.  Dinah, the girl, had a younger brother who wanted to be Roy Rogers.This should be it.  Virginia (the horse) teaches Dinah (her new girl owner) how to ride.  Ultimately, they win the open jumping event in a horse show.  Virginia retires to have a foal.  Dinah has a younger brother who wants to be Roy Rogers.  Her father is allergic to horses.  The illustrations are a cut above.

As for Eric the Viking, these are details from the life of Leif Ericson.  The book could be The Story of Leif Ericson, by William O. Steele (1954), as Steele sometimes wrote about historical figures with exaggerated humor.
V21 The book for younger children, Leif the Lucky, by Erick Berry, tells of his father, Erik, and his grandfather, Thorvald, both having been evicted from their countries because of arguments. They and Leif went from Greenland to Iceland. I'm saying that the wanted book may indeed be about Erik, even though Leif might be in it.
#V21--Viking:  Also try Leif Eriksson:  First Voyager to America, by  Katherine B. Shippen.  Harper, 1951.
Nathaniel Benchley, Beyond the Mists: A Novel, 1975.  Found this while searching for something else.  Here is a brief description: "The ambience of eleventh-century Scandinavian life is portrayed through the eyes of an adventurous youth who travels to Vinland with Leif Eriksson."

Sounds like Sally to me.  Louise Eppenstein, Sally Goes Shopping Alone, 1940.
The book I'm looking for may be Sally Goes Shopping Alone, I'm not sure  though. Would you have another copy available? Does she have a velvet purse?
I don't have a copy of Sally Goes Shopping Alone right now, but I have a sequel called Sally Goes Travelling Alone, in which she refers constantly to her "little red purse."  She doesn't actually call it velvet, but it looks like a small hand-held purse with a string handle.  Maybe?
Hey! That could be her. It's amazing the impact books have on us as children that stay with us and hold such tenderness in our hearts. TY so much. I'd like to get it.
Just recieved Sally Goes Traveling Alone and am sorry to discover that it is not the book I am looking for, so Sally took an adventurous trip once again. The book I remember had a sepia look to the art work in it and I think the hardcover had a kind of fabric texture to it and may have been brownish. The size may have been 6 x 8.5" approximately, if I recall it correctly. This would have been in the late 50s that I had it as a child. The search continues.

Simon Green, Blue Moon Rising, 1991.  Although this is later than the date in the clue, there is  the second son, Prince Rupert who rides a talking unicorn, and enlists a dragon and a princess (who is supposed to marry his elder brother) in his struggle to save the Forest Kingdom from evil. At the end they knock out his unpleasant brother and leave to find their own fortunes.
Stephen R Boyette, Ariel: Book of Change, 1983.  This is more of a young adult book, but worth a mention. This site has a good summary.
John DeCles, The Particolored Unicorn, 1987, copyright.  Could be this novel.  The unicorn is multicolored (as the title suggests).  The setting is futuristic fantasy.  Protagonist is Piswyck and at some point mentions his family is named alphabetically and there is some prophecy about "when the alphabet runs out".  The unicorn isn't named until the very end as Lifesaver (after the candies).

Not a solution, but looking on Google, there are lots of mentions of Vansel as a surname, so it was probably a case of someone being given a surname as a first name, thus unlikely to be found in a book of baby names.
This isn't a solution either, but I happened to be looking through "From Aaron to Zoe: 15,000 Great Baby Names" & ran across "Vencel," which I though was close enough to "Vansel" to mention. According to the book, "Vencel" is an unusual Hungarian name meaning "wreath" or "garland."
Not a solution, but an observation. My first thought when I read this stumper was "how would one pronounce this name?" Stories can change when they go from parent to child, over time. If the Mom was a radio fan in the thirties and forties, maybe she heard "Von Zell"  as many times as I did as a kid, (actor/announcer Harry Von Zell) and spelled it the way she preferred it.

Virginia Lee Burton, The Little House, 1942.  This may seem too simple but could this be it?  I don't think the house is really Victorian but everything else matches.
This could be the Wonder Book Once There Was a House-(1965).  Victorian (GingerBread) House empty and abandoned-one morning feels sick (pain in the boiler, etc) gets up off foundation and goes to doctor (Dr. Pim) "tight squeeze" to get into office! "Nurse surprised!" After thorough exam- "You have mice"! Gets prescription at hardware store- mice gone- Gets New Family! THE END!

V26 is NOT Read, Helen,  Grandfather's farm,  1928.
This is a bit of a wild guess, but has the poster looked at the Maple Hill Farm books created by Martin and Alice Provensen? At least two of their books deal almost entirely with animals.  I know the Provensens started illustrating books in the 40s, though I'm not sure of the copyright on the Maple Hill Farm books.
V26 is NOT Provensen. I checked.

V43 Go to this site for an excerpt of a book it may be.
Christianna Brand, Nurse Matilda books.  There are three in the series:  Nurse Matilda, Nurse Matilda Goes to Town, and Nurse Matilda Goes to Hospital.  They are small-format books and she does wear black with jet beads.  If you do a search for Nurse Matilda, you can see a photo of a boxed set of the books.
Surprised no one has yet noted that the Nurse Matilda books have just been made into a movie: "NANNY MCPHEE", starring Emma Thompson.

Patricia Cecil Hass, Swampfire, 1973.  A Scholastic book about "three youngsters camping in the Great Dismal Swamp bite off more than they expect when they decide to catch the ghost horse running loose in the swamp." Except, as I recall, the story is also about two kids from the city who are spending the summer with their family in the swamp. They meet a kid who actually lives in the swamp year round. One theme from the book that always stood out for me was the fact that each of them longed to be more like the other.
Chad Walsh, Nellie and Her Flying Crocodile, 1956, copyright.  Not sure if this fits well enough: this is a fantasy book and originally published earlier than the time period mentioned, but maybe it was reprinted then (it was definitely reprinted 1979). The characters first meet the "flying crocodile" while on vacation, and later on I think they do end up living in houses in trees above the water, which might be swampy.

V49: Sure it wasn't a boy? In that case, it would be Prince Harweda and the Magic Prison (see Solved Mysteries) by Elizabeth Harrison. A 19th-century story you can read online.
I read the same story, but the protagonist was a boy!  A young prince was an only child and utterly spoiled and selfish.  His parents were unable to change his ways, so a magical person (fairy godmother?) stepped in.  She transported the boy to a beautiful tower room where windows and mirrors were alternately placed on the walls.  The room was filled with toys, books, cushions, plates of food, beverages, and a cage with a bird in it.  The boy was so vain and self-absorbed that he spent every day admiring himself in the mirrors.  He didn't notice that the windows were getting smaller and the mirrors larger until one day, he was completely sealed in darkness.  He was furious at first, then self-pitying, especially when he realized that the food and drink were no longer being renewed.  His situation didn't change until he realized that the bird was trapped with him.  He groped around in the dark until he found a small amount of drink, then decided to bear his thirst so that the bird might drink.  The windows opened a tiny bit.  He found a bit of food that hadn't spoiled, and gave it to the bird.  The windows opened a bit more.  Then he decided that even if he couldn't be freed, the window opening was large enough to liberate the bird.  The prince did this, and his unselfish act allowed him to escape his prison.  He returned to his parents, forever a changed boy.  My copy of this story was in a set of books with multiple volumes that included stories, crafts and games.

Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz, 1968.
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz. This book was about a bully-ish girl always getting into scraps until she meets her match, Peter Wedemeyer, who outsmarts her.
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz.
I wonder if the reader might be actually thinking of Marilyn Sach's Amy and Laura . Amy is blond, and Laura does battle with the bully Veronica Ganz during the course of the book.

John D. Fitzgerald, The Great Brain. This sounds a lot like The Great Brain series, by John D. Fitzgerald, although this series was not Victorian
 it was set in late 19th century Utah.  The narrator is the youngest of three brothers, and the books focus on his middle brother Tom, who is something of a juvenile con man.  The incident with the flush toilet is out of the first book (The Great Brain) and I'm pretty sure that ordering from the Sears catalog is mentioned in that book as well.  The other books in the series are:  Me and My Little Brain, The Great Brain Reforms, More Adventures of the Great Brain, The Return of the Great Brain, and The Great Brain is Back.
John D. Fitzgerald, The Great Brain series, 1967 - 1976. The Great Brain series, set in the fictional town of Audenville, Utah, is loosely based on the childhood experiences of the author. Mercer Mayer did the original illustrations. Tom Fitzgerald is the middle son in this family of three boys, and his clever plans to make money are frequently at the center of the adventures.
John D. Fitzgerald, The Great Brain, 1967. This has to be the one you're looking for.  In the first chapter of The Great Brain, titled "The Magic Water Closet," the boys'father (who has a reputation for buying odd contraptions and inventions, most of which don't work) installs the first flush toilet in town.  Enterprising Tom, with the help of younger brother John (J.D.), charges other children a penny apiece to watch the installation, and later to see the completed bathroom.  This is the first in a series of eight books about the misadventures of Tom and J.D. Their family is Mormon, living in Utah in the late 1800's - early 1900's. J.D. serves as the narrator in most, if not all, of the books, which feature charming black & white illustrations by Mercer Mayer.

Alexander Key, The Golden Enemy,1969.
Andre Norton, Iron Cage, 1974.
Andre Norton. I think you're looking for one of Andre Norton's books...but I can't remember which one.  Maybe Iron Cage or No Night Without Stars?

A cutely illustrated book about a very nosy woman who always had her nose in other people's business.  I remember one page where she was sticking her nose into someone's order at the market--it was live snails, and they crawled on her nose.  It was from the 1970s or earlier (1979 at the latest.)

Pullman, Philip, The Ruby in the Smoke.This is a longshot, but could you be looking for The Ruby in the Smoke (and the sequels) by Philip Pullman?  The girl's name is Sally, but she's independant. Her father is killed in the first book, but he's talked about enough that he could be remembered as a character.  Everything almost fits...just not quite.
Lloyd Alexander, Vesper Holly series, 1986.Could this be one of the following?
The Illyrian Adventure (1986)
The El Dorado Adventure (1987)
The Drackenberg Adventure (1988)
The Jedera Adventure (1989)
The Philadelphia Adventure (1990)
The Xanadu Adventure (2005)
Martha Finley, Elsie. Maybe the Elsie Dinsmore series?

V73: Vikings Canadian museum time travel
A children's book he read in 1950s: kids in a museum in Canada are transported back to Viking times. Title probably has Vikings in it. (Submitted on behalf of one of our customers).

Wuorio, Eva-Lis, Return of the Viking, 1945, copyright. Viking time-travel: Joan, Wendy and John visit the Royal Ontario Museum on a rainy Saturday during WWII, and meet Thorvald, a young Norwegian refugee who points out the Viking sword exhibit as proof that Norwegians discovered Canada. In the reproduction of an English 16th c. room, they try the "very ancient looking, thick, wooden door" and it opens, to reveal Lief the Lucky on the other side. He fell asleep almost 1000 years ago while exploring "Vinland'', woke up and couldn't find his sword -- which is of course, the one in the exhibit. Lief is invisible to adults, but ends up going for commando training because his homeland is in danger from the Nazis. At the end of the story the children read a news report about a commando raid on a Nazi-held Norwegian seaport supported by a ghostly figure in a strange costume. This is the first story of 4 in the book, all involving time-travel and Canadian history, and the same children and their friends.

Solved: Promises in the Attic

V75: Victoria
Childhood book. small hard cover red book. this is an extract from the book , it is read in a home video on the 9/2/1995 on my 5th birthday. I think i had the book since i was born(1990) 
 A doll named Victoria whom she loved very much indeed. The only thing she wished for was that victoria could walk and talk instead of just lying or sitting perfectly still, staring out with her eyes open. i can pretend you talk to  me and i can pretend you run about and play said Anna. but you don't really and truly and it would be such fun for if just for once you really came alive. anna felt quite certain that if only she could walk and talk she would make her a wonderful friend for anna had no brothers or sisters so she was often lonely that was why she played so much with victoria but victoria just sat and stared. and didn't move a finger or say a word. then one day a very strange thing happened when anna took victoria for a walk in pixie wood although it had such a lovely name anna had never seen any pixies or anything at all exciting in pixie wood it was just like an ordinary woods but today it seemed a little different...Sorry, thats all the information i have. perhaps the doll gets lost through out the story? i hope you can help!

Enid Blyton, The Enchanted Doll."While walking in Pixie Wood Anna finds a tiny pram, a pram that can run away all by itself."

In response to the book with the street name in the title, I remember reading a book in the 5th grade about Pudding Lane. It could have had illustrations similar to Edward Eager's, but I don't remember the plot at all, or the street number. Sorry!
This isn't The Family From One End Street series, is it? There were, I  believe, several stories about the family, all with One End Street in the title.
I did check these out, thank you - very kind of you, but neither is the one.  I'll keep searching until I find it!
I was wondering if you might be thinking of  The Dog on Barkham Street.  Although this book is neither British nor has a number in its title, it was written in 1960 and is about a boy, a dog, and the neighborhood bully.  Here's a descriptive clip I copied: Stolz, Mary.  A DOG ON BARKHAM STREET (8).Edward Frost faces two challenges-the bully of Barkham Street and getting a dog of his own. When his uncle arrives with a collie named Argess, Edward's life begins to change.  There's also another book by this author entitled The Bully on Barkham Street.  I know this book doesn't fit all the seeker's criteria, but the "Street" and "bully" thoughts made me think of this book.
Found a book in a www search (while looking for another title) called # Five Hackberry Street written by Christine Govan and illustrated by Peggy Bacon published  in 1964.  Plot: apparently the children Jessie, Tilly, and Frank have moved to a new house.  No other synopses given.
#W1--Wimbly Lane:  A book catalog description I found of Number 5 Hackberry Street identified it as taking place at the turn of the 20th Century in Tennessee.  If the wanted book took place later and in England, it is not
that one.
#W1--Wimbly Lane:  Jean Fritz wrote a book titled 121 Pudding Street.
W1 wimbly lane: well, it's English, involves a bully, has a street name in the title, and the illustrator did do several of Edward Eager's books - Songberd's Grove, by Anne Barrett, illustrated by N.M. Bodecker, published in the US by Bobbs 1958, 247 pages. "Songberd's Grove lies in London, a street of beautifully proportioned Georgian rowhouses now in slummy condition. The author creates a living picture of the row, particularly of No.1, from which Lenny, a Teddy-boy type of dictator, has ruled the street, and No.7, where 12 year old Martin moves in to establish a new balance of power with a determination to make things peaceable and attractive." (HB Feb/58 p.43)
Stanley Watts, Number 21.  This was illustrated by Robin Jacques. I think that Songberd's Grove sounds most likely  but if it isn't, then this may be a possibility. Yet another possibility is Kathleen O'Farrell's Number One Victoria Terrace, illustrated by Shirley Hughes  but I don't remember a bully.

I have a bit of information on W2.  I know I read that when I was in grade school, so it dates back at least to the mid-1960s.  I remember it as being an odd size -- squareish like a picture book, but written for 4th to 6th grade readers.  It was about a Chinese boy, and I remember thinking the melons were smaller than I was used to.  I think there was something about the melons or the money going missing, and then either they were recovered,
or something was found for a reward that brought in the same amount of money.I think it may have been published in the same series that 31 Brothers and Sisters by Reba P. Mirsky was published in -- I think it had the same format, and it was also a foreign setting.
P49 Present for a mother sounds the same as W2 Watermelons
Could be Little Wu and the Watermelons by Beatrice Liu, illustrated by Graham Peck, Follett, 1954, 96 pages. "A delightful tale of a small boy of the Hua Miao tribe of southwest China and his efforts to earn enough money to buy a present for his mother. Little Wu wanted to show his mother that he thought her the most beautiful mother in the world and he decided that the way to do that would be to buy her a piece of jewelry. When he finally had enough money, most of it gained from the sale of watermelons he had painstakingly raised, he realized that jewelry was not what she wanted most, but for the family to be able to buy a small field of their own."

There's Thornton Burgess' tales of Old Mother West Wind (including several books on her Why Stories, Where Stories, Who Stories, etc.), but this doesn't sound like exactly the same thing.
Maybe George MacDonald?
W18--East 'O the Sun and West 'O the Moon. These are collection of fairytales which have many stories about the wind. I have two books with this same title but they have completely different stories.  One is a small hardback(6 inches or so).

My sister had this book.  Could the title be "Let's Find Charlie."  Hope this helps.
I definitely remember this book--it was all in very bright primary colours, and I especially remember opening the "refrigerator" flap and all the food inside (I think you could even open the freezer!).  It was all very blocky and cartoonish.  I remember it as being hardback, probably yellow, horizontal.  I'm so sorry I can't remember the name of the author; it was a great book. [And later...]
I think the author's last name may be Arthur.
"Let's Find Charlie" written by Lois Morton, designed and illustrated by Elissa Scott.  Random House.  I adored that book.
Lois Morton, Let's Find Charlie.I found this old children's book.  A little girl looks for her mouse. Lift the flaps of doors, cabinets, etc. to see where he is hiding. Charlie ends up in her dollhouse fast asleep. It took me a long time to find this book, but it was definitely worth it!'

Is this the series by Ruth Chew that includes The Trouble with Magic, The Wednesday Witch, Witch in the House, etc.? published by Scholastic, mid-70s.
I am wondering if W20 might also be referring to the Barbara Sleigh's Carbonel series  (see L15) -- although I think there were only two of them, not four.
W20 I just bought a copy of The Wednesday witch. The witch's name is Hilda, and the cat's name is Cinders and they all appear to fly thru the sky on a vacuum cleaner
W20 witch and cat series: Barbara Sleigh's Carbonelseries was published by Puffin and includes - Carbonel (Puffin 1955), Carbonel's Kingdom (Puffin 1961), Carbonel and Calidor (Kestrel 1978), that I know of. The children are John and Rosemary.
Jill Murphy, The Worst Witch, 1974.  This sounds like it could be the Worst Witch series by Jill Murphy but the first in the series was written in 1974. There are 4 books in all and the little witch was called Mildred. Her cat was Tabby. The books are still available in the UK published by Puffin.

Patricia Coombs, Doorie the Witch series, 1970s-1980s.Sounds like the Doorie the Witch books to me. Doorie was a little girl witch (yes she had a cat: Jinx, I think it was). She was always getting into some kind of mischief, but always ended up saving the day. Loved these books as a little girl! I hope this helps :).

#W22--Witch's eyebrows:  A book called The Good American Witch contains a similar premise.
The Good American Witch by Peggy Bacon (Watts, 1957) includes stories told by the children's Uncle Robert about the 'good American witch', one story involving Susan who wanted her black hair changed to gold, another about Rufus who wanted his poodle to talk. Perhaps this was one of these stories, anthologised or read separately?

It is the Worst Witch series byJill Murphy.

Regarding Stump the Bookseller, W31:  Could this the The Magic Meadow by Ingri and Edgar d'Aulaire?  I haven't read it in a long time, but I know it is about William Tell in the Swiss Alps.
W31 william tell: perhaps William Tell, by Katharine Scherman, illustrated by George Schreiber, published Random House 1960, 52 pages? It's in a historical series for children, but no information on whether it is narrated by Tell's son.

W37 - George Macdonald's At the Back of the North Wind has a boy called Diamond (shades of D41 but I don't think this is the answer to that!) whom the North Wind, in the guise of a beautiful woman, befriends, and takes on journeys - including one to the land at her back. There are scenes of some violence though I don't remember a rabbit being killed, shipwrecks feature I think and the ending is certainly very sad.
A very long shot, but just possibly The Magic Forest by Stewart White? It was published in the 1920s, reprinted several times. It's about a small boy who falls off a train in the Northern woods and is found by Indians who take care of him - he is eventually returned to his parents. It's been years since I read it, but I think there was a sequence where he wanders lost in the snow, perhaps before being found by the Indians. Although he doesn't die, the ending is sad, since he's almost forgotten his parents, and will in turn forget his Indian 'family'.
Another possibility - Moccasin Trail by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, NY Coward-McCann 1952, 247 pages "Runaway 10 year old Jim Keath, trapping for beaver in the vast wild country beyond the Missouri River, is left for dead after a grizzly's attack. Found and adopted by Crow Indians, he grows up knowing only the Indians' wandering restless life." If the first part of this book was anthologised, it might be what the questioner remembers.
Alice Curtis Desmond wrote a story called "The Snow is Your Friend" that was collected in Told Under Spacious Skies (p.313-23), Macmillan 1952. No idea of the plot, but she also wrote American historical fiction and tales of other lands for children.
W37 wind is my friend: this time I'm pretty sure - The Boy and His Friend the Blizzard, by Gregor Marton, illustrated (in 2 colours) by Brian Wildsmith, published Cape 1962."A young orphan boy is making his way
westward from Budapest. His only possession is a medal of St. Anthony, left to him by his dying mother. He encounters another wanderer, a pregnant woman, and shelters her in a shack by a frozen lake during a fierce snowstorm. In the woods he finds food for her, and through a hole in the ice of   lake tries to catch fish. The blizzard he regards as a friend-it shields him from the marauding soldiers but racks his frail body. Fearless of the hostile forces of nature, he responds heroically to the demands of the woman's plight and his own desperate situation while dreaming of a life of freedom on the high seas." The title is close, and the mood of the story is certainly sombre enough.
Cypher in the Snow.  This comment reminded me strongly of a movie called "Cypher in the Snow" that I watched in a religion class when I was young - it was about a young boy who was ignored by everyone, had no friends, and finally dropped dead in the snow at the end!  Maybe a connection?
Gregory Marton, The boy and his friend the blizzard, 1962. The boy and his friend the blizzard is most probably the book your after. I read it this year and lent it to a friend. I absolutely loved it. The boy makes friends with a rabbit and, like the blizzard, kills the boy he kills the rabbit.
The illustrations in the book are monotone of various colors throughout.

There's a book in the Easy Reader series, When I Grow Up, by Jean Bethell, illustrated by Ruth Wood, published Wonder Books 1965, with a little girl imagining growing up to be a nurse, cowgirl, stewardess or ballerina. The cover is light orange and shows a red-headed girl in a green plaid dress with her back to us, looking into an oval mirror where her future selves wave their arms in an excited fashion. The boy's version (same title) was published a few years earlier (1961?) and the boy imagines himself as a cowboy, marine, etc.

W49- Possibly Pitty Pat The Fuzzy Cat or Big Little Kitty (Tell-A-Tales)

I don't know any Dare Wright book with Prayer in the title.  Here are the list of non-Edith titles:
The Little One  (features small naked doll lost in woods, small book); Date With London; Lona, a Fariy Tale  (features more sophisticated doll, very large format); Take Me Home (similar to The Little One); Look at a Gull (photography of seagulls); Look at a Colt; The Kitten's Little Boy; Look at a Calf; Look at a Kitten and 10 Edith Lonely Doll books....  nothing religious here, although Edith does sometimes learn a lesson  (as in Lonely Doll Learns a Lesson and Edith and Little Bear Lend a Hand).
W51 wright, dare: Is the poster absolutely certain that this is a Dare Wright book? It keeps reminding me of Prayer for a Child, by Rachel Field, illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones, published Macmillan 1945, 26 pages. "This childlike prayer, written for Hannah (Field's daughter), has been printed before, but not in illustrated form, as a book by itself. A realistic, unsentimental picture on each page makes the meaning of the phrases more clear to little children, closer to daily life." (HB Jan/45 p.33) Part of the text: "Bless this milk and bless this bread / bless this soft and waiting bed / Through the darkness, through the night / let no danger come to fright / my sleep ... Bless the lamplight, bless the fire / Bless the hands that never tire / in their loving care of me ..."
W51 Dare Wright prayer: just possibly A Child's Grace, verses by Ernest Claxton, photographs by Constance Bannister, published Dutton 1948. "In this book of exquisite simplicity and vibrant beauty, every alternate page has a photograph of a child, depicting some phase of daily life for which he thanks God. New photographs and a beautiful four-color jacket. Ages 2 and up." (HB Dec/48 p.406) The photo shown is of a little girl with shoulder-length dark hair and a doll-like face.

#W52:  Willo the Wisp:  An incident like this appears on page 28 of Barbee Oliver Carleton's Mystery of the Witches' Bridge (The Witches' Bridge in hardcover.)"Then Dan narrowed his eyes.  Had he seen a light out there in the marsh?  He stared into the blackness until his eyes shifted in their sockets. Yes!  There it came.  The light winked again, and yet again.  With a thrill of relief Dan realized that it was flashing a signal.  No will-'o-the-wisp would be sending the Morse code!"   The other similarities are that Dan never does see this light again, and there is talk of things falling into salt ponds in the marsh.  Dan's mother, though, is dead before the story starts, and I would guess this is not the one you're after.  I've just been waiting for someone to ask about Mystery of the Witches' Bridge, as it is one of my alltime favorites!
W52 I don't have the answer, but just a hint that might help the search. The spelling is usually will-o-the-wisp or will o' the wisp.
Maybe one of the Willo the Wisp series by Nicholas Spargo? Published by Windward in the early 1980s. I don't know anything about the stories though.
The book wasn't just one story, and the only other story I remember (I was about 3 or 4 at the time, this is pretty good going) was a boy that finds little people and gets turned into their size and walks through underground caverns with them. It's all very vague and the original poster remembered more than me already, but there you go.

Has anyone suggested Aiken, Joan Nightbirds on Nantucket il by Robin Jacques  Doubleday  1966
Maybe Keturah Came 'Round the Horn: a story of old California by Ada Claire Darby, published by Stokes in 1935 and 1940? "Tale of a New England girl who came round the Horn with her sea-captain father in 1846, to Monterey and Sand Diego, at a time when revolution brewed between the Spanish regime, Mexican rebels, and an American Government that sought California for herself." Or there's Captain Ramsay's Daughter by Elizabeth Fraser Torjesen, published by Lothrop in 1955, 223 pages "Nantucket in whaling times is the backdrop for a story of a teenage girl's adventure." Though that doesn't say anything about actually sailing. Another is Elizabeth CoatsworthThe Captain's Daughter published by Macmillan in 1950 "Adventure and romance are the  ngredients of this delightful novel for young adults, about a young girl's trip to the Orient in a clipper ship."
Yet another - Holberg, Ruth, The Wonderful Voyage illustrated by Phyllis Cote, published Garden City, Doubleday Doran Junior Books 1945 "Eight-year old Randy and her older brother Jay go on the most exciting trip that could happen in the 1850's - a whaling voyage on their father's ship, from Gloucester, around Cape Horn and up through the Pacific Ocean. Randy forgot she was "puny" ... cut the frills off her pantalettes and vowed to do everything her brother did." The cover shows the two children standing by some rigging, with Jay pointing at a leaping whale and Randy's voluminous petticoats blown by the wind. Less likely - Crowe, John Congdon, In the Days of the WindjammersToronto, Ryerson 1959 9x6, 176pp. 9 illus. "This is a factual account of the life of the Captain and his family who lived aboard a full-rigged ships, starting with the launch of the 'BEDFORD' in 1877. This narrative was written by one of Captain Crowes sons who, not in any unique way for the times, lived and sailed with his mother and father."
Rachel Field, Hitty her first hundred years.  I realy enjoyed reading this book. it is a doll's memoirs on  her first 100 yrs. Her first owner was a girl named Phoebe Preble who lived in Nantucket,Maine. Phoebe's father was a whaler. At one point he takes his family on a whaling trip with him and they get shipwrecked on a island and have several more adventures.Then the doll writes about her other owners.
Corinne Demas, If Ever I Return.  About a 12-year-old girl on her father's whaling ship - not sure the location. I think the story is told through letters to her cousin.

W56 - sounds like either Epaminondas or one of Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo/Little Black
Quibba/Little White Squibba etc series
Pal, George, Jasper and the Watermelons,c 1945.  I was looking for a copy of Jasper and the Watermelons" which I remember reading at the home of the librarian who lived across the street from us when I was a little girl in the mid 1950s. When I saw your stumper, I seemed likely this was the book you were seeking. Jasper steals the watermelons, doesn't come home when called, eats until he falls asleep, and is menaced by watermelons, a storm and the fantasy of his tummy exploding. He goes home remorseful and grateful to be in one
piece. I hope this is it, and I hope you find a copy -- I'm still looking.
W56 watermelon stealing - I saw a copy of one suggested on EBay - Jasper and the Watermelons, written and illustrated by George Pal (famous animator and special effects creator) published New York, Diamond Publishing, 1945. "FANTASTICALLY illustrated bit of our past. Little Black boy doesn't listen to Mammy and eats too much watermelon and has wild dreams."

Helen Cresswell, Lizzie Dripping and the Witch, 1970?  It's a long time since I read it, but I know this starts with Lizzie meeting the Witch in a playground.
W59 witch wishes: more on the suggested - Lizzie Dripping and the Witch, by Helen Cresswell, Illustrated by Chris Riddell, published London,  BBC Books 1991 "Everyone knows a Lizzie Dripping. It's the name people call the kind of girl who is dreamy and daring at the same time and who turns things upside down and inside out wherever she goes and whatever she does. But our Lizzie Dripping is even more special. Because Lizzie, out of all the people in Little Hemlock, has her own private witch. A witch that only Lizzie can see and talk to. So that although life for Lizzie is often exciting, or strange, or even rather scary, it is never, never dull. In this book, the author has written six new stories about one of the most delightful and best-loved characters in modern children's literature." The first book, Lizzie Dripping, published 1973, also involved a witch, possibly the same one. "Lizzie knows there is a Witch in the village, but no one believes her." There are several other titles in the series.

If it was a really old book (1940s), for middle grades, it might be Sally Scott of the WAVES, by Roy J. Snell, part of Whitman's Fighters for Freedom series.   I don't have a copy to check, but Norma Kent  of the WACs
from the same series has a blue cover. A synopsis of Sally Scott can be found online.  It does NOT mention a character named Seth, but does refer to an older, unnamed man who invented a radio  that apparently plays a key part inthe story.

Does either Tomi Unger's Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls or Ron Barrett's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs look familiar?  Or perhaps one of the  Harlin Quist books?  I thought it worth a try...
Nope. Also, just so ya know, it's not a children's book really. I mean we found it and it amused the heck out of us, but I don't think it would be "labeled" as a children's book. I really appreicate the help though, it would save me a few sleepless nights! ;)
James Thurber?  This has a strong 'family resemblance' to the kind of thing that James Thurber wrote - often illustrating his books himself, with odd line drawings.
Besides illustrating and writing children's books, Tomi Ungerer also draws quite adult, rather surreal cartoons, some with erotic or misogynist content. There have been a few collections of his work, including Adam and Eve, published London, Cape, 1976; and Testament, covering his work from 1960-1980, published London, Cape, 1983. Given the artist's name as remembered, one of these would be my bet.
Weird black humor!! I would certainly look at Edward Gorey.  Some of his titles around in the seventies- Amphigorey, Too
Cobweb Castle,Epileptic Bicycle, Awdrey-Gore Legacy, and others. Check them out! 

Well, I don't know about the record, but the nursery rhyme Wynken, Blynken and Nod was written by Eugene Field and widely anthologized.
#W72--Wynken, Blynken and Nod Record:  Because I am seeking a particular edition of Wynken, Blynken and Nod (Paperback, Wonder Books, 1964), I search for this on eBay all the time.  It appears on LOTS of records!  I find as many recordings of it as books.  The only one I have is a recording by the Irish Rovers, but records come up all the time, including very old ones.  You might be advised to keep doing searches on eBay; there is also some website devoted to old vinyl.  Here's one:  OLD CHILDRENS 78 RPM RECORD This is an old CHILDRENS 78 RPM RECORD. By LINCOLN records #529. Year 1950. songs are, WYNKEN BLYNKEN AND NOD / RAPUNZEL..
I have two records with Wynken, Blynken and Nod.  The first one is mine from the 60's and is titled Song Time for Young People published by Treasure Records. The cover is pink with a circus scene on the front and has 18 songs including Katie the Kangaroo, Over in the Meadow, Pop Goes the Weasel, and Clementine. The other I purchased in 1980 and is a two record set called A Golden Treasury of Mother Goose published by Golden Records.  There are 82 songs and rhymes directed by Mitch Miller.
Little Golden Book records has a record with Wynken Blyken and Nod on side one, Storm in the Bathtub on side two. Is it possible that Storm in the Bathtub makes mention of Halley's Comet? Maybe someone can help with that part. I do not know that song.
The wonderful world of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.  Author(s): Lande, Kay and Denning, Wade.   RCA Camden, 1966. 33 1/3 rpm. stereo.  Contents: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.--We must be brave, brave, brave.--My name is Haley Comet.--Miss Guiding Star's song.-We're gonna go a-searchin' for a rocket ship.--Mister Parrot's lament.--Catch me, catch me.--Trouble.--Due North.--A perpetual cold in my nose.--We're going to Australia to ride a kangaroo.--Sing me a rhyme.--Jack Yak.--Wynken, Blynken and Nod.  Note(s): Participants: Story and songs  written by Wade Denning and Kay Lande  performed by Kay Lande and cast  Wade Denning, arranger and conductor.

W75 werepony: there's a rather odd book that may be it - Horse of Air, written and illustrated by L. Campbell, published Routledge 1957, 160 pages. The author was 15 when she wrote it. "It concerns Lindsey, a girl whose imaginary world becomes her real world. Here she roams with her band of horses, having the ability to become one herself at any time. They journey through countries together, meeting were-wolves or Indians, or cowboys or people from small townships. With two or three of her horses she takes journeys back to "Reality" and occasionally in time. The portrayal of the horses is excellent and each becomes a real personality to the reader." (JB Nov/57 p.258) More likely it's a recent paperback fantasy for adults or YA, though.

Could this be one of the Random House Landmark series books for young people. The cover description and date sound right. Check out the lengthy list of titles. Battle for the Atlantic, The Story of Submarines, The History of the U. S. Coast Guard, etc. 

W78 whitman christmas: the cover description sounds like The Christmas Book, Whitman 1954, which is on the Solved List. The only difference is that the children are dancing hand-in-hand around the tree, though the garlands strung around it do give the impression that they are holding maypole ribbons.

In a Ginn second grade reader Around the Corner (green cover)(1966) there is a story called "The Wonderful Washing Machine". In this Ann falls asleep and she dreams she is flying out across the country atop the washer. The story is by Miriam Young and is attributed to Story Parade magazine. I do not see an elf story here, however. 

Claire Huchet Bishop, Twenty and Ten, 1952.  I'm a little uncertain whether this is the book referred to, except that the children in the book do act in a play (as far as my memory serves me).  A short synopsis of the book follows:  "During the Nazi occupation of France, twenty ordinary French  kids in a boarding school agree to hide ten Jewish children.  Then German soldiers arrive. Will the children be able to  withstand the interrogation and harassment? Twenty and Ten is based on a true story -- one of many similar incidents that took place all over Europe during World War II. It is a book that has much to say to children of any age." Assuming this is the book (there are a number of books on the  same theme) there was a 1990 made for TV movie based on it,  starring Loretta Swit, called "Miracle at Moreaux".
I still think the book you are looking for is something else, whose title I cannot recall, but a friend suggested a lot of plot elements are like Kathryn Lasky's The Night Journey.
Claire Huchet Bishop, Twenty and Ten.  This is the solution I coulnd't think of last time, and I believe I've got it now.
I do not remember the title, but I taught this book to 6th graders in New Jersey.  Look at the videos at your library  I believe it is also a movie.  You can ask the research librarian to look for the topic with Juvenile literature for 4th to 7th grade material, and she will probably find it.
I'm not positive about this, but W85 might be Escape from Warsaw by Ian Serralier.  It's about  three children from a Warsaw ghetto running  from the Nazis.   This book is back in print.
My Hundred Children, Lena Kuchler, 1987.  This is a book about a woman who helps 100 children (Holocaust survivors) get to Israel. I remember very little about it and it is long out of print, but I thought it might help as it looks like this stumper hasn't been solved.
I checked out briefs on Twenty & Ten, Escape from Warsaw, and The Night Journey, but unfortunately none of them are the book I'm seeking.  I did, however, remember that the name of the main character is Lena or Leni, if that helps.
I do not believe that Claire Huchet Bishop's Twenty and Ten is correct.
Also published under the title The Secret Cave (Scholastic-1969) the story concerns French school children who vote to aid some Jewish children by hiding them at their convent school. There is no adult who is fleeing nor do the Jewish children escape from France in the end. The story merely ends with the Nazis departing, believing they were mistaken. The ten hidden children come out and everyone feast on some food left behind by the soldiers. The children had been subsisting on very meager rations. The school barely food had food for the twenty and they were actually sharing their supply with the extra ten! They were nearly starving!
Lena Küchler-Silberman, translated from the Hebrew by David C. Gross., My Hundred Children, 1987.  maybe? - Trying to find reason to go on living after her family died in the Holocaust, Kuchler-Silberman directed a postwar orphanage for 100 of the few Jewish children who remained alive in Poland. Her aim was to provide physical and emotional wholeness for those children who had lived in closets or forests and for the many who had seen their parents killed. She encountered aggressive anti-Semitism directed toward the children. Finally leaving Poland for safer Czechoslovakia forms the crux of the first-person narrative, but as much drama is found in moving vignettes, such as the intoxicated hilarity the children and staff enjoy, dressed alike in pink flannel pajamas (their first such warmth after the war). Kuchler-Silberman is truly a hero  her accomplishments will be honored in a forthcoming TV movie.

The Golden Goose.  I had a book in the seventies called The Golden Goose, which had all the elements you describe, including a woodsmen being cut with an axe, and treesy, earth toned pictures.
W88: Sounds like the Grimms' The Golden Goose, though the only time I remember seeing it as a book was a pre-1970 edition in which the youngest son is called, not Simpleton, but "Dumming" or some such. A lot of dialogue. Very plain illustrations - what sticks in my memory is when the brothers cut themselves with the ax and you see the gaping cuts in profile, but no blood or redness.
W88  L. Leslie Brooke, The Golden Goose.  Oddly enough, I just saw this in my doctor's office among the books they had
for the kids. It had simple line drawings done in color. Lots of trees in the pictures.
W88 This one?  Brooke, Leslie. The golden goose and other favorites.  ilus by Leslie Brooke. Avenel old fairy and
nursery tales; Mother Goose rhymes.

Kristine Willis, The Long-legged, long-nosed, long-maned wolf,  1968.  It' not an exact match, but it was close enough that I felt I should mention it.  Summary: "The strange wolf doesn't make a very good horse, and the strange man doesn't make a very fierce bandito, but they make a good pair because of the unusual favors they do for each other."  It's 48 pages long, so it's probably an "easy reader" type book.
I have no summaries for these two but the time period fits: Wolf Who Had a Wonderful Dream by Anne Rockwell (1973), Mouse Who Wanted to be a Man by Margaret Howell (1976)

Hoke, Helen, Witches, Witches, Witches, 1953.  This is a slightly oversized J fiction with a black cover.
I just thumbed through Witches, Witches, Witches and didn't see a story resembling the above description.  Likewise, A Book of Witches by Ruth Manning-Sanders and 13 Wtiches by Dorothy Gladys Spicer.
W91 The Helen Hoke book is a collection of stories. I'll read the copy of it that I own to double check it. In the meantime, check SPELL ME A WITCH by Barbara Willard, 1979, 1981. It could be the one you're looking for. ~from a librarian
Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week, 1982.  Could this be it?  "There are, in the universe, an infinite number of worlds, each split off from its neighbors by the turnings of history. In one world, very much like ours, witchcraft is illegal and witches are burned, unless they can manage to escape. A large number of witch-orphans have been sent to Larwood House, a government-run boarding school. A note accusing someone at the school of being a witch is only the beginning of the strange occurrences.  Young Charles Morgan has just discovered that he can cast spells. Nirupam Singh's brother was burned as a witch. Nan Pilgrim has just taken her first flight on a broom. Among the other students at the school are Estelle Green, whose mother used to run part of the witches rescue service; Brian Wentworth, whose father is assistant head and who has begun acting decidedly odd; and the perfect Simon Silverson, whose every word suddenly starts coming true. When one of the students disappears and a note is left blaming the witch, everyone begins to get scared and several students run away. Nan and Estelle, trying to reach the witches rescue service, are given a spell that will summon help, in the form of the wizard Chrestomanci."
It's definitely NOT Witch Week (or anything by Diana Wynne Jones.  It was a short story and I don't even think the anthology was that thick.  I also forgot to add that it was in my elementary school library (Indianola Elementary in Columbus, Ohio).  Thanks for the ideas.
The Worst Witch Ever.  I know the cover of my edition was of the girl flying (looking fairly disheveled) with a cloak on.  She went to a boarding school and was often in trouble, but managed to save the day. A thorn bush sounds vaguely familiar.  There were 2 books I read in the series, I think.  I would have read this book around 1985ish and it was in paperback then.

Ruth Arthur, A Candle in Her Room.  I was haunted by this one when I was a kid. I'm sure this is it  it matches in every detail.
I don't think this one is A Candle in her Room by Ruth Arthur. I don't remember it containing Jewish people. It takes places in the English countryside and centers around an evil doll named Dido.
This is really whistling in the dark, but is it possible that the person who submitted the first clue was really thinking of  A Candle in the Dark by Adele Geras & Elsie Lennox? Though I've never read it, I know it's about the Holocaust and the title is very close to A Candle in Her Room.
It is A Candle in Her Room. The section with the evil doll is (mainly) the first generation. The dancer is a second generation girl who moves to Europe. Her child is orphaned and lost after the war. An aunt who had been crippled (because of the doll) has a vision of the child and is healed so that she can go find her. Then the child comes back and deals with the doll.
Arthur, Ruth, A Candle in Her Room, NY Atheneum 1966.  I think this IS A Candle in Her Room. The book is in 4 sections, each narrated by a girl or woman, covering 3 generations of women at an isolated country house. This particular episode occurs - The first narrator finds her grand niece after WWII in the DP camps, her mother having been murdered by the Nazis for involvement in the Polish Resistance. The grand niece is named Nina, and her mother had been a dancer, but the Nazis had burned her feet so that she was barely able to hobble, news which horrifies her great aunt.  Nina, because of her early hardship, is a tough kid, and she is the one who finally has the strength to defy the power of the evil doll Dido and free the family of her influence. The characters are not Jewish, and WWII is mostly offstage, but I wonder if the seeker has invented that memory to explain this incident?

Back Home, Michelle Majorian.
Unless the person who submitted the stumper has confirmed it, I think W102 should be reopened - sorry.  Back Home by Michelle Magorian wasn't published until 1984, and while it is about an English girl who was evacuated to America during WWII, it deals with her struggle to adjust to life in England again after the war, rather than focusing on how hard it was to adjust to life in America.
P. L. Travers, I Go By Sea, I Go By Land, 1966.  Maybe?  This is non-fiction and is written in diary form.  Story of an English girl and her younger brother who were sent to live with relatives in America during World War II.
I'm the original poster of this stumper.  Neither of these answers is correct (although I appreciate the help!):  I know I read this book when I was in elementary school in the late 1960s, and it was written in the third-person, as a piece of fiction (even if based on a true story).  I remember that at the beginning of the book, she was very happy with her mom and dad in a major European city and was horrified at her new host family in America or Canada; in the scene at the end when the parents from Europe come to the farm to get their daughter, she is in a field, and if memory serves, is chewing a bit of straw and may even have not had a shirt on!  (She was prepubesent, of course.)  She had grown to love her country life, too, and I think dreaded the adjustment to life back in Europe.  That was where the book ended.  Thanks!
Haywood, Carolyn, Primrose Day, 1942.  This is simply a suggestion.  I haven't read it, so can't say whether it contains the exact details you've described, but the plot sounds right. "Because of the war, 7-year-old Merry Primrose Ramsay goes to live with her Aunt Helen and Uncle Bill in America, where she finds things very different from England."
This book is DEFINITELY NOT Primrose Day, as that is a very sweet and wonderful book with a very happy ending!  And thanks for this great service, because I was actually looking for Primrose Day's title and found it here!!!

Oh my, I remember that brain teaser.  Brain teasers were part of an oral tradition and dinnertime activity in my family.  I'll be eager to see this one solved.
Well, there's Donald J. Sobol's Two-Minute Mysteries series featuring Inspector Haledjian.  I couldn't find such a case in More Two-Minute Mysteries or Still More Two-Minute Mysteries, though it could be in Two-Minute Mysteries.  A book featuring a female detective with the same initials as Sherlock Holmes is Mini-Mysteries, by Julia Remine Piggin, but I couldn't find such a case in that book or any sequels to it.  All of these came out in paperback from Scholastic in the early 1970s.  The mysteries were about a page each with the solution printed upside-down at the bottom of the page.
Ken Weber, Five Minute Mysteries (series).  Since Weber's books involve murders, I think it's the Five Minute Mystery Series.
W103 Not a definitive answer, but try doing a keyword search on your library's computer catalog or on the internet with the words "minute mysteries". I didn't get a sense of what year you might have read these books, but from the 70s to the present, there are various minute mystery titles - like Two Minute Mysteries, etc. Might be worth investigating. ~from a librarian
Very early- but The Baffle Books by Randle McKay and Lassiter Wren?? (1920-30's)?
I have read the "Two-Minute Mysteries" books mentioned above, and I'm sure that these are the books you are looking for. I remember the exact story you have mentioned. I believe it was the butler who killed the master of the house by hanging him, and claimed that he was merely walking into the house and saw the man kick over the stool he was standing on and hang himself in the attic. The mystery was solved because there is no way the butler could have known it was a stool from way down on the ground. Hope this helps!

Sounds a little bit like the story of John Henry, who I think is a fictional folk hero.  Probably in multiple anthologies  I do distinctly remember hearing one where he breaks a machine that threatens to replace him.

This may not be what either is looking for, but let me try to hit 2 stumpers with 1 stone: C 219: Children's book of how stories and W 120: Winds, Stories About could both be Old Mother West Wind, by Thornton W. Burgess, 1910. Put that title, in quotes, into Google, and you'll even find entire online versions of it; for example, chapter 2, Why Grandfather Frog Has No Tail.
Hans Christian Andersen, The Garden of Paradise, c.1838.  W-120, story about the four winds with different characteristics, could this be The Garden of Paradise, one of Andersen's fairy tales?  Here's a link.  As the poster relates, it most definitely is not a friendly story.
W120 is NOT Tresselt  Follow the windNOR Brindze The story of the trade winds NOR Conger Who has seen the wind
W120 Could this be EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON, an old tale from Norway? ~from a librarian

Rosemary Sutcliffe?  This sounds as if it might be any of a number of young adult novels by Rosemary Sutcliffe, set in early Britain. I am sorry I can't be more specific.
Walter Dean Myers, Legend of Tarik, 1981.  Could this be The Legend of Tarik?  Synopsis: "After witnessing the annihilation of his people by El Muerte's legions, young Tarik undergoes the training, which will enable him to destroy this fierce leader.

Fea, Henry R., Adventure In The Sierras, 1959.  Survival story. Plane with uncle & 2 children crashes. Ginn & Company. 180 pages.
I'm the original submitter for Stumper W128 "Wilderness survival after floatplane crash".  This stumper is shown as solved with the book identified as "Adventure in the sierras" by Henry R. Fea. Unfortunately this is not the book that I'm searching for.  The solved book is a crash survival story but has two children in it, a boy and a girl.  The book I'm searching for is based around two boys, a floatplane and ultimately a river trip by raft back to civilization.
Burton L Spiller, The Young Crusoes, 1959. I'm sure this is the book referred to. It is my favourite book but have not read it for a number of years. I was searching the internet to confirm the title and typed in my idea of the plot summary...it was almost identical to the stumper W128. I was pretty sure the title was "The Young Crusoes" and further internet searching has confirmed this.
Burton Spiller, Northland Castaways.  This book is Northland Castaways.  Look it up in the Solved Mysteries section.  It is now very rare - no copies on ABE! - but can still be found on interlibrary loan.

The Wednesday Witch by Ruth Chew, 1969.  See more comments on the Solved Mysteries page.
This book (the Wednesday Witch by Ruth Chew) was not published until 1969. The book I want is one that I read in 1960.
Dan Wickenden, The Amazing Vacation.This book was published around the right time.  I read it in elementary school about 1960.  Two children, Joanna and Ricky, go to visit their eccentric uncle and aunt, and end up going through a strange stained-glass window into another country.  One of the characters in the book is a witch who rides on a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom.  This book is set in the 1920's.  I found this book recently at Alibris or ABEbooks, and it's as delightful as I remembered.
Mary Calhoun, Wobble the Witch Cat. Although the other answer might be the right one -- if you remember an early reader picture book instead of a novel, it might be Wobble the Witch Cat. Wobble hates riding on the witch's broom, so he throws it away. On Halloween, the witch is desperate to take to the skies, so she enchants her vaccum cleaner and rides that instead. Wobble finds it very comfy.

Could this be one of Alan Coren's Arthur books? A British series of humorous books with titles like Arthur the Kid, The Lone Arthur, etc. The plot generally involved Arthur, a ten-year-old boy, outwitting assorted wild west bad guys. The story that your correspondent describes doesn't ring any bells, but it sounds like the kind of resourceful thing Arthur would do.

The story The Bed that Ran Away is found in Volume 2 of the Book Trails book (For Baby Feet), and Volume 1 is full of poetry. I believe these book sets were sold door to door, so it's probably worth investigating.
Multiple Contributors - Introduction by M.V. O'Shea, Junior Instructor, Books 1 and 2, 1943 (orig. 1916), copyright.  The green-covered and yellow-covered Junior Instructor books were sold along with the Book Trails series.  The 1943 copyright was published by United Educators, Inc.

Laurgaard, Rachel K, Patty Reed's Doll:The Story of the Donner Party, 1956.  Sounds like this might be about the Donner Party, a group of emigrants to California who in the winter of 1846–47 met with one of the most famous tragedies in Western history. The California-bound families were mostly from Illinois and Iowa.  Early snow caught them, trapping them in the Sierra Nevada. Resources ran out, and survivors resorted to cannibalism to survive. The story is told from a child's doll's perspective.
You didnt give an approximate date of when you read the book, and there are a LOT of books about the true story of the Donner Party, which your description certainly sounded like. I did find a possibility - Across The Plains In The Donner Party: a personal narrative of the overland trip to California, 1846-47 by Virginia Reed Murphy (Outbooks, 1980).  "This is her story, recalled 45 years later at the request of the editor of Century, a national magazine of that day, and reprinted here with the original illustrations and some additional ones."  If you could give a date, it would be easier to narrow down possible titles.
Jane and Paul Annixter, Wagon Scout.  If the original stumper requester is mixing up the Donner Party (starvation) with lack of water, this could be the book.  The protagonist is a sixteen-year-old boy.
Rachel K. Laurgaard , Patty Reed's Doll,1956.  This is just a guess. A lot depends on when the poster was a teenager. If the book was about the Donner party, then this link may help.
I can't imagine anyone writing a children's book on The Donner Party, but that's sure what this sounds like!  Also there's a short story by Mark Twain: Cannibalism in the Cars, but its not narrated by a young girl.
I'm willing to bet this is a story based on the Donner Party.  Three possible titles: Patty Reed's Doll: the Story of the Donner Party by Rachel Laurgaard, Lorina's Song: A Pioneer Girl's Journey with the Donner Party by Marian Rudolph, and Palace Wagon Family: A True Story of the Donner Party.
Winter Harvest, by Norah Lofts, a novel about the Donner Party. I remember it was narrated by one of the members of the party, either a teenage girl or boy.
Laurgaard, Rachel K., Patty Reed's Doll, 1956.  The stumper must surely refer to a book about the Donner party--could this be the one?
W139 is presumably talking about a story based on the real-life Donner Party.  There are many possibilities, and since I don't know when requestor was in high school, I've sorted them by date:
Grim journey : the story of the adventures of the emigrating company known as the Donner party, which, in the year 1846, crossed the plains from Independence, Missouri, to California ... by Birney, Hoffman, 1934.
The mothers : an American saga of courage by Fisher, Vardis, 1943.
Winter harvest : a novel by Lofts, Norah, 1955.
Beyond the pass. by Headen, William, 1956.
Palace wagon family: a true story of the Donner Party. Sutton, Margaret, 1957.
West through the wilderness: a story of the tragedy at Donner Pass. by Bowlen, Ruth, 1961.
The ungodly: a novel of the Donner party.  by Rhodes, Richard, 1973.
Tamsen by Galloway, David D., 1983.
Left hand turn : a story of the Donner Party women by Maino, by Jeannette Gould, 1987.
Patty Reed's doll : the story of the Donner party by Laurgaard, Rachel K., 1989.
Trapped! the true story of a pioneer girl by Boeve, Eunice, 1997.
The Donner Party : a diary of a survivor : historical fiction by Olson, Tod, 1999.
Lovina's song : a pioneer girl's journey with the Donner party by Rudolph, Marian, 1999.

Sounds as though it might be THE POWER OF NOTHINGNESS by Alexandra David-Neel & Lama Yondgen; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982  Janwillem van de Wetering translation.  First English language edition. [Not a children's book.] For more  information, see this website.

Some of the details may be muddled here (for example, I don't recall the story being that the wish is for the birthday to happen over and over, but it's been 25 years since I read it, so maybe that's what happened), but this is definitely Bear's Magic and Other Stories by Carla Stevens.  It was indeed a Scholastic book from the 1970s, and my copy came with a record.
Hi.  Thank you for your help.   It is not the correct story listed.
Well, I still think this is Bear's Magic and Other Stories by Carla Stevens.  This info from another solve on this site: Not exactly firetrucks but... The first story, Wish I May, Wish I Might, in the book Bear's Magic and Other Stories is about a rabbit with an old lunch box.  Everyone else in his class has pictures on their lunch boxes.  So rabbit wishes on a star several nights in a row for a new lunch box.  There's no answer at first, but rabbit reminds himself how far away the stars are.  After three nights (and after his mother overhears him), he gets a new lunch box with "trucks on it -- a dump truck, a garbage truck, a tow truck -- more than ten different trucks!"  The other two stories in the book are about a mouse who makes a birthday wish, and a bear who wishes it would stop snowing.  It's by Carla Stevens, with pictures by Robert J. Lee.  Scholastic, 1976.  Does that ring any more bells?

Renvoize, Jean, A Wild Thing.  London: Macmillan 1970.  This sounds possible - "Morag runs away to try to live by herself in the highlands of Scotland." "The townspeople believed she was a demon spirit...They frightened each other with tales of a wild young creature glimpsed here and there for an instant, then vanished. In truth, Morag was a lonely young runaway, a girl, not quite sixteen years old, who had deserted the poverty and pain of life as an unwanted child to live out a harsh dream of freedom in the wilderness. Her home was a cave, her companions two goats and a moss-covered skeleton-until, one day, a boy wandered into her strange, solitary existence and brought with him all the joys and evils of the civilization she had fled."

W146 possibilities?  Haven't dug it out to check for white line. These are wordless and have at least one rabbit in them:
Bruna, Dick.  Miffy's dream. illus by Dick Bruna. Methuen, 1979.  white rabbit, brown rabbit. Fromm, Lilo.  Muffel and Plums. illus by Lilo Fromm    Macmillan, 1972.  lion, rabbit; friendship; books without words.

If the date is 1940s-1950s then it couldn't mention the Arch of St. Louis, which wasn't built until the late 1960s.
From the Special Collections, St. Louis Public Library:  We have checked several sources including reference books, databases, and the Internet, plus the memories and expertise of staff members, but could not discover the title of the book, which you mentioned.  You may have placed the date of publication a bit too early, since the competition for the Gateway Arch (formally known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial) took place in 1947-48 and the Arch itself was completed on October 29, 1965.  I have also asked the library's Youth Services librarians for assistance. If they identify a possible match, I will pass the information along to you.
Thanks for the dates and education about the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.  The book appeared to me to be somewhat old, but given your dates, it likely was a used and liked book.  I would have read it around the years of 1974-1977.  Given your information, it must have been not even a decade old.  It may have been in a collection of short stories; I just cannot remember any other details.  Again I would be grateful for any details.  I have tried looking at some online card catalogs to no success.

W156 Daly, Kathleen N. The home is best book [former title: The nest book].  Illus by Jan Pfloog. Golden, 1968, 1976.
animal homes; Golden Shape Book.  This is probably not it. The pictures are nice, but not arty. 1st spread is of orioles and their nest; next spread "A cave is home to big black Bear" then "A cozy den is Fox's lair." Then the head of a cat peering at the goldfish in their bowl, etc.
I really doubt it is The Nest Book - from how she described it diddnt have traditional painted illustrations, they were more graphic and luminous...copyright early to mid 70's, I assume, since she is in her late 20's...
Mary Anne Hoberman, A House is A House For Me, 1978.  Maybe?  "A web is a house for a spider" is the first line.  Many other animal homes are mentioned in this long illustrated poem.  Illustrations are interesting.

This sounds a bit like The Phantom Tollbooth...the book did have an 'otherworldly' feel to it. A long shot, but perhaps helpful.
W163 I'm quoting from blurb of Phantom Tollbooth: "In his quest for Rhyme and Reason, Milo helps settle the war between words and numbers, visits the Island of Conclusions (which can only be reached by jumping), and ventures into the forbidden Mountains of Ignorance whose all too familiar demons menace his every step."  As to musicians, Milo runs into a big symphony orchestra but it produces no sound; it produces the colors in the world, starting with sunrise. They don't seem to be involved in any wars.
Thanks, but I don't think it's The Phantom Tollbooth. The book I "remember" (hah!) is probably not as clever as that one sounds.   :)   I've been to many a library and consulted with many a veteran children's librarian and been sent to many a bibliography of children's science fiction and fantasy, to no avail...
This isn't a solution exactly, but I have fond memories of a Walt Disney Silly Symphony cartoon about a war between 2 islands - one peopled with symphonic instruments (violins, oboes and the like) and one peopled with jazz instruments (saxophones and trumpets).  A sweet young violin and a shy young sax fall in love and their respective parents throw a collective tizzy which involves everyone on both islands hurling music note "bombs" at each other until the inevitable happy ending.

The requester might look at some of Ruth Chew's books.  The witch in The Wednesday Witch lived in a cave.
W164 Total shot in the dark, but it might be worth looking into the Old Witch books by Ida DeLage. Titles include OLD WITCH AND HER MAGIC  BASKET; OLD WITCH AND THE SNORES; OLD WITCH AND THE DRAGON and more. Old Witch lives in a cave (at least in some of the stories), but I haven't read them so I don't know if the other details match.~from a librarian.
Susan Cooper, Greenwitch. (1974) 'This might be GREENWITCH, the third book in Susan Cooper'sTHE DARK IS RISING SEQUENCE.  The title character is a sort of Wicker-Man type effigy that the locals in a Welsh village toss over a cliff into the ocean each year, and upon which the town's women can make wishes (to obtain husbands, children, wealth, etc.)  Jane, one of the four child protagonists, feels sorry for the Greenwitch, and when it is her turn to ask for something, simply hopes that the Greenwitch "is happy."  The Greenwitch "lives" near an underwater cave, guarding a treasure (an ancient scroll) within that the children must secure from the powers of the Dark.  It is because of Jane's kindness that the Greenwitch, which has a terrifying power of its own, ultimately relinquishes the scroll.

This sounds like one of the many versions of Baba Yaga.  The comb becomes a forest of trees, the mirror becomes a lake (sometimes it's a towel that becomes a river) allowing the girl to escape Baba Yaga.  I don't remember a version with soap, though, so maybe that's the clue that will halp narrow down the version you're looking for.
W166: Maybe Teeny-Tiny & the Witch Woman?   "Despite their mother's warnings, three brothers go into the forest to play and encounter the witch-woman
who eats little children." Barbara K. Walker, illustrated by Michael Foreman, 1975. Very eerie pictures. The other brothers are called Big-One and  In-the-Middle. Walker has retold many other fairy tales, especially from Turkey and Nigeria.
Perhaps?  Cole, Joanna.  Bony-Legs.  illus by Dirk Zimmer.  Scholastic, 1983.  Baba Yaga, Russian witch
Nina Beachcroft, Well Met by Witchlight, circa 1976.  Could this be it?

Not quite the same plot, but maybe worth a try is Wende and Harry Devlin's Old Witch and the Polka Dot Ribbon. The witch bakes a cake for the town's fund-raising carnival, and is given a special polka-dot ribbon for most original cake.
Ida Delage, The Old Witch Goes to the Ball, 1969. This book is The Old Witch Goes to the Ball by Ida Delage.  There is a sign on a telephone pole that reads "Come One Come All to the Halloween Ball..."  The sign is carried by the wind up to the old witch who lives in a cave on a hill.  She comes to the ball where everyone is in costume and everyone thinks she is another woman of the town dressed as a witch.  The prize for best costume is a cake with prizes baked in it.  She doesn'\''t win and starts seeking revenge.  A farmer's wife decides to bake the witch a cake with prizes to make her happy so that she won'\''t do any damage to anyone.  The witch takes the cake back up to her cave and is very happy and plans to come again to the ball next year.

Marian T. Place, The Resident Witch.  This one's in the Solved Mysteries listings and has a heroine named Witcheena.
1960s or 1970s?, I remember this book too.  There was a Halloween Ball that was to be held.  There was either a sign or a written invitation that stated: "Come one come all, to the Halloween Ball".  I remember the cake with the prizes bake in as well.  I cannot remember the title either.
Marian T. Place, The Resident Witch, 1971, approximate.  I think you're actually describing two books by Marian T. Place.  The book with Witcheena is "The Resident Witch" and involves the resident witch contest.  I believe the Halloween Ball could be "The Witch Who Saved Halloween" -- also written by Place but with a male protagonist named Witchard.  I just learned that Place wrote a third witch book, "The Astrowitches," that included both characters.

Eva Ibbotson.  My daughter says this description could be possibly one of Eva Ibbontson's stories.  She has read many of her books, but not all - so she didn't recognize this particular plot point.  But it sounded to her typical of Ibbotson.
Lynne Reid Banks, The Fairy Rebel.  Could your witches maybe be fairies? I haven't read this book for a long time, but it involves a little girl (who was given to her parents by the 'fairy rebel'). The wicked queen of the fairies is angry that the fairy rebel helped the humans have their child and makes war both on the rebel and on the little girl and her family. I think tere is something in the book about the little girl eating lots of sweets and it is possible that the wicked fairy queen made it look like she stole them. I think it takes place in England, but I don't remember about the trees. Hope this helps!
Unfortunately, neither of these sound right to me, although I haven't gone to the library yet to really check through those books.  Thanks for the help, though.
Could it be Wispey the Littlest Witch written by Rosemary Varney, illustrated by Robert Masheris, a paperback published in 1977, ISBN 0913778702?
Margaret Storey, The Dragon's Sister and Timothy Travels, 1967.  The Dragon's Sister starts with a grey lady magically sending sweets into Timothy's pockets while he is out shopping with his mother.  It is a sequel to Timothy and Two Witches, where his babysitter, Melinda, is a good witch, battling a mean witch next door. In that book, rowan and ash are mentioned as good trees that block black magic when Timothy and Ellen run into the mean witch and Melinda is not around to protect them.  In the later story, the grey lady turns out to be the first mean witch's sister.  Both Dell Yearling books.  Loved these books, where little cakes (with your name in frosting!) grew on trees for tea and baby dragons could show up in your back garden!
Adding to previous RE:  The Dragon's Sister.  Later in the book, Ellen is with Timothy and they encounter the Grey Woman again, which may be why the original poster remembers a girl being accused of shoplifting.  The children have put ash keys (seeds) into their pockets to prevent the witch from "magicking" items into their pockets again.
Margaret Storey, The Dragon's Sister and Timothy Travels.  Agree that the shoplifting scene happens in Timothy's Travels. It is described in detail on the T Solved page under Timothy's Travels.

Lawson, Robert, Rabbit Hill. I haven't read this book for years, but this might be Rabbit Hill by Rbt Lawson.
W172 Nope, Rabbit Hill doesn't fit. Nor does his other one abt a rabbit.
Is there any chance that the seeker could be remembering one of Thronton Burgess' books?  Many of them were set up as a series of small stories about the same character or set of characters. I can't remember this incident in the ones I read, but it's the type of thing that happened in these books.

'Cariad' is a Welsh endearment, if that's any help.
I'm sorry that I don't have any information about your book.  I'm sending along this detail in case it somehow helps you or others remember more:  the word "cariad" is a Welsh endearment, something like "love" or "darling".  Maybe Tony was Welsh?

This sounds like Road to Storyland (see Solved Mysteries) but I wanted to add that the Cary poem is here.  And the Christ version is Welsh.
I have found your story! The book: The Magic Story Tree (Fifteen Favorite Fables and Fairy Tales)illustrated by Lucille and H.C. Holling, Platt and Munk,1964. The Old Woman and the Magic Cakes is the woodpecker story. A beggar smells the old woman'\''s cake baking and asks for some. The cake is too big to give him any so she prepares a small cake for him! It grows and grows. This is too big to give away. She prepares a very small piece of dough for the oven. Again it grows and grows. In the end she gives none away but keeps it all for herself. As she sits down to eat all her cakes her nose feels strange. It turns into a beak, etc. She becomes the woodpecker. Other stories in this very nice book: Olaf and the Three Goats, Anders' Wonderful Cap, The Stone in the Road, The First Easter Rabbit.
Elson Basic Readers Book Two, Old woman and the cakes,1930s.At the moment I only have Book Four, publisher Scott, Foresman and Co so I am assuming that Book Two was the same timeframe. These were school books that included many types of stories. I loved this story, and "The Star Dipper" which was also in this book.

Leonard Nathan, A Wind Like a Bugle, 1954.  Later than the 1940s, and publisher (Macmillan) is not left-wingish, but the only novel about fugitive slaves/underground railroad I can find anywhere near the 1940s with the word "wind" in the title.  Worth a look, I suspect.

If it was blueberry pancakes in an old house converted into a tea shop, then it's Old Black Witch by Harry and Wende Devlin.  See more nostalgic memories on the Most Requested page.

Just a suggestion--if this is a children's book, you might try the WWII books by Eva-Lis Wurio.  I don't remember too many specifics, but this does sound very similar to one of hers.  Good luck!

A long shot--could you be remembering the scene in one of the Babar books where the elephants disguise their back ends (and walk backwards) to scare off the attacking rhinos?  (Their bottoms with faces painted on them and hair on top do look a little like some kind of hippos.)
Peter Cross, illus., Trouble for Trumpets. (1982)  Story by Peter Dallas-Smith. Here's a description from the Solved Mysteries: The creatures have faces shaped like hippos', and are the Trumpets ("We..live in a summer world of warmth and sunshine...in winter we go down into our warm homes underground") and the Grumpets ("They live in the dark, frozen mountains...a sharp, pointed, cross-looking lot") who want to take over the Trumpets' country. The Trumpets are helped in their military defense by wrens, owls, snails, mice and other creatures. The Grumpets wear pointy helmets and invade using submarines and helicopters (the rotors are made of seed pods)... The whole thing is like a takeoff of British military lore, in the midst of fields and hedges! W196: World War II family saga
I am looking for a young adult series I read in the 60s, although they probably were not new then. The series was about the lives and adventures of an extended family during World War II. Each book was about a different family member. The heroine of one of the books was a young actress in New York. Her romantic interest was a producer I believe.
Janet Lambert, Penny Parrish/Tippy Parrish series.  It could be these books about the Parrish family, starting with Star Spangled Summer. Penny becomes an actress, and eventually marries Josh MacDonald, a producer. The books continue through the war with Tippy's stories.
Lambert,  Janet, Up Goes the Curtain. (1946) 'After working hard in a summer stock company, Penny Parrish is cast in a Broadway show where she meets stage manager, Josh MacDonald. Penny learns more about life in the theatre and how it feels to wait for the curtain to go up on opening night." I recommend you look at http://www.imagecascade.com/ They are republishing these books - just look under Lambert and there is a summary of each book and a lot more similar series if this isn't the one.

Smith, Eunice Young, Jennifer Dances. (1955)  One of the series of books about Jennifer Hill.  The books in the series are The Jennifer Wish (1949), The Jennifer Gift (1950), The Jennifer Prize (1951), Jennifer is Eleven (1952), Jennifer Dances (1954), and High Heels for Jennifer (1964).  I believe Jennifer Dances is the rarest.
Eunice Young Smith, Jennifer Dances.  This is Jennifer Dances, in which young Jennifer visits her beloved aunt as she recuperates from a prolonged illness, and gets involved with ballet. One of the best of the Jennifer series, which include The Jennifer Wish, The Jennifer Gift, Jennifer is Eleven, and High Heels for Jennifer.

There might be another variation of this Talmudic legend, but the one I know is THE RABBI AND THE TWENTY-NINE WITCHES retold and illustrated by Marilyn Hirsch, published as a book in 1976, and also included in the collection of scary stories, THE SCARY BOOK compiled by Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson ; illustrated by Chris Demarest, 1991, 1992. A Rabbi is asked to do something about the witches, so he gathers up a lot of
young men who trick the witches into dancing with them in the rain. The rain shrinks the witches.~from a librarian

The Wonderful Worlds of Walt Disney. (1965)  You may be thinking of one of the four volumes in this hardbound set: Stories From Other Lands, Fantasyland, America, Worlds of Nature.  Jack and the Beanstalk is not included, but the Fantasyland volume (with red binding, America has a blue binding) has several Mickey Mouse stories like The Sorcerer's Apprentice and The Brave Little Tailor, also many Mother Goose rhymes with Disney characters portraying them.  All four volumes contain  adaptations of Disney films and cartoons. They were sold by mail during the 1960s.

Norman Bridwell, The Witch Next Door.  This seems unlikely but I'll mention it anyway as no one else has had a guess.  In The Witch Next Door two children have a witch move next door to them. They love the witch and enjoy her unusual habits (sleeping upside down, painting her house black, etc.)  There is a picture of a boy sick in bed and the witch sending in soup and cookies (they're floating through the air!) but it's not a major plot point of the book.  At the end two grouchy adults try to make the witch move but she turns them into a beautiful princess and handsome prince and they forget all about her.

De Paola, Tomie, Marianna May and Nursey. (1983)  A little rich girl is miserable because she isn't allowed to do anything but sit still and keep her white dresses clean, until Mr. Talbot the iceman has a clever idea.
Tomie dePaola, Marianna May and Nursey. (1983)  Marianna May feels stifled and bored, required to keep her fancy dresses clean all day. Nursey and Cook come up with a creative solution so that she can act like a child again. Charming Victorian-inspired illustrations, yet current and colorful.
I find the book I was questioning about. Someone else recently asked for it under w201.  And it is without a doubt Marianna May by Tomie de Paolo.  Thanks for all the help. I couldn't have found it without this website.

Eleanor Estes, The Witch Family.  Easy one!  The insect is Malachi the Spelling Bee.

Graham Diamond, The Haven Series. (1977-1981)  The description is likely one of the books in the Haven Series, by Graham Diamond.  The first, The Haven, is rare and expensive, but the other four are much more readily available.  The description certainly sounds like this series! (if I had to guess at a specific book, I think it's the Dungeons of Kuba, but I am not sure).  The wolves were named after Shakespere characters.
Tara K. Harper, Wolfwalker.(1990) If 203 isn't by Graham Diamond, could it be by Tara Harper?  Here's the description of Wolfwalker: Dion was a healer and a wolfwalker, and the unique telepathic bond that she shared with the wolf Gray Hishn sometimes seemed to amplify her sensitivity to her patients. But she never guessed how strong that bond could be, or what kind of power it could wield, until she found herself lost in the wilderness, with angry slavers at her heels and war on the horizon. Suddenly she and her fellow travelers were fighting for their lives in the snowy winter wastes, where the wolves were their only guides, the greatest secret of the ancients their only salvation...and Dion their only hope to survive.
Tamora Pierce (author), Wild Magic, (1994). This also sounds like Wild Magic, the first of Tamora Pierce's Immortals series. Daine is a young woman who can talk to animals, and has a special affinity with wolves.  I think one travels with her.  After her family is killed, she joins a mage named Numair (who might also be a prince in the end)to battle the dreadful immortal creatures that have recently begun to attack the kingdom of Tortall. I think there's a situation with a harem in one of the later books: Wolf-Speaker, The Emperor Mage and Realms of the Gods.

Benary-Isbert, Margot, The Wicked Enchantment,1955. Anemone and her father live in the town of Vogelsant peacefully until the "foolish virgin" and the gargoyle disappear from the cathedral.  Then under the mean housekeeper and her mean son, Anemone and her dog Winnie are driven away.  They go to live with her Aunt Gundula who paints wonderful easter eggs.  A magical story.
This does sound like Margot Benary-Isbert's The Wicked Enchantment, but beware! The new edition doesn't have the lovey pictures of the original, so you might want to look out for a second-hand copy rather than buying a new one.

Pat Murphy, There and Back Again.  Could this possibly be "There and Back Again", which is a science fiction version of "The Hobbit"?

T.H. White retold by Mary Carey, The Sword in the Stone. (1963)  A long shot, but the only reference I can find to a witch with chicken pox is in "The Sword in the Stone," in which Merlin rescues the young Wart and defeats the witch, Madame Mim, by infecting her.  The Disney animated film (released in 1963) was based on a children's novel of the same name, written by T.H. White in 1938 (but reprinted many times). The book version of the Disney film, also dated 1963, is retold by Mary Carey. If you're looking for a picture book, try the Disney version.  If it was a novel, you might look at the original, which is also back in print.

Doris Mortman, The Lucky Ones.  "When rising politician Benjamin Knight gets married on a perfect summer day, the four women watching don't realize how prophetic the best man's toast for success is. And over the next 20 years, the women all forge their own ambitious careers: Zoe becomes a foreign affairs analyst, a career choice made in order to get as far from Ben as possible Celia, Ben's sister-in-law, uses her beauty and talent to build a career in national television Georgie, Ben's childhood friend, becomes a congresswoman and Kate, Ben's college classmate, founds a national child protection organization following the murder of her daughter."

Louis L. Snyder, WWI, 1981.
Burton Spiller, Northland Castaways. W128 sounds like the solved Northland Castaways, especially the detail about the boy diving into the crashed plane for supplies.

Norah Smaridge, The Big Tidy-Up, 1979. The messy room book may very likely be THE BIG TIDY-UP, one of my favorite books when I was in grade school.

W222: Wolves eat a fallen puppy, other stories
I am searching for a book from my elementary school days(I read it during the 80's but I have no idea when it was written).  It was a collection of children's horror stories.  One story had a boy climbing a wall of a castle with a backpack of puppies.  One puppy falls and is eaten by a pack of wolves.  Another story is about a witch living in a lake with part of her face missing.  I'm sorry that this is all I have for a description, but this is all I can remember, other than being absolutely petrified!!

Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,1986..There are 3 books in this series, but this was the first one

Olive Thorne Miller, WHAT HAPPENED TO BARBARA,  Long shot, but since this doesn't have a question mark in the title, I thought I'd mention it.  There was a series of books by Lois Lenski with a boy named Davy.  That might be a lead.

Ruth Manning-Sanders, The Crochet Woman,1930.Novel of the English countryside and the works of a modern day witch, who accomplishes with gossip and innuendo what earlier witches did with spells and curses.
Thx. for trying, but the word "crochet" was not in the title and the plot focused on 2 children, a boy and his sister, I think, who were endangered by a group of middle-aged people who held meetings as a crochet club, but in fact were witches who communicated secrets through the code in their stitches.
Nicholas Stuart Gray, Down in the Cellar. Bit of a long shot, but it could be this one. The grannies of the town, the people who run the sweet shop and tea shop, etc, are actually witches (or bad and magical in some way). I remember something about the knitted or crocheted tea cozies.  There is a young man being sought by them that the children hide in the cellar - eventually he goes off to the magic land they can access from there.
Mine hasn't been solved

Probst, Pierre, 1950s. This could be a shot in the dark, but there's a chance this could be a Pierre Probst book. My knowledge of him is limited to a Golden Book called Puff the Blue Kitten that had been translated into English, with a few sentences explaining that he had written several extremely popular books about Puff in French (he's called Pouf in the French version) in a series about a girl called Caroline. I have no idea what each book was about, but they MIGHT point you in the right direction. You can read more about them here:
Gladys M. Horn, Pitty Pat the Fuzzy Cat, 1954. Is there any chance your book was originally written in English and you had copy translated into French?  Because Pitty Pat in this story does get caught out in the rain. You'd remember it because it was a Fuzzy Wuzzy Tell-a-Tale book (with "fuzzy" pictures)
I'm sure that neither of the guesses are correct.  The story only had cats/kittens, no people, no little girl named Caroline.  And, I'm 99% sure that it's a French book.  My Mom was in the Red Cross at the end of WWII and was stationed in Nancy, France.  She's remained good friends with a French woman who still lives there and I know they bought the book there.  Isn't it funny how something like this just sticks in your head and you can't forget about it?  "Pouf" did ring a tiny bell so I will take a look through the illustrations that were suggested as well.

It sounds as if it could be one of the Ruth Chew novels. I don't know which one though.
Ruthanna Long, Witches, Ghosts, and Goblins, 1974, copyright.  Wow! On this site for the first time and I decided to read through the W's to see if anyone was asking about this book I fondly remember (and have next to me right now) - this must be Witches, Ghosts, and Goblins. Miranda Witch flies to the house of Polly and Oliver to ask them to help find her cat Cactus. They visit her castle where Imp joins them, and they journey on to the land of the Goblins where the King sends them on quests (to the Ghosts, Witches, and Giants) in exchange for his help.

Devlin, Harry and Wende, Old Black Witch. of course. see your website

Nancy Etchemendy, The Watchers of Space, 1980. Illustrated by Andrew Glass. It's about a boy (William?) who has to go outside the spaceship and defeat bad guys before he can find a planet for his people. He works with Orion in the process. A sequel is The Crystal City, where he and his sister meet some alien spiders.

Check out W247 (above). Is this what you are looking for?
Bennett, Anna, Little Witch. See solved Mysteries.
Anna Elizabeth Bennett, Little Witch. Could be either this one or Weeny Witch -- two differnt books.

Jeanne Massey, The Littlest Witch, 1959. This was one of my favorites! On her first Halloween as a witch, Littlest Witch misplaces her broom, arrives late at the witches' circle and uses all her magic to help instead of haunt, those whom she encounters during the evening. Although she does not participate in the annual race to the moon, Littlest Witch has her own adventures, and ends up with a very special prize. The other witches in the witches' circle finally, grudgingly, accept that Littlest Witch is a "good witch".

It was suggested earlier that this may have been one of Eleanor Cameron's "Mushroom Planet" series, however I don't beleive that was it.  Unfortunatley, reprints of these books no longer include any illustrations, however from perusing a few of these books recently I don't think these were it.  The book was reasonably long, I do not think it was part of a serial or series.

Hilda Boden, Mystery of Castle Croome. This fits the bill! I just read it recently!
Hilda Boden, Mystery of Castle Croome. Scholastic reprinted it, so it was in fairly wide release.  The author wrote several other mysteries featuring the same characters.  The girl who inherited the castle was American, but her friends were British.  The castle was in Scotland.
Allan, Mabel Esther, Catrin in Wales. It might be this book...  Can't remember all the details, but it was about a girl staying in a castle and I think there was a singing contest.

Wenda Witch and the Dragon's Tears.  I'm sure you're describing the books in the Wenda Witch series. Apparently they are only available through a Belgian publisher called Abimo. "Little Wenda lives in the witches' wood. When all the other witches suddenly begin to suffer from a strange illness, Wenda and her friend Mogs set off on a dangerous journey to find the cure: dragon tears." Other books in the series include "Wenda Witch and the Dragon's Egg", "Wenda Witch and Lily the Elf", and there is apparently a Wenda Witch Birthday Party coloring book. There is a Wanda Witch series which is not the same thing. Hope this helps. Abimo Publishing.
Tallarico, Anthony, Where's Wendy, 1991.  I immediately thought of this book, but the first couple of pages are NOT in her mansion, so it probably isn't your book.  Tallarico has a ton of search and find books, and this one features Wendy the Witch, dressed in black with green hair, and you look for a list of items on each page - in the classroom, on the witches' class trip, in the lunchroom, in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory, in the mummuy's tomb, etc.  Good luck in your search!

I can't find the author, but the lines certainly sound like A Curious Pup, which is included in the Better Homes & Gardens Storybook, Vol. 1., 1950. See the Anthology Finder. It comes right after Peter Pan, late in the book.
Found it - it was excerpted from the book The Mouse With the Small Guitar by Al Graham, illustrated by Tony Palazzo, 1947.

Mabel Esther Allan, The Flash Children, 1975.  Dilys, Arthur and Megan move with their parents, and the cat, Red,  to new house near a railway embankment. and near a "flash" - stretch of water with a causeway over. The other two children are Dan and Edith. There's also a partially-sighted boy, Brian, whose family own the old manor house. The artist is Mr Laurie. There's a sequel, The Flash Children in Winter.

Peet, Bill, Big Bad Bruce, 1977, copyright.  Bruce, a bear bully, never picks on anyone his own size until he is diminished in more ways than one by a small but very independent witch.
The Second Witch.  See the solved mysteries page under S for more details.

Anna Elizabeth Bennett, Little Witch.This sounds like it could be Little Witch again.  Check the "solved mysteries" to see if the clues add up to your book.
Jane Yolen, The Witch Who Wasn't.  1964, copyright.  A long shot, but possibly this one? Isabel doesn't look like the other witches, with her blue eyes and curly blonde hair, and she can't get her spells to turn out right. See solved mysteries for more details.

Cornelia Meigs, Wind in th Chimney 1934, copyright. The pattern of the quilt is Wheel of Fortune.

Kellogg, Jean, Hans and the winged horse, 1964, copyright. illus. by Pers Crowell. Found this in the Bulletin of the Center for Childrens Books: A fairy tale about a small boy who rode a winged horse. Hans, who lived with hisgrandparents, made long trips to the spring to get water. One day he saw a wingedhorse  nobody believed him but the town baker, who said he had seen the same thingwhen he was a boy. At last Hans had the joy of riding the horse  then he was saddenedbecause the townspeople caught it. The boy rescued the beautiful animal  next morn-ing he found that a clear spring of water had risen where the horses hoofs had struckthe ground.
Betsy Byars, The Winged Colt of Casa Mia. I think this is the book youre looking for, but all I remember in that the main character, a boy, was visiting his retired movie stuntman uncle for the summer and they found a winged colt in an apple orchard. It was extremely popular around 1976, and they made an Afterschool Special of the book.
Jean Kellogg, Hans and the Winged Horse, 1964, copyright. I had to go and find a used copy of this to be certain, but yes, this is the book Ive been looking for on and off over the last 30+ years or so. Never would have found it without you. Thank you!!! *is off to go and re-read this Right Now*

W299: Old kids book, a witch & school
Hi.  I have very sketchy memories of a book I read as a kid - probably in the early 80s.  I remember a witch, a flying broomstick & a classroom (I think a girl sitting at a desk).  I think the cover was purple.  The cover art on C. Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series reminded me of it.  thanks!

Seredy, Kate, The Chestry Oak. This sounds like the Chestry Oak written and beautifully illustrated by Kate Seredy.  See solved stumpers for more information.
Kate Seredy, The Chestry Oak, 1948, copyright. My childhood favorite.  Michael, Prince of Chestry, and his stallion Midnight escape from his ancestral castle in Hungary before his father (secretly anti-Nazi but reviled as a collaborator) blows it up during a meeting of Nazi leaders.  No one believes Michael is a prince  he is at a center for displaced persons when the G.I. meets him.  After the war the G.I. arranges for Michael to go to his family in the U.S.  The book isnt part of a series, but you might think so because Seredy wrote two other books set in Hungary, and her illustration style is unmistakeable.

W301: World War II Story  The book is a story of a man who joins the US Army as a paratrooper (I think 101st) and after D Day is captured by the Germans and imprisoned.  He goes thru several prisons and eventually excapes to be captured by the Russians.  He joins them in their fight to Berlin.  He is badly wounded and ends up in Moscow.  Thru the US Embassy he eventually gets back to England and home.  I believe the title of the book says something to the effect, that he is the only man in WW II to fight the germans for both the US and Russia.  I think it also gives his name in the title although I am not sure.

Thomas H. Taylor, The Simple Sounds of Freedom: The true story of the only soldier to fight for both america and the soviet union in World War II. This book is also published under the title, Behind Hitlers Lines: The true story,etc.  It is a very exciting story and I think it would make a great movie.  Probably very few people have gone thru an adventure such as described in this book.

John Bellairs, The Letter, the Witch and the Ring, 1976. This is the book that has the witch who becomes a willow tree at the end, but you are also mixing in a detail from another book by John Bellairs: the possessed boy who call matches by an old-fashioned name is from The Revenge of the Wizards Ghost. Both are excellent, creepy stories!

Sally Watson, To Build a Land,  1960. If the story continues in Palestine, with the children, Leo and Mia, living on a kibbutz with the other children from the boat, all of whom are orphan refugees and many of whom take Hebrew names (the French girl Rachelle becomes Rachel, Diana becomes Dina, etc.), then its probably this one.  The plot, as far as I remember it, has to do with teenage Leos learning to stop being the independent leader of Italian street scavengers and settle into a new life as a member of more or less settled society.  The struggle to establish Israel also comes into the story.

Claire Huchet Bishop, Twenty and Ten, 1978, approximate.Jewish children are taken to a Christian boarding school in France to hide from the Nazis. The Jews hide in a cave in the woods  the Christian children protect the hiding place when Nazis come.  The soldiers tempt the Christian children with boxes of chocolate, candy, and oranges.
Claire Huchet Bishop, Twenty and Ten. Published by Scholastic as THE SECRET CAVE.
Bishop, Claire Huchett, Twenty and Ten. See Solved Mysteries.  You're going to get a lost of responses to this one.
Claire Huchet Bishop , The Secret Cave (Original Title: Twenty and Ten), 1973, copyright. I think this might be "The Secret Cave".  Amazon.com has a picture of the cover, which might help:  http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Cave-Original-Title-Twenty/dp/B000GRSQTE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255024706&sr=1-1
Claire Huchet Bishop, The Secret Cave (AKA Twenty and Ten),  1952, copyright This sounds like The Secret Cave (which was first published under the name Twenty and Ten) by Claire Huchet Bishop. There are twenty students at the school and ten hidden Jewish children.  The Jewish students have to hide in a cave when the soldiers come looking for them.                   Bishop, Clare Hutchet, Twenty and Ten.

June Lund Shiplett, Journey to Yesterday, 1989, approximate.
June Lund Shiplett, Journey to Yesterday, 1983, copyright.

W311: Witchcraft in Summer Vacation
Solved: Spiderweb for Two
I recall a book from my childhood.  I was born in 1971, and was probably between 7-12 when I read it.  I'm unsure of the title, publisher or the date published. It was a book about a brother and sister who are left by their parents during summer vacation with two caretakers, a woman who takes care of them and the house, and a man who takes care of their yard.  The parents leave a scavenger hunt behind for the children, and the caretakers are in "cahoots" with the entire plan.  The hunt goes on for a long time throughout the story, but the children keep it a secret from their caretakers as they have no idea who is leaving the clues for them.  I think they found a hidden room somewhere, "treasures", etc.  One strange thing I remember is one of the clues was left in an ice cube tray - frozen into a cube.  (Google only offered me a "search overload headache" on that one!) When the parents arrive home, of course the kids discover that they were behind the whole ordeal, but the mystery and suspense of what would happen next was wonderful - and I recall being completely surprised to find out that their parents masterminded the plan.  It was a great adventure that created a bond between the kids, kept them busy (instead of bored) and they got along (instead of fighting everyday) as they worked together to solve the mysteries. I wish I could share this book with my twin boys who are now 8 years old, but of course I cannot remember the name of it.  I hope you can help and if I remember any more details, I'll send them along. It's possible that there may have been something to do with witchcraft involved in the story too, but I could be confusing another book with this one.  I guess my mind is failing me already! :(

Elizabeth Enright, Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze, 1951.  This is the last book in the Melendy quartet.  While Oliver and Randy's older siblings are away at boarding school, their father, housekeeper Cuffy, and handyman Willy Sloper arrange a scavenger hunt that takes them through the year, from fall to summer.  Their prize at the end is reuniting with their siblings at last. 
Elizabeth Enright, Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze,1951, copyright. Randy and Oliver Melendy are feeling deserted when their older sister Mona, brother Rush, and adopted brother Mark all leave for school (or, in Mona's case, to become an actress).  They're distracted from their depressions though, by a mysterious note. Through the year their siblings are gone, they follow the clues, find out things they never knew about their neighbors, and make  new friends as they follow more clues along the way. In the end, they discover that their brothers and sister created the whole treasure hunt to keep them busy and interested while they were gone.  (No witchcraft though--maybe the spiderweb is what you're remembering?).
Elizabeth Enright, Spiderweb For Two. This is the last volume of the Melendy Family Chronicles.  The older children are away at school, and the younger two become involved in a mysterious treasure hunt.
Elizabeth Enright, Spiderweb For Two. You have a few details wrong, but the ice-cube tray is for sure!  Also a statue of a Chinese goddess, an oriole's nest at a neighbor's house, an old shoe, the top of a surrey...does this sound familiar?  Randy Melendy and her brother Oliver miss their older siblings Mona, Rush and Mark, when they depart for boarding school, so their father and a family friend, Mrs. Oliphant, conspire with the older kids to set up this treasure hunt for the months of the school year.  The housekeeper, Cuffy, and the yard man, Willy Sloper, are not in on it, because they would be too softhearted and help Randy and Oliver -- that's why it's important to get the ice cube before Cuffy does her weekly defrosting of the fridge, since she has no idea what's in it.  This is the last of the books about the Melendys -- the others are great too.  (No witchcraft though, sorry.)

Used to check this book out of the elementary school library in the 1970s, could never remember it's name but every time I went looking for a book this is the one I chose.  It is about a little girl whose family spent their summers at a lake.  One summer they return to find a boy scout camp on the lake.  The little girl is upset and wages war on the camp.  She wears her hair in braids with a white feather.  When the boy scouts get fed up with her, they catch her and cut off one of her braids.  She goes to her mother in tears who says she can fix it and the mother removes the other braid to find the girls hair mossy.  It turns out the girl never removed the braids to wash her hair all summer  she thought she didn't need to wash her hair because she swam in the lake.  That is what I remember about this story.

Jacqueline Jackson, The Paleface Redskins, 1970, approximate. This is definitely the book you're looking for--I read it so many times when I was a kid! I couldn't understand, though, how the girl could get away with never taking out her braids, since mine would get so messy after just a day or two!

1971-1972 a little girl traveling in a covered wagon with family, in a snowstorm, she is the oldest of the children, adults start to die and she is left taking care of children, baby dies and she puts the baby up in a tree, i think maybe a Indian helped her, i was thinking winter was in the title.

Looking for a small 5x5 hardcover children's book possibly from the '40s, possibly entitled, What's Done is Done. A boy would do different tasks for a farmer or woodsman, but would do it wrong or wreck everthing and the man would simply reply, What's done is done. Woodblock type illustrations.

W316: "Why is the Sky Blue?" and  Other Science Inquiries
Published before 2000, probably in 1980s. Series of science picture books, hard glossy cover, about the size of a 9 x 11 paper folded in half. Titles are questions like "Why is the sky blue?" "Where does a rainbow come from?" possibly arranged alphabetically or numerically.
Arkady Leokum, Tell Me Why series. This sounds very much like the Tell Me Why series. There were three that I had back in the 70s: Tell Me Why, More Tell Me Why,and Still More Tell Me Why. I don't know if there were more of the them. Really great books for kids who ask "Why?" about everything.
Chris Arvetis, Why is the Sky Blue?  A Just Ask Book, 1986, approximate.This is one in a series of science-related children's books called "Just Ask" books.  The authors include Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer, with illustrations by James Buckley.  A field mouse asks the questions and is answered by different animals and such.  A great bunch of books we had as kids :)
Jack Long, Why is the sky blue? : questions & answers about nature, 1989, reprint. Could it be Why is the sky blue? : questions & answers about nature by Jack Long? It was part of the Now You Know series. Answers such questions as: Why do cats purr? What causes thunder? What is a jungle?'
Chris Arvetis & Carole Palmer, Just Ask books, 1980s, approximate. The "Just Ask" books were a series of more than 30 hardback books about science and nature, published by Weekly Reader Books in the 1980s. Titles include: Why is the Sky Blue? What is a Rainbow? Why Does it Rain? Why is it Hot? Why is it Cold? What are Seasons? What is Gravity? What is a Star? What is the Moon? What is a Mountain? What is a Volcano? What is a Wave? What Makes Day and Night? Why Do Animals Sleep Through Winter? What is a Dinosaur? What is a Jungle? Why Do Birds Fly South? etc.