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George Tarry, Animal Stories: Oliver the Owl.  Other possibilities could be:  Alice Crew Gall: Mother McGrew and Oliver Owl  or Edward Holmes: Oliver Owl and the Old Boots
Eliminate Oliver Owl and the Old Boots- those lines do not appear here!
Gall, Alice Crew, Mother McGrew and Oliver Owl.  NY Cupples & Leon 1917.  I don't have a plot description, but I'm going to suggest this one because the stories (there are several in the Mother McGrew and her animal friends series) are told in rhyme, and the excerpts remembered are also in rhyme. "Mother McGrew gave many sharp lessons to our animal friends, and these pictures and stories tell how it happened and why."   One of the Mother McGrew titles (and Tommy Turkey) is online, so here's some quotes from it for a style comparison: "One of the children of Mother McGrew / was young Tommy Turkey of whom I'll tell you / In most ways young Tom was passably good / But he had one fault, he would gobble his food." "You surely will have indigestion one day / Unless you eat slowly now mark what I say."
Gerry Taines, The crow and the snow, 1963, copyright.  what a truly wonderful book!
Gerald Taines, The Crow In The Snow (with Oliver Owl), 1963, copyright.  I am Lauren Taines, the daughter of Gerald Taines.  I happened to find your site mentioning Oliver Owl who was a character in  one of the books my dad originally wrote for me when I was little.  The book was reissued for charity purposes in Tennesse I think a year or two ago, per the request of a family friend.  If someone is interested in obtaining the book, let me know and I'll get the contact information in Tennessee where they can purchase it.  Best Regards, Lauren Taines.  my email is Bandinusa@aol.com

This may be one of the 2 wrong answers, but Horn Book Sep-Oct '38 has an ad on the back for Junior Press books which includes a line drawing cover of a book by Portia Howe Sperry and Lois Donaldson, illustrated by Zabeth Selover. The book is called Abigail and the cover shows a little girl wit blond braids, holding a doll dressed like herself in one hand and pulling her skirts up with the other. Behind her is a covered wagon.
#O9:  Yes, Abigail was one of the wrong guesses.  In that story, Abigail was the doll's name, not the girl's, and they weren't going to Oregon, but traveling an entirely different trail several years before the Oregon Trail started.  Anyway, I'm sure this book was MUCH more recent than the 1930s!
There have been several books written by and about Abigail Jane Scott (married name Duniway), who traveled the oregon trail around 1852.  She's better known as the first woman to vote in Oregon.  Books about her include "Ladies Were Not Expected" (published 1977) and "Rebel for Rights" (1983).  I don't think either of those is a children's book, unfortunately.
Regarding O9 - Oregon Trail.  Funny thing, one of the books I came here to find was about a girl who traveled with her family on the Oregon Trail.  They traveled in covered wagons, and one of the wagons was full of the saplings that her father was going to plant when they reached Oregon.  There are great descriptions about landmarks on the trail, and also about how to graft an apple tree.  I would love to know what this book was....
#O9--Oregon Trail Story:  Yes, I can identify the query in green, and just about any other Oregon Trail novel EXCEPT this one, which I am STILL looking for!  The green one is Tree Wagon, by Evelyn Sibley Lampman, which I've read twice.  Word of warning:  Lampman was a terrific entertaining writer,
but didn't care much for historical accuracy.  Don't take the book seriously when it says that Indians "killed Dr. Whitman and all the children at his mission."  They did no such thing and not even close.  The only juveniles killed were a boy of 16 (an adult for that day and place) and 14 (practically adult by the standards of that tribe.)  About 60 other kids present were all let go.  I'd venture to say the only people who know more on this subject than me were those present--the last of whom died in 1933--and it's a shame that some people write such things and other people print them.  Another book by the same author, Cayuse Courage, is a great idea but unforgivably inaccurate in places when so much written material is available on this subject.
Lampman, Evelyn Sibley, Tree Wagon. The story of a orchid man and his family bringing their nursery stock by wagon to Oregon.  The little girl is given her own gooseberry bush to care for and has lots of adventures along the way.
Tree Wagon = Lampman.  Thank you - that's it - the gooseberry bush was the clincher.  I'm glad to know more about the history behind it, too, thanks for the update.
I'm afraid this is another wrong answer, but just for the record:  Ketchum, Liza, 1946-, West against the wind.  New York: Holiday House, c1987.  "Fourteen-year-old Abby seeks  both her father and the secret of a handsome but mysterious boy during an  arduous journey by wagon train from the middle of the country to the  Pacific coast in 1850."  I know, wrong age, wrong year.
Bargain bride by Evelyn Sibley Lampman, 1977.  "Because married settlers could claim twice the land of a bachelor, orphaned  Ginny was married when she was ten-years-old.  Now fifteen, her husband  comes to claim her."
Trouble for Lucy by Carla Stevens, 1979.  "As she and her family travel the Oregon Trail in 1843, Lucy's puppies persist in creating trouble."
Brave buffalo fighter by John Dennis Fitzgerald, 1973.  "Ten-year-old Susan relates the adventures and frustrations of her family's wagon train west, culminating when her twelve-year-old brother is asked to turn himself over to the Indians in order to save the lives of the rest of the party."
Abigail goes west by Gladys L. Switzer, 1963.  A kind bookseller has listed the following info about this book:  "The
unexpected news that her own sister Nellie was going way out to California, to  join her husband, was enough of a surprise to Abigail Wheeler.  But then Mother said firmly," Our Nellie's not going to set out for California by herself.  Someone has to go with her, and it had best be Abigail!"  So I guess this cannot be it.
On to Oregon! by Honoré Morrow, 1954 & 1969.  "When their parents die on the way to Oregon in 1843, seven children decide to complete the 2000-mile trek through the wilderness on their own; based on a true story."
Okay, I definitely checked Addie Across the Prairie, Trouble for Lucy, On to Oregon!,  Abigail, and Tree Wagon, which I'd read, but I need to check my Oregon/California Trails titles list again.  It numbers about 150 titles each for Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, but you STILL seem to have come up with several I never heard of!  Including one by Evelyn Sibley Lampman, who wrote Tree Wagon.
OK, this came out much later, and I can't find the date it takes place, but how about this one: MISSISSIPPI MUD:  THREE PRAIRIE JOURNALS by Ann Warren Turner, 1997.  "As their family travels on a wagon train from Kentucky to Oregon, Amanda and her two brothers keep separate journals, and the journal entries show how they each see the same trip in a different way."  It appears that it was written as poetry??
Thanks, that makes another title I didn't know of, and will be an interesting addition to the list.  If the article I read was written when the book was in pre-publication, there is the possibility that not only might the publisher not have printed it, but that the author decided to rewrite it!  It would mean extensive rewriting.  Some details, such as the death and plant cutting, could apply to almost any trail, but others, such as the treacherous cliffs above the Snake River, are very specific to the Oregon Trail.  If it was rewritten to happen in some other time and place--yikes! But that's not likely, and look at all we're discovering searching for a "non-existent"(?) book.
How about Abigail Goes West by Gladys Switzer. Morrow. 1963??
Mary Jane Carr, The Children of the Covered Wagon, 1934.  Maybe- unfortunately so out of print that I can't find any kind of quote, review, or description. I read this as a child, and actually saw (but did not buy it) at a library book sale a few years ago. Very realistic. Main charater is a young girl although there is an older boy who becomes a friend through the trip. Very fat hard cover book. The typeface was oldfashioned and seemed hard to read when I was a kid.

Sounds similar to Where the Lilies Bloom, by Vera Cleaver. Published in 1969.
O11 - Sounds very much like Where The Lilies Bloom by Vera and Bill Cleaver.  At first I thought this books wouldn't be old enough but then I realized that 30 years would only put it back in the early 70's so this one might be possible.
I submitted O11. Orphan story. It is definitely not Where the Lilies Bloom.  (a book I personally dislike very much). It is more of a Little House in the big woods without the parents type of book. Chinking the cabin walls with mud played a part. Frontier/west setting. It was a frontier story. The kids were survivalists in a pioneer setting.
Not frontier, but some other resemblances: Ann Lawrence of Old New York by Gladys Malvern, illustrated by Christine Price, published Messner 1947, 203 pages "Ann Lawrence is the heroine of this story which takes place in the New York City of 1811. Her struggles with the farm and bringing up her orphaned brothers and sisters are the ingredients of the plot."
Another possible - Hannah's Brave Year, by Rhoda Wooldridge, published New York, Bobbs-Merrill 1965, 151 pages. "After a cholera epidemic has orphaned a family of six children, Joel, eighteen, goes off on a winter trapping trip to earn the money needed to prevent foreclosure on their rich Missouri farmland and sturdy cabin, while Hannah, twelve, and Nat, fourteen, work to keep the family together despite avaricious neighbors. Full domestic detail lends compelling vitality to a book that might have been just one more pioneer story." The children are all too young for courtship, though.
Yet another possiblity - The Jumping-off Place by Marion Hurd McNeely, illustrated by William Siegel, published New York, Longmans 1929, grades 6-8 "A genuine home story of the Dakota prairies. A family of children headed by a 17 year old girl and a boy of 15 settle on a homestead to which their uncle has staked a claim." "The four young orphaned Linvilles, ranging in age from 8 to 17, went to Dakota at their uncle's death to take up his claim on the Jumping-off Place. They endured heat, drought, snakes, lizards and vindictive neighbors like the good sports they were, and at the end of 14 months the claim was theirs, as well as the respect and liking of all their neighbors."
O11 orphans on frontier: Yet another possibility: The House in No-End Hollow, by May Justus, illlustrated by Erick Berry, published Doubleday, Doran 1938 "Three orphans living on the homestead in the Applachian mountains attempt to preserve their independence."
another possibility is The Long Valley, by Helen Markley Miller, published New York, Doubleday 1962. "Taking her mother's place and trying to make a home for her family on the Idaho frontier was Marny's first responsibility. She didn't realize that over-shielding her little sisters was not the way of a wise mother but of a
young girl fearful of growing up. Much that is interesting here is typical of many pioneer stories for girls: the hardships of a severe winter, the birth of a baby during a blizzard, the community house-raisings, and pioneer festivities. Marny's persistence in misunderstanding the intentions of John, whom she loves, ..." (HB Feb/62 p.57)
O11 orphans on frontier: they're not orphans and the time-span is shorter, but there's a blizzard - The Children Who Stayed Alone, by Bonnie Bess Worline, illustrated by Walter Barrows, published Scholastic, 1971.
Originally entitled Sod House Winter."Hartley and Phoebe are left to watch their young brothers and sisters while mom visits a sick neighbor and dad goes into town for supplies. They are all alone when an unexpected blizzard strikes leaving the snowbound with the stock animals and their siblings to watch. Will they be able to take care of everything until the storm lets up and their parents can come home?"
O11 orphans on frontier: yet another, Oh Susanna!, by J.R. Williams, illustrated by Albert Orbaan, published Putnam 1964, 223 pages. "17-year-old Susanna, assuming responsibilities beyond her years, trying to take a mother's place with her young brother and sister, enduring with seeming patience life in the inevitable dugout or soddie, cannot help rebelling in her heart. She is fearful that if she marries the young man she loves, life will hold little but more drudgery." (HB Feb/64 p.69)
Catherine Marshall , Christy.  -- I think this one is set in Appalachia rather than on the frontier, but this could be another possibility. I remember Christy had a strong determination to keep her siblings together, even at the expense of her own best interests.
O11 orphans: They're not orphans, but could it be this? Winterbound by Margery Bianco, Viking Press 1962 8vo hardback 234 pages. "Gorgeous decorated endpapers of winter scene by Kate Seredy. Four children have to fend for themselves in a Connecticut farmhouse when their parents are called away. How they survived a tough winter is the basis of this wonderful story."
I wrote yesterday that I thought the book was Seven Alone. I found a copy of that one today and its about  kids on a wagon train who become orphans. The book I meant to refer to was mentioned by a previous poster as the Children who Stayed Alone.
Maybe Stout-Hearted Seven by Neta Lohnes Frazier. I haven't read it but the time frame is right. HBJ (1973)

This doesn't exactly match, but I keep thinking of David Almond's Skellig.  The boy brings food to a man he finds living in his garage.  The boy is dealing with a recent move, a very ill younger sister, and a new friendship with an independent-spirited, home-schooled little girl who lives nearby.  The man in the garage is very skeletal and odd (I won't give away the plot) and the boy brings him Chinese takeout food.  I don't remember fish and chips, but it is a haunting story... the format looks like it's for young readers, but the content really makes it more appropriate for young adults.
One possibility - Dark Dreams, by C.L. Rinaldo, published Gollancz 1975, 154 pages. "Carlo, aged about 11, physically not strong, lives with his Italian grandmother in a city alley. Father goes to the war (1943). Mother is dead. Carlo, persecuted by the alley gang, befriends Joey J, a mentally retarded adult. Joey J is sent to a home, let out on condition that he will not act with violence, but does so defending Carlo. He returns to the home and dies." (Junior Bookshelf Jun/75 p.203) Later - saw a copy and checked the ending, the fish & chip scene doesn't occur, so this probably isn't it.
O16 odd friendship: perhaps worth looking at The Nothing Place, by Eleanor Spence, illustrated by Geraldine Spence, published Oxford 1972, 144 pages. Title describes "the Sydney suburb where all the events of the story take place ... There is Reggie, an old meths drinker who befriends the children about whom the story revolves, 'he was old, with sparse grey hair and whiskers, and his face had the roughened texture of bark that had been long shed.' The friendship between him and Glen, the partially deaf 'hero' of the story, is movingly but never sentimentally described." (CRB Jun/72 p.89) Other children are Lyndall, clever, plain and confident, spiky-haired Shane who loves cricket, and his pretty, selfish sister Shelley. Another possibility is The Rare One, by Pamela Rogers, published Hamilton 1973, 96 pages, no illustrations mentioned though. "Unhappy at home with a new stepmother and stepsister, 13-year-old Toby writes an essay for a World Wildlife competition, and takes as his subject an old man, Josh, whom he finds living wild in the woods. He wins the competition but ... reporters harrass the old man, and finally he is put into a Home for Elderly Citizens. Toby visits him, and finds he has died, and realises what his own actions have led to. 'He cried for Josh, who had been big and brave under his many coats. Who had known how to live.'" (CRB Sep/73 p.114)

Cinderella Fairy Book, 1890-1899, approximate.  This may be a long shot, and unfortunately this book is so old there's practically no information available about it. I found it listed on Worldcat, but there isn't any author information. The stories in the book include: The glass slipper -- The three dwarfs -- Dapplegrin -- The twelve brothers -- Two little wooden feet -- Little Thumbkin -- Farmer Weatherbeard -- Aladdin and the wonderful lamp.
Old Fairy Tale Book. This sounds very much like the book described in stumper F63/solved "It Must Be Magic."  See the latter entry for author and content details.

Jaap ter Haar, Boris, 1969.  Seems like a possibility.
I'd read The Wild Children by Felice Holman, 1983, so I looked that up and another name with the same general theme also popped up - Wild Children of the Urals by Floyd Miller, 1965. "The story of 800 children, sent to Siberia from Petrograd during the Russian Revolution because of food shortages, then cut off by the war. They were rescued by the American Red
Cross from Vladivostok and returned to their families two years after their original departure."
Floyd Miller, Wild Children of the Urals , 1965.  Could this be the same book as M197.  It sounds very similar.

Could this be Kym by Joyce Stranger, c1976? Its about the life of her male siamese cat.  Most of the book is very humorous, relating various situations the cat got into, but the ending (horribly sad) is about his death. I can't remember if he died in a car though.
Charlotte Graeber, Mustard, 1982.  Could this be it?  Here is a description:  "Mustard is a playful cat that has been with
Alex's family for 14 years. They are all very attached to him. When they visit the vet, Dr. Griffith, for Mustard's yearly check-up, they are told to keep Mustard from having any stress. The problem is Barney, the newspaper boy's mean dog...and that's when the trouble starts."
Charlotte Towner Graeber, Mustard, 1982.  Could this be it? Eight-year-old Alex and his family try to come to terms with the old age and death of their beloved cat.
O28: It's shown solved as "Mustard," but that's not it at all.  There is no newspaper boy's dog in the story.  No, one day the kids can't find the cat, and they search all over.  I can't remember how they happen to find him curled up peacefully in the old abandandoned car in the woods, dead, but that' where he's found.  It's very sad and sweet, too.
Ben Shecter, Across the Meadow, 1973.  I'm not sure about this, but this picture book does have a tired, old cat named Alfred who goes "on vacation," and passes all his old friends on the way there...to an old abandoned car in the woods where he curls up and falls asleep.  They never say that he dies, but that is the intimation.  The book is in a smaller format, like a
children's novel, but much thinner.  The illos are done in pen & ink with muted watercolors - very light green, yellow, brown.  The book begins with a picture of an old cat sitting under a screaming infant in a high chair: "Alfred was tired of all the noise the children made.  The liver patties seemed hard to chew.  His old injury was acting up. 'Time for a vacation,' Alfred said."  The end of it does not show the children searching for and finding the cat, however, so this may not be your book after all.

Patricia Polacco, Thundercake.  Probably not, as it isn't an "easy reader"

Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit, Will Travel.  Just a guess...one of the characters is a girl, and some details match  interplanetary travel, telepathy, the trial at the end.
Karl, Jean, Turning Place, 1976.  A long shot -- it's a collection of linked short stories that begin with an alien attack on earth and move forward through millenia, tracking changes in humans and galactic relations.  Some stories involve
interplanetary organizations one story deals with being able to project one's mind to different places girls are main characters in some of the tales. (And it's about the same period as Engdahl.)
Pamela Reynolds, Earth Times Two, 1970.  The other planet, in a double sun system, is much like earth, but without television, which the evil scientist hopes to use to control people. Two girls (one is the E. scientist's daughter) who look alike switch places back and forth between the planets.
Earth Times Two, maybe?
Isaac Asimov, Foundation Trilogy.  Several things about this description remind me of the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov, though I haven't read it for years, and I don't remember whether there are any children who play significant roles.
Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit - Will Travel. (1958)   There are other similarities. Near the end of the book Peewee (a young girl) and Kip (teenage boy) are standing on the planet Lanador in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. They look up and see, not two planets or two stars, but two galaxies - the Greater Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way. Also, the book had a Federation-style interplanetary organization called "The Three Galaxies".  If you go here you can read the original story and see if it's the one you remember.
Alexi Panshi, Rite of Passage, 60s?? The heroine of this book must survive a rite of passage. Her society lives on a massive space ship.  After training, all children are dropped on a planet, where they must survive until picked up.  This time, something goes wrong - The humans on the planet have enslaved a native race, and they capture/kill many of the children.  At the end of the book, when the girl is back on her asteroid home, her society votes to destroy the planet & its inhabitants. This could be the book that you remember.
Hoover, Children of Morrow,1972.I read a book when I was a kid about a pair of children (Tia, Rabbit) who escape from their "colony" for lack of a better word- and travel to the sea where they are met with other telepathics like themselves. This book is set in the future. Tia (the girl) can physically hurt people with her thoughts. It turns out that they belonged to a more civilized race of people, not just the ones who "worshipped the missile.
Key, Alexander, The Forgotten Door. Sounds like it could be this.  An injured telepathic boy with amnesia meets with a farm family who take care of him.  He can communicate with animals and 'make himself light'\'' so he can run.  Bigoted neighbors find out and go after him.  He finally remembers that he's from another planet, and he and the family go to his home through the forgotten door.  His home has two moons which are in the nighttime sky when they get there.
Barbara Bartholomew, The Timekeeper.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle In Time, 1962, approximate.

Could be Now It's Fall by Lois Lenski (1948), from a small format series on the seasons.  Some have been reprinted, including this one (Random House, 2000, $12).
RIDE AWAY,1953. Ride Away has exactly the picture you describe, with a boy and girl riding down a sidewalk in a red wagon with red and yellow leaves falling-but the picture is inside the book on the first page. page. The cover picture is similar-yellow, with a boy and girl riding a red bike and scooter and orange leaves falling around them.

Could this possibly be Roger Zelazny's Amber SF series? The first book is Nine Princes in Amber and the books do deal quite a bit with the conflict between order and chaos - and there is a very unusual mode of travel, too. Just a thought.
Cooper, Louise, TIME MASTER (trilogy), 1984.  Another very good possibility is Louise Cooper's TIME MASTER trilogy (THE INITIATE, followed by THE OUTCAST and THE MASTER), published in the US by Tor Books back in the 1980s.  The Order/Chaos conflict, very much as described by the poster, is the focal element of that trilogy.

The Lion King.  I know this is probably too obvious to be correct, but could it be the one that Walt Disney made famous?  I'm not sure if Disney is the one who wrote it or someone else, but it's about a lion cub who is the son of the King of the jungle, and he has to learn to be King.  But he keeps getting into trouble and doesn't really want to do it because he wants to play with his friends all day instead.  Then something happens, a fire I think, and he grows up fast and helps his friends to get away from the fire. 

Could it be one of Iona and Peter Opie's books? I remember a copy of the Opie's The Lore and Language of School Children had a group of children playing on the cover. I think that this book first came out in the 50's, so it might be too early, but perhaps they reissued it with a new cover later on.
I am pretty sure this is an Iona Opie title, The People in the Playground.  It is her journal of a year or so observing the games the children are playing at a particular school in England, and does feature a photo section in the middle showing the school and some of the children.  My paperback copy does have cover art with a few kids (girls?) playing a game (marbles or rope?) on it.  It's a marvelous book and generally available (used).
Hi thanks for comments but its not one of the Opie books. Can anyone else help? Thanks

Lampham, Evelyn , Tree Wagon.  See Solved mysteries
O75 typo   Lampman, not Lampham

Is this the same as Stumper #T198?

Sounds like THE WIZARD COMES TO TOWN by Mercer Mayer~from a librarian
Mercer Mayer, Mrs Beggs and the Wizard, 1973.  My sister discovered this book the day before I posted it.  The original book was entitled Mrs.Beggs and the Wizard (1973).  The 1980 reprint was called The Wizard comes to town

Check out New Stumper B441.  Does any of this sound familiar?
Schwartz, Evgeny, A Tale of Stolen. (1963) OK, I think I've got it! Title: A tale of stolen time, Author(s): Shvarts, Evgenii, 1896-1958.
 Hogrogian, Nonny,  (Illustrator - ill.) Publication: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, Year: 1966 Description: 1 v. (unpaged) col. illus. 16 x 21 cm.
Language: English Standard No: LCCN: 66-10817   SUBJECT(S)  Descriptor: Tales -- Soviet Union.  Note(s): Translation of Skazka o poteriannom vremeni. Class Descriptors: LC: PZ8.S3454 Dewey: 398 Responsibility: by Evgeny Schwartz. Translated from the Russian by Lila Pargment and Estelle Titiev. Illustrated and designed by Nonny Hogrogian. Note that the author listed above with the yellow highlighting is the standardized way libraries are supposed to use his name.  The title page of the book apparently spells it as seen under "Responsibility."  What this means is that you may find it attributed to Shvarts or Schwartz depending on who is listing it for sale.One bookseller provided this summary: "Evil sorcerers change children who waste time into old people--but the children are given the opportunity to change back into children. "  Here'\''s another description from the Children'\''s Picture Book Database at Miami University: "Peter is a lazy boy that never does his homework. He soon falls behind all the other students. Peter always thinks he will have time to catch up. Until one day, he becomes an old man."Makes sense that Prentice-Hall published it -- they are one of the big textbook publishers, and O79 remembered it from a textbook.'

O83 Ookpik is the Inuit word for snowy owl.  There are a  number of Ookpik titles by different authors.
Kent Salisbury, Ookpik Visits the U.S.A., 1968.  Found this description on an online auction:   "Ookpik Visits the U.S.A. by Kent Salisbury and illustrated by Beverly Edwards. This classic hardback book measures 9 ½ inches by 13 inches... Comes with a small magnetic owl (Ookpik) figure that you move through out the story as you read. OOKPIK is the Eskimo name for the Snowy Owl of the Arctic. In Eskimo stories, he is a friendly, furry creature who enjoys living among people."

Raskin, Ellen, Nothing ever happens on my block, 1966.  Could it be this one? Little boy who thinks nothing ever happens on his block, while in illustrations many fantastic things are occurring. 

L,M. Montgomery, Marcella's Reward, collected in Akin to Anne.  This is a long shot, but I thought I would suggest it-- Marcella and her sister are orphans, younger sister is sick, they end up going to stay in the country with their new friend. Although there are no voice lessons, a DIFFERENT short story in the collection does involve an orphan who takes voice lessons...just thought I would suggest it in case.
This could be Dicey's Song, by Cynthia Voight.
Sorry to disagree, but this is definitely not Dicey's Song: the plot elements don't match at all.  Dicey's Song features four siblings who are not orphans, and it is set in contemporary Maryland.  There are no voice lessons, pickled clams, sick sisters, or romantic elements.
Madye L. Chastain, Emmy Keeps a Promise, 1956. Just spending a few idle minutes browsing through the archives and I saw O88.  This sounds like it's probably Emmy Keeps a Promise. Everything matches right down to the pickled clams.  I don't know how long ago someone was looking for this but perhaps she is still interested.

Could this one be one of the Lois Lenski series?  Two titles come to mind:  Strawberry Girl and Cotton in my Sack.
Could this be Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink? Caddie and her siblings walk a long distance to school and then spend part of their summer breaks tending to crops.
Could this be the series by Rebecca Caudill?  I don't think it had a collective title, but some of the books were Schoolhouse in the Woods, The Happy Little Family, The Saturday Cousins, Schoolroom in the Parlor and Up and Down the River.  They're about Bonnie, her siblings and her cousins "in the days of copper toed shoes".  I believe they were originally published in the 1940s.
Helen Fuller Orton, Mystery at the Little Red Schoolhouse, 1942.  maybe this or one of her other books?

Beverley Cleary, Ramona the Pest, 1968.  Tracy Dockray (Illustrator)  All about Ramona Quimby, I learnt how to spell secretary throught this book, hope its this one or one of the others, Ramona the Brave, Ramona Forever
Suzy Kline, Horrible Harry and the Green Slime, 1989.  Is this the book you're looking for? It has some similarities to what you described, but I don't think the principal gets his hair cut. However, he does get his hair spiked and his office is slimed.

Black, Irma Simonton, The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read. The plot as remembered is a bit different, but I'm just about sure this is your book.  He went shopping, but he couldn't read, so he bought things based on the shapes of the boxes, so he wound up with onion soup that he hated, waxed paper instead of spaghetti, salt instead of oatmeal, etc.
Jack Kent, Socks for Supper,1978.This title came to my mind when you mentioned the little bald man with the moustache.  The book is about a poor older couple who have no food and no money.  So the wife knits socks with thread from the husbands sweater for the husband to barter for cheese and milk from a younger, richer farmer and his wife.  This happens repeatedly, with the husband's sweater shrinking with each transaction.  As it turns out, the rich farmer's wife had been using the thread from the socks to make a sweater for the farmer, which turns out too big, and which they then give to the little bald man.  Very cute book.

Ginsburg, Mirra, What Kind Of Bird Is That? Crown, 1973.There are several books with this theme, but in this book it is a goose that envies everybody else and trades parts - swan's neck, pelican's beak, crane's legs, crow's little black wings, peacocks's tail, rooster's comb/wattle/crow.  But these other bird's parts don't work too well for him and a fox almost catches him because he can't fly with the little wings.  Some geese fly to save him and he realizes what he has to do - give back all the other bird's parts so he can be a goose like all the other geese, except now he's not envious anymore.
Mirra Ginsburg, What Kind of Bird is That?,1973. A silly goose trades body parts with many other animals, but in the end (after a narrow escape from a wolf) realizes that she prefers her original, wonderful self!
Arnold, Katya, Duck, Duck, Goose?, 1997. I didn't suggest this title before since it's a relatively recent copyright date, but since there's no confirmation on the other title, I figured I'd send this along.  The back of the book says that it's inspired by an animated film called Who Is This Bird?, which was directed by the great Russian director, Vladimir Grigorievich Suteev.  From the flyleaf: "Goose is miserable.  Being a goose is so ordinary, but our vain heroine craves glamour and style.  Tired of being just one of the gaggle, she wants to shine!  This headstrong goose is convinced that she can be just as lovely as the other birds she envies, if only she could have Swan's graceful neck, or Stork's long, shapely legs, or....  When this silly goose gets her wish, she discovers that looks aren't everything.  This hilarious tale reminds us all that beauty has its price."  After Goose gave back Swan's neck, Pelican's beak, Stork's long legs, Rooster's red comb and cock-a-doodle-doo, and Peacock's tail, it ends with, "Now she looked like every other goose.  Only she was smarter, kinder, and happier.  And still prettier than a duck!"
Could be "Heather's Feathers"?  Library of Congress entry here: http://tinyurl.com/cxcfen.  There are several copies on abebooks - one going for $65 - eep!  I don't remember whether she "traded parts", but it was about an ostrich that had to learn to love herself/her looks.  I loved that book as a kid.  I would have read it in the early '80s.  Thanks for hosting such an amazing service!  I'm sure I'll be using it soon.

Nevil Shute, Pied Piper, 1941. Homeless, refugee children are traveling in a small band through Europe during World War II. As they travel, they keep picking up more children who are alone and also orphaned. Eventually a man attempts to lead them to safety. The book was originally published in 1941 but was reissued in paperback in 1963. Although it may not be the book being sought, the plot is similar, and it is a wonderful novel!
Not the Neville Shute book (great author, though).  It was definitely Czechoslovakia in the late 40's.  A boy teams up with the Engineer on the train to escape with his foster family to the West.  The story was supposedly inspired by an actual event in the early years of the Cold War.
Marie McSwigan, All Aboard for Freedom, 1954. A group of orphans escape via train from their country, and pick up a few other kids along the way.  I don''t remember if it was Czechoslovakia, but it was definitely in the wake of WWII.  I don't believe they steal the train, but they aren't on it with permission.  (I read this a long time ago!)

Bartha DeClements, Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade. This is definitely it. There's no boy but other than that every detail is identical.

Ann McGovern, Too Much Noise, 1967. Peter complains that his house is too noisy, until the wise man teaches him a lesson in perspective by advising him to obtain some rather unusual house guests.

Gault, Clare & Frank, A Super Fullback for the Superbowl, 1977, Scholastic.  illus. - Syd Hoff.  I don't have the book so I can't check the plot, but the subjects are 'gorillas' & 'football'.'

Probably Anne Bennet's "Little Witch".  See Solved Mysteries.

Edward Fenton, Fierce John, 1959?, approximate.  Possibly this one? See a picture on the Loganberry site under "Mother's Druthers."
Patricia Scarry, my teddy bear, 1953.  illus by Eloise Wilkins.

LOOKING FOR NOVEL I READ AND LOST THE BOOK. THE PLOT STARTS OUT IN MOSCOW DURING THE COLD WAR ERA. A LITTLE TWIN  GIRL IS STANDING IN FRONT OF A ORPHANAGE GATE. A YOUNG AMERICAN BOY TAKES HER PICTURE. THE BOY WINS A PHOTO CONTEST WITH THIS PICTURE. SHE IS A ORPHAN BECAUSE HER PARENTS WERE KILLED THEY WERE SPYS. SHE HAS A TWIN SISTER A DANCER WHO SEEKS ASSYLUM IN THE US. THEY FIND EACH OTHER YEARS LATER.THE PAPER BACK COVER HAS A PICTURE OF THIS LITTLE GIRL STANDING BEHIND A GATE OF THE ORPHANAGE IN MOSCOW. 

Friedman, Tracy, Orphan and the Doll, 1988. Amanda was the orphan and Henriette was the doll. I think I remember there being something about a will, though I'm not sure.

Kris Neville, Bettyann,1951, approximate. This is a classic. There is a sequel, Bettyann's Children.

I need the name of a book about a girl who lives in orphanage and who loves horses. She runs away with one of the horses and stops at a creek. People are looking for her. She runs away to other towns and works on farms. The book is a grade school reading level.

This wouldn't be one of the Sweet Pickles series, would it?  We had these in the very late 70's or early 80's.
P1 I went back to the list of pig books.  No book with the title Mr Pig, but you could email her at niresk@hotmail and see if she happens to know a book , besides Mr & Mrs Pig, that has a Mr Pig in it.
P4.5   P55  P73 P79  P80  Ditto
If it is a Sweet Pickles book, it might be this one - Pig Thinks Pink, written and illustrated by Richard Hefter, (Sweet Pickles Series) edited by Jacquelyn Reinach and Ruth L. Perle, Weekly Reader, New York, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, 1979 ISBN:0-03-042051-2. However, the publication date looks too late for the book wanted.
P1 mr pig: another possible is Pigs in the Pantry, story by Amy Axelrod and pictures by Sharon McGinley-Nally. "Poor Mrs. Pig has the sniffles. What can Mr. Pig and the piglets do to make her feel better? Cook her favorite snack (five alarm chili) of course! But the Pigs Mess up the kitchen, and to top it off, they don't know how to follow the recipe and measure the ingredients. Call in the fire department! These Pigs are headed for Big Pig Trouble!"  However, given that it's remembered as a Golden Book, could it possibly be Poor Frightened Mr. Pig, by Dorothy Kunhardt, illustrated by Garth Williams, published Golden 1949 as Tiny Golden Book #14? No plot information, but maybe one of the Golden Book collectors might know?
I have the Tiny Nonsense Stories here, and volume titled Poor Frightened Mr. Pig is a Halloween story, and does not contain the desired refrain.
Series-Freddy the Pig.  There are a great many Freddy stories and I would not be surprised to learn that he has rose colored glasses in one of them! They are available now as reprints. Don't recall the author, but they are very popular old chapter books.
Freddy the Pig series is written by Walter R. Brooks, but again, I didn't find the desired refrain.
P1 mr pig: not a Golden Book, but perhaps Mr. Pig and Sonny Too, an I Can Read Book, written and illustrated by Lillian Hoban, published Harper 1977, 64 pages, would be worth looking at. "Four short stories relate Sonny Pig and his father's adventures skating, exercising, finding greens for supper, and going to a wedding."
Richard Scarry.  Don't know if these books are old enough, but it seems to me that Mr.Pig in Richard Scarry's books is always doing foolish things that he needs to be reprimanded for.

Going by the title only, and it's probably way too early - Pussy Willow's Naughty Kittens, by Lillian E. Young,  published Funk & Wagnalls, 1924, 54 pages, small quarto, orange cloth with paper pastedown illustration. Illustrations by the author include color frontispiece and twelve color plates; six plates have panels that open like doors to reveal the contents, most portraying cats, inside.
Jack Bechdolt and Decie Merwin, Fairy Kittens. 1947, copyright. Girl buys pussywillows from a man in the park, who tells her they're "fairy kittens." During the night they turn into tiny little kittens that are rather naughty.

Your P12 could be Pinkerton, Behave! by Stephen Kellogg.
P12 could be one of Daniel Pinkwater's many books for children.  Most of them are very humorous!
P12 It's not my stumper, but the answer to it is not PINKERTON, BEHAVE. Pinkerton is a huge dog who gets into trouble.
My first thought was Jack Prelutsky, who does humorous poetry in the style of Shel Silverstein.  Then I thought of a set of books by Duncan Emrich.  These books -- The Whim-Wham Book, The Nonsense Book, and the Hodgepodge Book -- collect proverbs, riddles, sayings, puzzles, jokes, tongue twisters, playground rhymes, autograph rhymes, etc. from American folklore. The Whim Wham Book has a chapter titled "Mail" that includes the "D-Liver,..." saying as well as  the "Gee, how I.....Miss Cathy Smith" and SWAK envelope tricks.  These books are 300+ pages long are illustrated with sketchy line drawings.  I think this may be the book he's looking for.
Maybe Pinkwater's Attila the Pun, A Magic Moscow Story, 1981

P20 percival kitten: maybe Pussy Cat Talks to Her Kittens, by Fannie Mead, illustrated by Drummond Doyle, published Rand McNally 1924, 1933, illustrated by Nell Smock, reprinted Rand McNally 1942, 1944, 1949, 1960. "Adorable color plates by Drummond of black-furred mother "Pussy Cat" and her 4 little kittens. The stories are really instructional tales on proper behavior for young children. All ages will be captivated by the pictures of the 4 kittens' antics."

P22 - Some similarities to Nesbit's House of Arden/Harding's Luck I always get mixed up which comes first but   there are chimneys/tunnels and the Mouldiwarp, the bad-tempered 'mascot'/badge of the family come to life.
Not much information, but some similarities: Raftery, Gerald Slaver's Gold NY, Vanguard 1967 "A story for older children set against an authentic background of country life in Vermont and the Underground Railroad as a group of children try to find out if there is any truth in the stories Grandpa told about an old house."
Maybe House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton, NY Macmillan 1968? "A huge, old house with secret tunnels, a cantankerous caretaker, and buried treasure is a dream-come-true for 13-year-old Thomas. The fact that it's reputedly haunted only adds to its appeal! As soon as his family moves in, Thomas senses something strange about the Civil War era house, which used to be a critical stop on the Underground Railroad. With the help of his father, he learns about the abolitionists and escaping slaves who kept the Underground Railroad running. While on his own, he explores the hidden passageways in and under the house, piecing clues together in an increasingly dangerous quest for the truth about the past." Still nothing firm about a portrait gallery, though.
You might want to check out The Ghost of Follonsbee's Folly by Florence Hightower. Some of the things mentioned in your request are in this book.
No solution but I remember reading a similar book in the 60's also. I believe there was only one portrait that was missing or
stolen and it is found in a room that no one knew was in the house.  It was set in more modern times and no one knew that the house had been a stop on the underground railroad until they found the room with the portrait.
Harriet Evatt, Secret of the Old Coach Inn, 1959. I believe this book is Secret of the Old Coach Inn, by Harriet Evatt.  The portraits in question have blank faces, which creeps the children out it turns out that they belonged to an itinerant painter, who would fill in the faces of the people whom he was hired to paint.

Hmm, not quite The Wicked, Wicked Pigeon Ladies of the Garden...
#P32--the only book I know about peacocks is The Plaid Peacock, by Sandy Alan.
Maybe an edition of Walter de la Mare's Peacock Pye? Was it poetry? The 1927 Henry Holt edition had green boards with gilt lettering and "picture of a peacock and a boy with a quote from Isaac Watts". Nothing about blue text though.

Susan Coolidge has a book called Cross Patch, written in 1881.
Susan Coolidge's Cross Patch is a scarce book that contains 6 stories adapted from the myths of Mother Goose, with 44 illustrations by Ellen Oakford.
see #P98
P34 and P98 playmate and crosspatch: no real luck, but there is a book by David Cory (Happyland series, Little Jack Rabbit series etc.) called The Which Book, the Doings of Mary Sunshine and Willie Cross Patch, published by Platt probably in the 1920s, and another called The Tale of Mary Sunshine, published Platt 1918. Margaret Baker wrote a story called Cross-Patch, but I don't know if it was published separately at all. And of course no plots for any of these, though the first one looks promising.
Mabel Guinnip La Rue, In Animal Land, 1924, 1929.  I have this book in front of me. It might be an old school reader, since there are questions at the end of each chapter. Crosspatch and Playmate appear in several of the stories.
I hadn't realized that the Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett was subtitled As Told by Queen Crosspatch. Here is the Introduction by the Queen Crosspatch herself, in case this helps any.  Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll family I didn't.  When you read it you are to remember something I am going to tell you.  This is it:  If you think dolls never do anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken.  When people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose.  They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of fun.  But they can only move about and talk when people turn their backs and are not looking.  If any one looks, they just stop.  Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls' houses where the dolls are agreeable.  They will not associate, though, with dolls who are not nice.  They never call or leave their cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad-tempered.  They are very particular.  If you are conceited or ill-tempered yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live.  --Queen Crosspatch.

#P36--instead of penguins, try puffins or some related bird.  Looking up birds of South America might reveal a word to use as a keyword.
P36 Penguin Pet -- sounds like the Bogwoppit descriptions in Solved Mysteries, incidentally the LC description is "Abandoned by her guardian, Samantha moves in with an unwelcoming aunt whose dilapidated house includes bogwoppits, ratsized creatures with wings, fur, and blue eyes."
Possible - Sparrows and Bouins by Susan Skinner, illustrated by Laszlo Acs, published London, Heinemann 1967 "What became of inventive Great-Uncle Horace Sparrow, who vanished, saying in a note: "Men are ungrateful ... I will maybe find some gentler beings who will listen to me and will learn what I have to teach"? He did. He found the bouins, a sunny-tempered, furry, miniature people -  something between a teddy-bear and a lemur, only smaller - and to them he gave a culture including not only language (English) but washing machines and such. Without these things, as a bouin observes, "we'd never get finished; there'd be no time for songs and dancing and stories and picnics". When this story starts they are making contact with one of the five Sparrow children (humans) in whose overgrown garden - a bouin forest - they still reside; their bouin-baby is lost. A clever, happy, likeable family story, with or without the magic."
Richard and Florence Atwater, Mr. Popper's Penguins, 1938  I think that P36 is Mr. Popper's Penguins.   It is a delightful book, with lots of pictures, about a family that receives an Antarctic penguin from Admiral Drake.  They use their refrigerator for a nest and flood the cellar for aswimming pool in the summer and an ice rink in the winter.  When the penguin (named Captain Cook) gets lonely they acquire another penguin named Greta.  Eventually Mr. Popper has 12 penguins that he trains as a vaudeville troupe.  At the end of the book he sends them to the North Pole to live.
Illustrations for Mr. Popper's Penguins are by the Caldecott and Newberry-Award winning Robert Lawson.
Could this  be E. Nesbit's Five Children and It? English children find a strange creature?!?

Could this be the book by Sue Townsend (of Adrian Mole fame), called The Queen and I?  In it, the English
public votes out the monarchy, and the Queen and her family have to go live on a public housing estate.   She is befriended by her working class neighbors, but Prince Phillip can't bring himself to accept life outside Buckingham Palace, and never gets out of bed.  Prince Charles discovers a love of gardening, etc.
P41 - There isn't much info here but it made me think of the story The Cat That Looked at a King, and of the chapters in Mary Poppins Opens the Door.  By P.L. Travers, of course.
Hillary McKay, Happy and Glorious.  This might conceivably be Hillary McKay's Happy and Glorious, a collection of
stories about a rambunctious ten-year-old queen.  She has a fuddy-duddy prime minister who wishes he had been cleverer in school so he could have had a better job.

J Meade Faulkner, Moonfleet, 1902.  This sounds like Moonfleet (first published 1902), a ripping yarn of
piracy and adventure!
P46 pirate with no lips: this one is about 30 years too late to be the one wanted, but in The Island of Adventure, by Enid Blyton, published Macmillan 1944, while exploring the old copper mines the children encounter the villain Jake. "He had a black patch over one eye and the other eye gleamed wickedly at them. His mouth was so tight-lipped that it almost seemed as if he had no lips at all." He's a counterfeiter, not a pirate, though, despite the eyepatch. Our library's copy of Moonfleet has gone missing, so I can't check it for lipless pirates. It's about smugglers, actually, but that's a technicality.

A remote possibility - Sing-Along Sary by Margaret and John Travers Moore, illustrated by John Moment, published Harcourt 1951, 150 pages. "The 'Great Pumpkin Flood' took place in rural Pennsylvania in the 1850s and Sary had to watch the pumpkins she had been raising for the fair go sailing down the river entirely out of her reach. The loss of few pumpkins might not seem so important to an adult, but to Sary they represented her only chance to buy her brother Zeke a fiddle for Christmas, and she knew that Zeke wanted a fiddle more than anything in the world. If Uncle Ed had not had a bright idea, the story might have ended unhappily." (Horn Book May/51 p.183) It doesn't seem to involve the mother much, and no mention whether Sary has any pet-names of that sort, so I'm not too hopeful about this.
P48 pumpkin princess: a slightly better bet is A Golden Coach for Callie Rose, by Martha Gwinn Kiser, illustrated by Gloria Gaulke, published Bobbs-Merrill 1964 "Callie is upset when a party is announced at school, for everyone is to bring refreshments, and Callie has no money. Her discovery of a big yellow pumpkin and her mother's surprise idea turn an unpromising situation into a worthwhile lesson. Ages 8-12." (HB Dec/64 p.562 pub ad) At least this one is about a mother and daughter, and the pumpkin (coach) could be associated with a princess (Cinderella).

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."
P49 present for mother and W2 watermelons: If it isn't Little Wu and the Watermelons, maybe it's Magical Melons by Carol Ryrie Brink, illustrated Marguerite Davis, published Macmillan 1945? Granted, that's a girl (Caddie Woodlawn again) not a boy, and melons growing accidentally in the cornfield not purposely on a terraced hillside, and Caddie buys a bonnet for her mother, not a piece of jewelry, but it is about melons...

P54 Pirate Captain -- from Horn Book again, Jan-Feb/43, review section The Secret Voyage by Gordon Grant, 62 pages, published by Morrow. "Aided by his own delightful pictures, Gordon Grant draws upon his imagination to tell how Tommy, who loved ships and longed to to go sea, found satisfaction by means of a paint brush. It was given to him by his uncle and it was not only Chinese, but it had magic powers which carried Tommy back to the days of sail. When he found his old sea captain had sailed with Tommy's grandfather, the boy was doubly happy. Besides having the fun of the story, ship-minded boys will value three pages of line drawings showing different rigs ..." It doesn't sound like a pirate ship, but it's the closest I've seen so far.
McPhail, David, Edward and the Pirates, 1997.  This picture book sounds like it might be it..
P54 pirate captain: again, not pirates, but If I Were Captain, by Louise Lee Floethe, illustrated by Richard Floethe, published Scribner 1956 is about "the exciting dreams of a small boy sitting before the fire, who
suddenly becomes captain of the old-time ship on the mantel. Told in gay rhymes, this is a wonderful book of faraway places. Ages 4-7." (HB Oct/56 p.397 pub ad) Then again, the description of the book wanted didn't mention rhyming narration. More on the suggested McPhailbook, Edward and the Pirates, published Little, Brown 1997, 32 pages. "Young Edward really lives all the stories he reads and one night he wakes up and his bed is surrounded by pirates. Wonderful illustrations." It might be a bit too recent, though.
P54 pirate captain - it would be nice to know if the book being looked for is a picture book or a 'chapter book'. If the latter, perhaps Captain Whackamore, by Michael Mason, illustrated by Victor Ambrus, published Deutsch 1971, 224 pages. "The story tells of Joe and Mike Roberts who, after their father has made some models of the captain and crew of an 18th century sailing vessel, take part in all kinds of adventures with them through the medium of dreams. ... on successive nights, just before Christmas, they can each participate in a series of  humorous episodes with Captain Whackamore and his motley crew." (Children's Book Review Jun/71 p.90)
Margaret Mahy, The Pirates' Mixes-Up Voyage,1983. It's a humorous pirate story! They sail on a ship called The Sinful Sausage!

P55 - Is this Sam Pig? Alison Uttley wrote several collections of stories about Six Pigs and Brock the Badger, Sam was the main character and some of the books, Sam Pig and Sally for instance, had his name in the title. They were ever-so-slightly magical - with the country magic of talking animals but in other respects quite down to earth, and rose-coloured spectacles sound quite likely - but I don't have them all to check. I'll see what I can find and get back to you if I can shed any more light.
Yes,  in response to your note, please search for me.  I feel obsessed with finding this story--a link to my earliest memories.  Whatever light you can shed will be appreciated.
P55 - I've checked the 2 'Sam Pig' titles I have here and it isn't any of the stories in them so I may have led you up
the garden path there!

The only "Paige" I've ever heard of is in the book Parrish which was published in the '60's, I think. This is an adult book and the book was made into a movie with Troy Donahue. Paige is the good girl who gets him in the end.
P57 paige: more on the suggested - Parrish, by Mildred Savage, published Simon & Schuster 1959, movie tie-in paperback 1960, 408 pages. It's apparently about young Parrish MacLean, tobacco farming, and steamy
relationships. Couldn't find anything on the names of the three women in the story. I would assume that the book wanted is an adult rather than children's book, since the poster's mother read it. I've seen a couple of teen books from the late 50s-early 60s with heroines called Page, but no Paige.
About Paige: I read a book in about 1960 in which the heroine's full name was Serena Paige MacNeill (McNeill?).  She was known as Paige.  That much I am fairly sure of, but what follows is tentative.  She was
one of several children in an American (eastern seaboard? Virginia?) family of Scottish descent. All her siblings had very Scottish names, but someone (Father? grandmother?) told her she was the most Scottish of the lot, in spite of her name.  She was in her mid to late teens and trying to decide what to do with her life.  An attractive character and what seemed then to be an unusual and even romantic name.
I, too, thought the answer to P57 was the story about Serena Page MacNeil when I first read it.  But, I have a copy of this book (The Fair Adventure by Elizabeth Janet Gray, 1940) and she definitely spells it Page, not Paige.  Maybe her mother didn't remember the way it was spelled in the book, or liked it better with an "i"?
Hildegarde Dolson, We Shook the Family Tree, 1950s , approximate.  This childhood memoir describes the various escapades of a family during the early 1900's.  The author's friend/neighbor is a very spunky girl named Paige Campbell who always came over to the Dolsons' house to eat their toothpaste because it tasted so good!!  Maybe this is the Paige you're named after.

There was a postman story from the early 1950's, Margaret Wise Brown's Seven Little Postmen (1952).  The story follows a little boy's letter cross country until it is delivered to his grandmother. The final postman, who receives the most attention in the story, is not named Pops but is a Pops type of character.
stretching here, but it's about the right date and subject - The Postman by Charlotte Kuh, illustrations by Kurt Wiese, published Macmillan 1949, 6 x 6" 42 pages. "Cute book on how the mail is processed and delivered - sometimes by dog sleds and horse carts. Begins with writing a letter, how it is sorted, cancelling machine, and on through delivery."

very maybe - Acacio, Arsenio B. et al, illustrated by Esther Brock Bird  WORK AND PLAY IN THE PHILIPPINES.   Boston, Heath, 1944 80 pgs, color/black & white illustrations. Children Illustrated 8-3/8". Red full cloth, paste-on pictorial. or maybe Perkins, Lucy Fitch The Filipino Twins 1923, 154 pages
Still trying, here. The Philippine Beginner's Book by Blue, Reyes, Brown,  Ayer, published Macmillan, NY 1933 (1st published in 1929). "Illustrated by Manuel Reyes Isip, this reader was intended for schools in the Philippines, and is written in English. The charming 2-color illustrations depict Juan and Maria's life in 8 chapters, and would be an unusual addition to the library of collectors of children's primers."
P61 Phillipino fables: could it be Fairy Tales from the Philippines retold by Dorothy Lewis Robertson & illustrated by Howard Burns, published New York, Dodd Mead 1971, 7" x 10" hardback, 127 pages. "Exciting
ilustrations throughout the book - 11 fairy tales from the Philippine Islands - many appear to be warrior tales - detailed foreword by the author." Probably too long, though.
How about- Elizabeth Sechrist's Once in the First Time  Folk Tales from the Philippines ,ill. by John Sheppard.  Macrae-Smith Co.,1948??

This may be too long, at 61 pages - Meet Mary Kate, by Helen Morgan, illustrated by Shirley Hughes, published Faber 1963. "When this collection of stories begins, it is the night before Mary Kate's fourth birthday ... Mary Kate is a kind, practical little girl, with some of the nicest relatives it is possible to imagine. ... Shirley Hughes makes Mary Kate a stout determined little girl in sensible shoes, with a doll's pram which is just the right one for a four-year-old's doll or kitten." The ad for the book shows a dark-haired little girl in bed, with a stuffed penguin and a book. (Junior Bookshelf Jul/63 p.137, ad p.70)
P62 pram girl: almost certainly too late, but Susie's Dolls' Pram, written and illustrated by Renate Meyer, published Bodley Head 1973. "Susie is given an antique Victorian baby-carriage for her birthday. She is proud of her present - and bitterly hurt when the other kids make up mean rhymes about it because it is old. But her teacher saves the day by admiring the pram and basing a lesson on the sort of little girl who might have been the original owner of it. The pictures throughout are clear, colourful and overbrimming with emotional content." (Children's Books of the Year 1973, p.22)
P62--Pram Girl:  After someone made this suggestion, I wrote, "Hadn't heard of this one and don't recognize the plot, but the date is right and sounds like exactly the sort of book I'd pick up." The Magic Perambulator.  Brooks, Jeremy.  New York:  John Day, 1966.  Illustrated by Robert Bartelt.  Children's book, story of Sultan's daughter and a flying pram. Google and eBay searches for both author and artist of  The Magic  Perambulator failed to turn up any further description of the book or pictured examples of the artist's work.  What I remember is a slender little girl of about 6-9 years (probably not as young as 4, and not stout) pushing a pram down a walk which might be in a garden or park.  It is lined with bright and beautiful flowers.  Colors in the illustrations are very solid and vibrant, in some ways like the work of Ezra Jack Keats--not soft or sketchy-looking.  The girl has long dark hair worn loose except for perhaps a headband, with bangs--very much in the Marlo Thomas "That Girl" look of  the times.  Wearing a bright print dress with a short skirt, not very sultan's daughterish, but there could be another girl in the story--don't exactly remember a plot.  Anyone have The Magic Perambulator and care to describe it, or have any picture book like the one I've described?  I'd appreciate any leads!  Thanks.

P65 poems about family and animals: perhaps Meet My Folks! by Ted Hughes, illustrated by George Adamson, published Faber 1961 "Former Laureate’s first book of verses for children. Nine rhymes tell of the writer’s singular family, who seem to undertake ordinary activities with extraordinary results (often involving animals!). His mother cooks: "I took her an alligator that attacked us: She served it up curried with Crème de la Cactus" Each verse illustrated with a full page cartoon type drawing by George Adamson, who also designed the cover and dustjacket."

In the classroom long ago we used a text called Cracking the Code. It was a supplemental book that was used with the children who needed some extra practice with  their reading. I believe it was put out by SRA to go along with their  basal readers. This series used a linguistic approach. 

I think I also remember this story from this time frame(my oldest was born in "77). I, unfortunately, can't remember the name, either, or if it was a separate book or just a story in an anthology. The detail I want to add is that the pig loses his tail because it freezes in ice and he has to pull it off to escape. He went onto the water after his mother told him not to.
Janeen Brady, Standin' Tall:  Obedience, 1980s.  I know I heard this story on the Standin' Tall cassette and book series by Brite Music.  I suppose it could have originally been from somewhere else, but I know you can find it there.  www.britemusic.com

Mukherji, D Ghopal, Gayneck, the Story of a Pigeon, 1928.  Could the poster be thinking of this Newbery Award-winner? The date is about right - it would have been around in the 1930s, though I admit the title doesn't sound the same.
P89 poncho or pancho: could this be Chico, the Story of a Homing Pigeon, by Lucy Mansfield Blanchard, illustrated by K. G. Healy, published Houghton 1922? "Story of Andrea, a boy of Venice, and his prize homing pigeon; and of the service rendered by Chico during the World war." (that'd be World War One ...) (Children's Catalog 1936 p.77) It's a somewhat similar name.

P91 Beatrix Potter's The tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck???
Try this one - Puddle Duck by Ruth Van Ness Blair, illustrated by Elizabeth Rice, published Austin,  Steck-Vaughan 1966 "Puddle Duck liked wading in puddles left by rains, but he really liked swimming, so he went in search of a puddle big enough to swim in every day. But each time he found one, something happened. Ages 4-7." (Horn Book Dec/66 p.759 publ.ad)
Louis Ross, Puddle Duck. (1979)  This book, illustrated by my aunt's college roommate, Pat Schories, is so obscure it isn't even listed on Schories' own web page!  It is a large hardcover picture book about Puddle Duck, who doesn't like sleeping with his siblings because they like to be wet and muddy and he doesn't.  Whether or not this is the right book for the original requester, I would love to have a copy myself.

Might this be Anne Perez Guerra's Poppy, the Adventures of a Fairy?

Jane Louise Curry.  Sounds like the author you're looking for may be Jane Louise Curry. Many of her books have been set in the Pittsburgh/West Virginia area.

See P34 also
P34 and P98 playmate and crosspatch: no real luck, but there is a book by David Cory (Happyland series, Little Jack Rabbit series etc.) called The Which Book, the Doings of Mary Sunshine and Willie Cross Patch, published by Platt probably in the 1920s, and another called The Tale of Mary Sunshine, published Platt 1918. Margaret Baker wrote a story called Cross-Patch, but I don't know if it was published separately at all. And of course no plots for any of these, though the first one looks promising.
Mabel Guinnip La Rue, In Animal Land, 1924, 1929.  I have this book in front of me. It might be an old school reader, since there are questions at the end of each chapter. Crosspatch and Playmate appear in several of the stories.
I hadn't realized that the Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett was subtitled As Told by Queen Crosspatch. Here is the Introduction by the Queen Crosspatch herself, in case this helps any.  Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll family I didn't.  When you read it you are to remember something I am going to tell you.  This is it:  If you think dolls never do anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken.  When people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose.  They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of fun.  But they can only move about and talk when people turn their backs and are not looking.  If any one looks, they just stop.  Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls' houses where the dolls are agreeable.  They will not associate, though, with dolls who are not nice.  They never call or leave their cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad-tempered.  They are very particular.  If you are conceited or ill-tempered yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live.  --Queen Crosspatch.

Nearly spoilt for choice, here. Possibles:
ERIC GURNEY'S POP-UP BOOK OF CATS published NY Random House 1974. "20 pages of great cat pop-ups & moveables by Eric Gurney. Shows kittens & cats playing, hiding, fishing, drinking milk and of course, chasing & being chased. A great pop-up, especially for cat-lovers." "This is number 28 in the Random House Pop-Up Series. Paper engineering is by IB PENICK. Eric Gurney takes a clever look at the all too familier and delightful behavior of cats. Note the fire department efforts to get the cat in the tree. Do cats really sit under rocking chairs??"
CATS UP by Ray Marshall, illustrated by Korky Paul published NY: Little Simon Book, 1982 Hard Cover. A Pop-Up Book. 7 1/2 x 9. "The first cat book where cats literally spring into action! Fat Cats, Alley Cats, Classy Cats- all here in the most fantastic pop-ups to turn even the coolest cat among us purr-ple with laughter." "Six double pages, with numerous pop-ups, pull tabs, lift-the-flap. Outstanding, especially for cat-lovers. Vivid colors. Also printed in England under title ACTION CATS.  ALL KINDS OF CATS: A POP-UP BOOK, published NY: Scholastic Book Services. Hard Cover. ca 1980's. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Colorful pictorial paper covered boards. [10]pp. Pop-Ups, Pulls, Lifts, Adorable book for cat lovers. 

Perhaps Mayday, Mayday by Hilary Milton. I think the parents were only injured, not killed, but the plot deals with a boy and a girl who need to get to safety after a plane crash in the mountains.
could this be Walkabout by James Vance Marshall?  They crash in the Australian desert and are helped by an Aboriginal boy to find civilisation.  Also a film by Nic Roeg starring Jenny Agutter.
P100  a slight possibility . Rambeau, John; Gullett, Dorothea    Jim Forest and the plane crash  illus by Joseph Maniscalco    Field Educational Pubns    1967   Jim Forest series
P100 plane crash: might be worth looking at To the Wild Sky, by Ivan Southall, though that is about several children surviving a plane crash, not just a boy and a girl.
Monique Peyrouton de Ladebat, The Village That Slept, 1961,1963, 1965, 1980.  Just a possibility, if any of these details sound familiar: The children survive a plane crash in a remote mountain area (the Pyrenees).  They both have amnesia but know their first names: Franz and Lydia.  They find a baby alive too, and a deserted village where they make a home in one of the houses, get supplies from a climbers' hut, find several abandoned animals (dog, cow, chickens), make a garden, and stay for over a year.  Eventually rescued by searchers for a downed pilot, and reunited with their families.  Very tender and touching story. (It's one of my favorites too!) Translated by Thelma Niklaus. Illustrated by Margery Gill.  A Google search turned up a reference to  Peyrouton de Ladebat, M. (1980). The village that slept. (T. Niklaus Trans.). Goston: Gregg Press. [? misprint for Boston?]
Two youngsters find themselves stranded with an infant near a deserted village high on a desolate mountain. This is a reprint  my copy says First American Edition 1965 / c by Editions G.P., Paris, 1961 / English translation and illustrations c by The Bodley Head Ltd, 1963 / LCCC No. 65-10881
Arthur Catherall, Prisoners in the Snow, 1967.  This is a long-shot. The children Tom and Trudi live on a farm in the mountains of Austria when a plane crashes nearby and causes an avalanche. The house is buried under snow and they have to both save themselves and try to rescue the pilot. The time-frame is right but are the details ?

P101 prickly pear: could this be The Bojabi Tree, by Eleanor Rickert, mentioned elsewhere in the Stumpers list, or perhaps another version of it? That does involve several animals and an oddly named fruit that they try to bring back, and difficult terrain. See description under B96 bonjo.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this book were Rutgers and the Water-Snouts by Barbara Dana, c. 1969.  In it, a bulldog and his animal friends go on a search for Rutgers' missing "water-snouts" (which some of the animals think must be prickly pears, because they're kind of like potatoes with spikes) and bring them back just in time to use them to plug the holes in a beaver dam.  Oh heck, forget that last -- I knew it was too good to be true -- the
poster said the book was from the 50's.

Jane Gardam, ?  Can't remember which of hers it is - *not* A Few Fair Days I don't think but possibly Bilgewater, Summer after the Funeral or Hollow Land. Whatever the title, it's about a girl who starts out wanting to be a writer, then thinks she never will be, and eventually (after meeting a professor or poet (???) and showing some of her work to him) gets the right sort of encouragement. Does this sound familiar to the poster?
Jane Gardam, Long Way from Verona. I've looked through a list of her titles now, and almost sure this is the one - if it's her at all!
The book is definitely not A Long Way to Verona by Jane Gardam. That is set in the north-east of England and, though set in WW2 has nothing to do with London. Nor is it any of the other books by Jane Gardam that you have mentioned. I read each of them recently.

There was a series of programmes by the BBC in the 1970s called Playaway which featured these poems I think they were specially written for the programme. They were written by a woman and I think there is a collection of them with Playaway in the title, or it may be called "The train to Glasgow" I have tried to trace details but no luck.
Eleanor Graham , Puffin Book of Verse.  I also remember this book from my childhood, and think this may be the one. If not, it may be Barbara Ireson's Young Puffin Book of Verse.
I'm not going to be very helpful here as I don't know anything about this particular book, although I know the words to both poems - but although the poems may have been used in this programme, Michael Finnegan at least is older than that (I have a book from 1967 which lists it as an 'English Traditional Song'), and I think the Train to Glasgow might be older too (my mum thinks from the 60s.
Eileen Colwell, Tell Me Another Story,1964. This is definitely the one- a favourite of mine at the time'

John Brangwyn, Pegasus and the Star, 1955?.  I have a Golden "Christmas Book" that contains short Christmas stories, recipes, etc.  In it is a short story about Pegasus who sees a bubble with a reflection of a house celebrating Christmas.  He asks the bubble how he can get there and he flies into the North Wind.   He finds a town with all the houses shut for the night except the baker's shop.  The kindly baker's wife feeds him and as he tells her of his wish to see Christmas celebrated, she turns him into a gingerbread horse, frosts it in white and hangs him on the Christmas tree.    He almost gets eaten by a child, but when a fire breaks out at the baker's shop he turns back into a winged horse and saves the day by getting the water cart.     The story says "adapted from the story by John Brangwyn".   Maybe this is the same story - hope so!

I'd assume some version of The Old Woman and Her Pig, the cumulative folktale about the old woman who buys a pig but can't get it over the stile to get it home. She asks the stick to beat the pig, and it won't so she asks fire to burn the stick, water to put out the fire, cow to drink the water, and so on. Good luck, it's been published many
times in many variations. I don't recognise the version quoted, unfortunately.

I don't know about making cookies, but if he was putting it on his head it could have been The Peanut Butter Solution.
I'm virtually sure this was The Case of the Crunchy Peanut Butter, though I don't remember the author right offhand.  The girl was Andrea, or Andy, right?  And the brother was Ted?  Andy took over the fudge-making operation, til eventually their parents caught on to the missing ingredients.  A fun book.  Her parents nicknamed Andy "Kitten," and she had an elderly friend, Mrs. Mack, who did listen to her about the thefts.  I hope this helps!
J.M. Goodspeed, The Case of the Crunchy Peanut Butter. 1975.This is definitely the book.  Illustrated by Gilbert Riswold, c.1975, Xerox Education Publications (Weekly Reader Children's Book Club Edition), ISBN
0-88375-209-3.

John Stratford, Lick a Pickle,1968.Could it be Lick a Pickle?  This is a story included in All About (Volume III), which came with a small record, and included five other stories.  The story starts out with a Prince who will only eat pickles and pickle-flavored food, and commands that everyone else shall eat them too.  However, he is won over, in the end, to sweet foods. 

Collier's Illustrated Classics, 1948, approximate.  I have a set of 10 Collier's Illustrated Classics from 1948; my father bought them, along with the encyclopedia, the year my brother was born!!  Each book in the set is a different, bright color. Volume 1 is called Fairy Tales and Fables, and has a drawing of an elf on the spine.  It is dark red in color.  Other volumes are called "Stories That Never Grow Old," "Myths and Legends," "Stories About Boys and Girls."  The fairy tale book has the kind of illustrations you describe, and the 3 Little Pigs story about the apples and going to the fair.  It also has "The Old Woman and Her Pig" that you mention.  Each book is about 2" thick.  The series was revised and a new edition published sometime in the 50's so the stories are a bit different, but I do think this fairy tale book is the one you are looking for.  A seller had them on eBay recently, so check that out.  Good luck!

P114:Pierrot, mute boy with traveling players
Solved: Burnish Me Bright 

There's a 1944 Disney Little Golden Book called The Cold-Blooded Penguin about a penguin named Pablo on an ice float who dreams of warmer weather.  But this sounds more like Hans de Beer's Ahoy There, Little Polar Bear, but I believe that was first published in the early 1990's.
PB on holiday or possibly PB's holiday, or even PB goes south. There was a short series - only 2 or 3 titles about PB (short for Polar Bear of course) but I can't remember who did them - they were in picture book format. Has to be worth trying to find PB as a title...
If your polar bear can be a penguin, this matches Walt Disney's The Penguin Who Hated the Cold. In the end Pablo winds up on a tropical island with palm trees where he builds a home- happy at last!
This sounds like one of Eric St. Clair's bear stories which he used to read on "Programs for Young People" on KPFA. I do not know if they were ever published. As I recall the bear was living in a lighthouse, and rescues a shipwrecked seal with some mixed feelings as he remembers how tasty seal was back home.

Lena Barksdale, The Treasure Bag: Stories and Poems Selected by Lena Barksdale,1947. This is the book I was looking for - it took 13 years to find it.  The book was illustrated by Maurice Brevannes and was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.  The three stories I remembered so distinctly were "The Teacup Whale" by Lydia Gibson, "The Pirate and the Pickled Onions" by Rose Fyleman, and "The Little Boy Who Wouldn't Get Up" by Rose Fyleman.

?Kate Seredy?, ?The Good Master? Could this be The Good Master? It takes place on the plains of  Hungary, and in Chapter 6, "The Mirage" the mother tells a folktale about soldiers being led into a field of poppies (illus.).  In Ch. 9, "Strange Waters", the children Kate and Jancsi (about 10 or 12) are playing on the ferry and headstrong Kate goes swimming. When she is swept away, Jancsi rescues her on his horse (also illus.) Most of the book is about Kate getting used to her horse-farming relatives, and it's been reprinted many times, so it could have been new when you read it.

I remember reading this also, but I believe it was much newer -- perhaps a reprint, or a retelling of the story?  I don't remember him charging the other penguins.  The title maybe had "slippery" in it?
Berkeley Breathed, A Wish for Wings That Work.  If this isn't it, try it anyway. It's cute.

There are lots of versions of this.  Here's one possibility: Barksdale, Lena.  Illus. by Lois Lenski. THE FIRST THANKSGIVING. Alfred Knopf, 1942. 5 full page & 1 double page 3-color illustrations by Lenski, + black and white drawings throughout. Decorated end papers. Lenski's authentic drawings in the folk-art style add a warmth to the story.
Lois Lenski, Puritan Adventure.  Another possibility is Lenski's own "Pilgrims" book, in which a family of children (names I remember are Seaborn, Comfort, Thankful) are delighted but confused when their non-Puritan aunt comes to live with the family, wearing bright colors and such. I'm not sure if Thanksgiving is involved, but I recall the girls stirring "pumpkin sauce"!
Unfortunately, neither of those descriptions ring a bell.  I'll keep checking back.  Thanks again.

I've got a couple of possibilities here -- unfortunately, without more information, it's really hard to make a guess at what book you're looking for! Grace Coolidge, Paddy-Paws: Four Adventures of the Prairie Dog with the Red Coat, 1914.
L. Frank Baum, Prairie-Dog Town, 1919. Those are the only two I can find that were written early enough for the time frame specified. I'm sure there are more of them out there, though.
Florella Rose, Peter Picket Pin, 1953.  This book was about a prairie dog that had dozens and dozens of cousins that all looked just like him.

Two possibilities - Bomba the Jungle Boy and the Cannibals, or Winning Against Native Dangers by Roy Rockwood (Cupples & Leon, 1932) and Saranga, the Pygmy by Attilio Gatti and Kurt Wiese (C. Scribner's Sons, 1949, c1939).
P145 Does black and white mean photos or drawings? I have King of the Pygmies by Lahey published by St Anthony Guild Press. It is written for children but is as big as an adult book. Joe, whose father collected African animals for zoos  and circuses, finally gets to go to Africa, but runs into all sorts of dangers including  capture by pygmies. The illus are black and
white ink drawings.
P145 I have a report on Saranga; It, too, is almost an adult book. [Maybe we read harder books in those days.] There are many black and white illus by Kurt Wiese, most of animals or of the boy, Saranga, wearing a loincloth, not a skirt, and the "spears" are bows and arrows. Gray cover  has elephant outlined in green.  Gatti, Attilio.  Saranga, the pygmy.  illus by Kurt Wiese. Scribner, 1939 daily life of pygmy boy, Saranga, in the jungle full of animals, ritten by famous explorer.

 Puffy the Puppy,I remember this book as a young child and I was actually on this site to search for that books origins. I do believe a few lines from it would jog their memory if it is indeed the same book."Puffy the Puppy is fat and well fed/ Puffy the Puppy is asleep in his bed/ His tail is cut short/ His long ears are dragging..." I seem to recall the story is about a little cocker spaniel puppy'\''s daily activity

Hogrogian, Nonny, Apples.  (Macmillan, 1972)  "The apple peddler replenishes his cart from the trees that grow from the discarded cares of the apples he sells."   This stumper has been driving me nuts because I could see the peddler and his cart in your description, but I couldn't remember what book it was in.  Maybe this isn't the book you're looking for since the date is a little later, but at least I finally solved my own 'stumper.'

I don't have a copy in hand to check the name, but consider The Golden Books Treasury of Elves and Fairies....  It's on the Most Requested Pages.
Argh!  This isn't in the Giant Golden Book (my childhood favorite), but I *know* it has to be somewhere on the Solved pages, because I remember seeing the name "Pixie Trink" in the Stumpers when I first found your website a year or so ago.  But I can't find it! Back to the search...(Harriett, I don't know if you keep records of past web pages, but a Google search
turned it up in a different request, P39)
Here's that older stumper for reference (she never answered if this was the correct match):

P39: Pixie Trink
I am also looking for a book my grandmother read to us in the early 1950's.  The book could be much older though.  It was about fairies and pixies living around a pond or a brook.  I only remember that there was a pixie named Pixie Trink who may have lived on a lily pad.  Pixie Trink had red hair.  I would love to find out what this book was and if it is available.
P39: keeps sounding like Zeee by Elizabeth Enright.

Edward Ardizzone, One of the "Tim" books. Not at all sure but the date is about right, and a sea captain does feature prominently. I don't remember the phrase "Perseverance wins" but it could have occurred, as it would fit a lot of the plots. There is a dog in some of the books, but I think he may have been just brown.
I've read almost all of the Little Tim books and I don't remember any of them having a repeated line like that.

Well, these are the titles I could dig up on a web search: Prose and Poetry for the Eighth Year Including a Study of the Life and Poems of James Russell Lowell the Grade Poet (1924) ed. by Fannie L. Avery, Mary M. van Arsdale & Emma D. Wilber; Prose and Poetry Adventures (1935) ed. by Margaret Greer et al; Prose and Poetry Journeys  (1935) ed. by Margaret Greer et al; Regional America. Prose and Poetry of Toda (1941) by Harriet Marcelia Lucas; Poetry and Prose Journeys (1945) by Donald MacLean Tower, Cora J Russell, Christine W. West; The Firelight Book Prose and Poetry (1946) ed. by Barbara Henderson, Marion T. Garretson, Frederick H. Weber; Prose and Poetry: The Emerald Book (1947) ed. by Fannie L. Avery; Prose And Poetry Of America (1950) ed. by Harriet Marcelia Lucas & Herman W. Ward;
Prose and Poetry Adventures (1951) ed. by Andrew J. Kenner; Blue Sky Book: Prose and Poetry (1953) by Henderson, Garretson, Weber; Prose and Poetry of England (1955) ed. by McCarthy Rodabaugh; Along the Sunshine Trail , part of Prose and Poetry Series (1960) by Iverson, Delancy, Leet, Foes, and Smith; Story Carnival: The Prose and Poetry Series (1960) by Floy DeLancey and William Iverson
Tower, Donald Maclean; Russell, Cora J; West, Christine W    Prose and poetry adventures   [Part 1]    illus by Guy Brown Wiser    L W Singer c1945

I found this using Google... there is a short story from the Christian Science Monitor called Pug Island.  However, the only way to get to this article online is through Goggle's cached version, found here.

I'll bet this is the popular Pickle-Chiffon Pie by Roger Bradfield.  Your fiancee isn't the only one who remembers it fondly; check out Loganberry's Most Requested page.
I'm almost positive that this isn't Pickle-Chiffon Pie.  That story involves a king who loves pickle-chiffon pie and three guys who go out to find the most unusual thing that they can in the kingdom.  One guy finds this unusual creature who has baby creatures and he lets it go rather than drag it away from its family, even though he knows that he won't win the contest, and he is rewarded for his kindness.  It really doesn't involve pickles at all.  I love to use this book when I do a 'food' storytime.  Actually, the first book I thought of was Marc Brown's Pickle Things, though that story describes all the things that a pickle *isn't*.
Pickle Juice.  I remember reading a book called Pickle Juice and it seems to me it was quite similar to what you describe.
P171  I don't think this sounds quite like it. My copy has been sold, so can't check: Wolcott, Patty.  Pickle, pickle, pickle juice.   illus by Blair Dawson.   Scholastic
Pickle Pickle Pickle Juice by Wolcott has a vocabulary of only 10 words -- repeated over & over & over...
I agree, I'm sure there was a novel (not an easy reader) called Pickle Juice (it had something of the same "flavour" as How to Eat Fried Worms)  but I can't find it on abebooks or Alibris or in our local library's catalogue.  Any other ideas?  Oops--I guess I was thinking of Judy Blume's Freckle Juice.  I'll keep my eyes open for a pickle book, though.
Thank you all for your suggestions, but it seems as if none of them are exactly right. If this helps, he said that he remembers piles and piles of pickles (that's what they made the pickle juice out of).
Acutally, I got a copy of Pickle Things from the library to show to my fiancee and it wasn't what he had remembered.  I don't know why men are so difficult.  I am hoping that someone has a moment of revelation.  Thanks so much, though.
Just a couple more titles to run by your fiance: Purple Pickle Juice by Farber, ill.Mercer Mayer and Hot Fudge Pickles by Andersen. Pickles to Pittsburgh by Judy Barrett, Pickle Pizza by Beverly Lewis.  Pickle Creature by Daniel Pinkwater. Oh dear, I'm starting to obsess on this..........
Judi Barrett (author), Ron Barrettt (illustrator), the talented duo who  created Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and its sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh.
I havn't found the book, but would just like to validate the girl who is looking for it.  Your boyfriend is not nuts.  Things I remeber from the book are: one page there is a lady with a pickle nose, and maybe another with pickle hair.  The cover of the book is mostly white with a green pickle border. My sister and I read the same book as children, I know exactly what he is talking about and am looking for it for my sister. If I ever find it I wil be sure to let you know.
Marc Brown, Pickle Things. (1980)  Did a little research and looked it up on the Library of Congress Webpage

Svenson, Lillian M. , Panama to the North Cape.  Boston, Christopher 1955.  Might be this one: "The story of one family's passage from Los Angeles to England and Norway via the Panama canal aboard a combination freight and passenger steamer. a delightful ocean voyage. very educational and a wonderful story."

Natalie Babbitt, The devil's storybook.  The is definitely one of the stories in Natalie Babbitt's "The devil's storybook."

Well, there is a collection by that name:  Alden, Raymond MacDonald: The Palace Made by Music. Bobbs Merrill. 1910. Red cloth hardcover, illustrated by Mayo Bunker.  It's hard to find, but I can get you one in Good condition, some wear, for $50.  Let me know.
I'm "sure" the book I had was NOT illustrated by Mayo Bunker and I'm "sure" it was a later edition than 1910- and may not have been all MacDnald stories.  Let's see what your Wonder Working Stumpers come up with!
I found two editions of Why The Chimes Rang And Other Stories by Raymond Macdonald Alden that have this story.  Both are by Bobbs-Merril Co. and have the same stories, but are illustrated by either Katherine Sturges (1924) or by Evelyn Copelman (1945).  The contents are: Why the chines rang / The knights of the silver shield / The boy who discovered the spring / The brook in the king's garden / The hunt for the beautiful / The boy who went out of the world / The palace made by music / The forest full of friends / The bag of smiles / The castle under the sea / In the great walled country.  The only book I found with stories by both Wilde and Macdonald was a collection of Christmas stories.
There is a collection by this author called Why the Chimes Rang that was published in 1924 and again in 1945.  Illustrated first by Katherine Sturges and later by Evelyn Copelman.  The stories are: Why the chimes rang.--The knights of the silver shield.--The boy who discovered the spring.--The brook in the king's garden.--The hunt for the beautiful.--The boy who went out of the world.--The palace made by music.--The forest full of friends.--The bag of smiles.--The castle under the sea.--In the great walled country.

P188 Shot in the dark, but I came across the title BARNABY SHREW, BLACK DAN, AND THE MIGHTY WEDGWOOD by Steve Augarde, 32 pages with illustrations, published in London in 1979. The short summary said that the crew of the
ship the "Pied Piper" meet Black Dan and his parrot Tough Eric. I can't confirm if it was funny or if the parrot has a peg leg. Perhaps someone else has read this book. ~from a librarian
I've got a copy of Ballad of Bad Ben Bilge and don't think it's particularly funny.  It's told by Bad Ben's parrot, Timber Toe Bob, who does indeed have a peg leg.  Some other characters in the book are Rickets, the stowaway rat  Katey and her sister Meg their mynah bird Pompous McVain -- who all work together to destroy Bad Ben and his ship, the Devil's Delight.  The pictures are in brown and teal blue, very rough and sketchy (the girls are almost scary looking). I doubt that this is the book that you dad thought was so funny.  As to the other suggestion, there's another Barnaby Shrew book, Barnaby Shrew Goes to Sea, which may be the book you're looking for.  Good luck!

Dick and Jane readers, 1950s, 1960s.  The Dick and Jane readers had a white kitten named Puff.  The description sounds like those readers, too.
Nan Gilbert author, Jill Elgin illustrator,365 Bedtime Stories, 1955.  The Dick and Jane readers feature a kitten named Puff, but Puff is a golden tabby, not a white kitten.  Dick and Jane also didn't have a "story for every day of the year."  Is it possible that the original stumper requester is confusing Dick and Jane's kitten with the kitten in another book?  If so, I'd like to suggest that he or she examine 365 Bedtime Stories by Nan Gilbert, illustrated by Jill Elgin.  This Whitman Giant Book measures 7 1/4" x 10 1/2" and has a story for every day of the year (unless it happens to be a Leap Year).  At least six of the stories are about a white kitten named Velvet.  The book also contains several stories about two other cats, Tiger, a golden tabby, and Tom, a black cat with white paws, vest and nose.   Twelve of the stories in this book have a full illustration on the right hand page, three stories have a full illustration on the left hand page, and the rest of the stories have an illustration at the top of each page.  For more information, please see Most Requested Books.

Thomas Baum, Hugo the Hippo.  A young hippopotamus explains why he trusts children but has a healthy distrust of all grownups.
Roger Dvoinsin (spelling?), Veronica and the birthday present.  Don't know if this is it? Veronica is a hippo who lives on Farmer Pumpkin's farm (with Petunia the goose, whose in other Dvoinsin books) Farmer Applegreen gets a kitten--Candy--for his wife and it escapes the box on way home and finds friendship in Veronica. When found and taken back to Applegreen's farm, there's a series of back and forths as Veronica and various animals from Pumpkin's farm keep going to Applegreen's to fetch Candy back. I'm almost sure Veronica is illustrated as purple. Candy is white with blue eyes. But it is a large book in hardback, at least 8-1/2 x 11"

Hi, I remembered another story in this collection:  A woman is in her home baking some bread when a tired, hungry traveler comes by her door and smells the yummy smell.  He knocks on her door and asks her if she could share a loaf of bread with him.  She says she will.  He sits and waits for the loaf to be finished.  The woman gets it out of the oven, but it is too big to share.  She puts a smaller piece of dough in.  When it is finished baking, the loaf is bigger than the first.   She puts a third piece of dough in, smallest of all, bakes it, and the loaf comes out bigger than the second.  She tells the traveler that all the loaves are too big to give away and sends him on his way.
Maybe some info will help in the search- Kettle Story is by Joseph Jacob.  It can be found in a book called More English Fairy Tales by same author. I do not have this volume so I cannot check for the other stories but this might start your hunt!
I believe that the book you are looking for may be one from a set of books that contained short stories for children.  Each book had a theme to it and the beginning started out with easier to read stories leading to the harder to read ones towards the back.  There was a book of poems and a book of fairy tales as well as the themed books (I specifically remember a Science Fiction theme).  Each book had a red cloth cover and I think gold lettering on the cover and each story was prefaced by a small black and white sketch.  There were otherwise no pictures in it.  I cannot remember the name of the set of books but I think it was something like Children's Book of ... (the theme like poems, fairy tales etc.)  I think the first or second story in the book of fairy tales was about a princess that was unhappy.  I remember the story about the pot, continuation of the three pigs, the wishes, and the bread but I do not remember the one about the pig.  I had the entire set of books when I was a child so they were probably published in the late 60s early 70s.  We always referred to the books as the red books.  I really loved the set of books (they were lost in a move) and will continue watching this post to see if anyone else remembers this.
I have the set of books that the poster in blue is describing but I'm not sure they are the solution to the original poster's query. We also called them the red books!! They are The Children's Hour, published by Spencer Press. My set was published in 1953. I didn't see the stories described by the poster in the fairytale volume, but didn't check the other 15 volumes yet. I am familiar with most of those stories so they could be in another volume-some of them were in my Childcraft set from the 40's (the piggy over the style story!).
Thanks for the leads.  I am checking them out!  The one who's post is in blue mentioned that the book had a black and white illustration at the beginning of each story and otherwise there were no illustrations.  This is exactly what I remember!  For example, the story about the three wishes had a line drawing of a man and a woman at a table with the sausage on the end of his nose.  The Continuation of the Three little Pigs had an illustration with the pigs up in an apple tree.  I think the title DID contain Fairy Tales somewhere, because otherwise I didn't know what fairy tales were.  If Someone has the Children's Hour Book:  Fairy Tales and Fables, Could they check out if it has the stories I mentioned?  Or better yet, list the first several of them?  The book I remember did have the stories numbered 1. 2. 3. etc. at the top of the first page of the story.  I will be so excited if I find this book!  Thank you for your help!
This is the poster in red again---The first few stories in the Children's Hour Vol.2 Favorite Fairy Tales are: Many Moons by James Thurber, The Last of the Dragons by E. Nesbit, The Open Road by Kenneth Grahame. Those stories are in part 1 for youner readers. The first stories in part 2 for older readers are:  The Swan Maiden by Howard Pyle, The Piping on Christmas Eve by Florence Page Jaques, The Great Quillow by James Thurber. The stories are not numbered and the illustrations are black and white line drawings that have a single color wash such as red or green. The poster in blue mentions their edition was in the late 60's so those stories could have numbers, etc.
Please look at my lengthy response to P113; I think both stumpers refer to the same set of books: (pasted here below)
Collier's Illustrated Classics, 1948, approximate.  I have a set of 10 Collier's Illustrated Classics from 1948; my father bought them, along with the encyclopedia, the year my brother was born!!  Each book in the set is a different, bright color. Volume 1 is called Fairy Tales and Fables, and has a drawing of an elf on the spine.  It is dark red in color.  Other volumes are called "Stories That Never Grow Old," "Myths and Legends," "Stories About Boys and Girls."  The fairy tale book has the kind of illustrations you describe, and the 3 Little Pigs story about the apples and going to the fair.  It also has "The Old Woman and Her Pig" that you mention.  Each book is about 2" thick.  The series was revised and a new edition published sometime in the 50's so the stories are a bit different, but I do think this fairy tale book is the one you are looking for.  A seller had them on eBay recently, so check that out.  Good luck!

Ruth Chew, What the Witch Left.  Long shot...
Johnson, Siddie Joe, Cathy, illustrated by Mary Lee Baker.  NY Longmans 1945.  I know this was the answer for the one right next to this, so it would be kind of a coincidence, but ... Cathy (just one child) moves to an old house (not an apartment) and discovers a way into the unopened attic, where she finds a blue-painted chest of drawers, which figures into the plot. She has to earn her own pocket-money, so that might be remembered as having little money. And an unopened room seems likelier in a house than in an apartment.

B271: I read this in the early 70's I think--about the adventures of a girl (age 10?) who was best friends with a boy, her next
door neighbor, and they used a sort of pulley line connected between their houses whenever they wanted the other
one to do something. I think there was an overgrown garden somewhere in the story.
Louisa May Alcott, Jack and Jill.  This is probably not the book, but it does mention a basket on a line between the
characters' houses.  I don't remember the garden, though.

Shot in the dark because I haven't read the book, but it matches the description for THE BEAR & THE FLY: A STORY by Paula Winter, 1976. ~from a librarian
Emily Reed, Let Papa Sleep!, 1963. Possibly Let papa sleep.Not bears but bunnies. Papa is having a nap and Pip and Chip are told not to make noise. They try to find something quiet to do. Papa sleeps throught it all. Then a fly comes in and walks on Papa's nose, he wakes up and sees the mess. The bunnies blame the fly.

Susan Striker, The Anti-Coloring Book, 1978.  Could it be the Anti-Coloring Book series by Susan Striker?  Each page in the book (there were 6) is a partially completed weird drawing with a suggestion for completing it, such as "Do you see your future in this crystal ball?" The drawings in her books certainly sound like the Python-Gorey hybrid described above.
This sounds very familiar. Could it have been British? It would have been the 70s. I remember a series called Old King Cole or something like that. I was in Australia at the time, though, & remember it being very British. It was a strange assortment of puzzles etc. as you describe. Sorry, but I can't remember the exact title.
Coles EW, Coles funny picture book for children. The second poster is referring to the Coles funny picture book which was produced by EW Coles of Melbourne, Australia (and subsequently his family)  Very collectible now.  They are kind of psychadelic looking and had a hodge podge of stories, puzzles, cartoons, odd photographs etc. Very non pc, especially the earlier ones but incredibly funny to kids (and adults!) All of Coles publications had his "trademark" rainbow on the front, often with bizarre colours.  A hunt of online auction sites in Australia will often turn up pictures of covers.

Spring, Howard, Tumbledown Dick: all people and no plot..  NY Viking 1940.  I'm somewhat doubtful about this, since the comment that the book may have been about a bunny suggests that it was a picture book for younger children - perhaps Peter Rabbit? However this book does fit for time and title, so I'll suggest it. It is a longer book, the adventures of a young boy at the Manchester Market, where he meets many odd characters, some of whom are his relations.

Erdman, Loula Grace, Edge of Time.  Bethany marries Wade Cameron instead of her cousin Rosemary, doesn't want to stake a claim in Kansas.  They travel to Kansas and have a very hard first year and in the end Wade does have to go back home to borrow money from Rosemary's husband.  Wade says at the end that Bethany is the one he really wanted.

Big Big Story Book, Whitman, 1941, 1955.  Found this on your old stumper page --  "Big Big Story Book. I have an anthology of childrens stories from the 1960's called Big Big Story Book.  Mine is hardcover wtih a picture of a circus on the front. Your requests sounded like the story PICNIC IN THE PANTRY, although there is no store owner or car backfiring.  This is in rhyming verse with the first verse being:  The peppermint stick and the candy bar / Sat and dreamed in the big glass jar.  We'll see the World, they cried one day.  And hand in hand they ran away."
Big Big Storybook, 1960s?  I'd like to comment on P238 about the poem beginning "The peppermint stick and the candy bar, Sat and dreamed in the big glass jar..."  I remember reading this poem when I was a child and I am pretty sure it ended with "And Bobby said, 'Say, isn't it funny?  Even the peanuts taste like honey!"  I think it was in the Big Big Story book as suggested. I had that book (Big Big Story Book) and am fairly certain that the poem was in it.  Hope this helps solve the mystery and doesn't muddle things up.

Interpreting Condition  Grades

Various authors, including Alice Sankey, Jane Flory, Mary Elting, Madye Lee Chastain, Nan Gilbert, Jane Curry, Dorothy Grider.   Big Big Story Book.   many black and white illustrations, some with green, yellow, or blue background swashes. Whitman, 1955.   Large red glossy book with boy and girl leading a group of animals in front of a calliope, corners worn, spine half-fastened on with now-brittle tape; pencilled owner on fly; pages very good, but yellowed.  G.  [IQ10517]  $18

miriam clark potter, what happened to piggy. (1955) We had this book when my son (now 14) was younger.  Piggy was the only son of a happy but laissez-faire set of parents.  He was caught up in the laundy when his mom made a last minute dash through the house gathering up items for the laundry truck.  He apparantly had overslept and was still in the "bedclothes."  His parents were so upset by the mishap that they reformed their ways.  (I, too, loved seeing the order after the chaos in their home.  Perhaps it gave me hope we would not always live in the realm of "toddler-itis decor." )  Our copy of this book (ironically) was also in very poor condition as some child (long before we bought it at a book sale) had sliced through most of the pages with scissors.  (I think we paid all of a dime for it.)   We threw it out, once my son was beyond enjoying it,  assuming no one would want such a raggy copy.  Alas, it is a rare book (only Alibris seems to have information on it) and an expensive one.  If only we had known - we would have been happy to give it.  P.S. It is a Wonder book, not a Golden.

Arthur Ransome, Peter Duck.  From your description, I'm not sure if you're looking for a picture book or something longer.  If it was a chapter book, could it have been one of the Swallows and Amazons books like Peter Duck?  The children do go to an island and find treasure in that one.

Frederick W. Keith, Danger in the Everglades, 1957. This one features a boy and his electric elephant.  Another possibility is Frances Trego Montgomery's The Wonderful Electric Elephant (1903).
Frederick W. Keith, Danger in the Everglades, 1957, copyright.  The question concerned "Packy" and that was the name given to the mechanical elephant (short for "pachyderm") that the father had made.  I don't remember if he used the skin of a real elephant or not but that's definitely a possibility.  The boy takes Packy into the Florida Everglades to search for his father, and along the way picks up two other children, a boy and a girl, I believe they were siblings.  The father was in a plane that went down in the swamp and was presumed lost, but the boy did locate him.  Together the four of them returned to civilization and solved another mystery too, I think, in the process.  I read this in 5th grade in 1958.  green cloth binding with black lettering.

Potter, Miriam Clark, What Happened to Piggy. (1955) This is also the solution to P240.  We had this book when my son was small.  It apparantly is very rare.

No help I'm afraid, but I must tell you that even if you had a childhood reading about the design of paperclips, it's still not too late to enjoy a pile of juvenile books about magic, adventure, witches, castles, lost treasure and talking animals!  I'm sure Loganberry will sell you some good'uns.
Travis Brown, Popular Patents: America's First Inventions from the Airplane to the Zipper, September 2000, approximate.  That last posting wasn't very nice.  Those of us who are interested in patents didn't read the usual fairy tales that other children did.  I hope I can help you.  I think this book (Popular Patents) may be close to what you were looking for.  If not, the US Patent Office in Alexandria VA has a wonderful gift shop that sells all sorts of children's books about patents.  You may want to look for a contact number from the uspto.gov website and see if someone there can help you too.

Hello again. After I submitted this query, I was able to identify the story w/ the princess as some version of King Thrushbeard by the Bros. Grimm.  In the book I'm looking for, the king/prince might have had a different name - the name "Thrushbeard" isn't ringing any bells for me, but the story itself is dead on.  Or I could have just totally forgotten the name - it was a long time ago.  Thanks again!
Johnson, Sally Patrick, The Princesses:  Sixteen Stories About Princesses, 1960s.  This collection of princess stories has one story called "The Princess and the Vagabone". It is an Irish fairy tale, very similar to what you describe.  The public library in my city (Omaha) has several copies, maybe your local library will too.
The first tale you mentioned is "King Thrushbeard" I hope that will help.
Grimm brothers, King Grizzlebeard.Same story as "King Thrushbeard" with a different translation of the name into the English language

Illustrated by Marjorie Cooper, Read Me Some Poems, MCMLXVIII, copyright.  This poetry book is published by Rand McNally and Company.  I have a tattered old copy with no cover, but my copy does contain the "Hiding" poem, and "Mice".  The book is the same size and thickness of a Golden Book, ( but it isn't a Golden Book). I hope this is the one  it is a neat book with great illustrations.
no author given, A Child's First Book of Poems, 1981.   A Child's First Book of Poems containt both of the poems Mice and Hiding, but I don't see anything about butterflies or kisses.  This book has four mice on the front, in the rain, three of which are holding pink flowers for umbrellas.  The light green cover says "with pictures by CYNDY SZEKERES."    The title page lists "Golden Press/New York, Western Publishing Co., Inc., Racine, Wisconsin." 

Mabel O'Donnell, Engine Whistles.  This book is from the Alice & Jerry series of primers (although it doesn't feature the Alice and Jerry characters).  Later editions came out under the title The New Engine Whistles.
P260 O’Donnell, Mabel    Engine whistles    illus by Hoopes &  Hoopes    Row, Peterson    1942    school used 1951-4    trains;  railroad engines- juvenile readers    Alice & Jerry Reading Foundation series
O'Donnell, Mabel.   Singing Wheels.The details go with Engine Whistles, but original poster may also like Singing Wheels (details in solved mysteries). Engine Whistles is the sequel to Singing Wheels. The main character (Tom Hastings) is the father to the boy Tom Hastings in Engine Whistles.
Hi Harriett:   I looked at P260, looks close but, alas, I don't believe a match.   It was interesting that Tom Hastings was included although the Hastings in my book was Hastings New York and it didn't have very much to do with trains.  Please let me know if someone comes up with a closer match.   Thank you!

Slepian, jan, The Hungry Thing, 1967.  I'm taking a chance and thinking that your poster is perhaps remembering the book THE HUNGRY THING. The others were THE HUNGRY THING RETURNS, and THE HUNGRY THING GOES TO A RESTAURANT. It doesn't eat people, but it is befriended by children and it eats a lot and I think it is purple.

Hi there, I did find out some information, the short story in the collection is by Henry Beston and was originally published in the Christian Science Monitor as Pug Island, however I don't know the name of the collection of Dog Stories from the 1950's.  The book also had a story about a Cocker Spanial named Penny and as I remember had beautiful illustrations.  Thanks, hope this helps.
You might want to check an older query that someone solved #P168 which is titled Pug Tree. Appears to be very similar.

Miriam Clark Potter, What Happened to Piggy. (1955)  This is also the solution to P240, and P246.
Miriam Clark Potter, What Happened to Piggy? (1955)  This was a Wonder book, there might be a 1964 big Wonder Book in a later edition.

Thought for a moment it might be The Space Child's Mother Goose, but no, I don't think so.

Anna Andrews, The Peggy Lee Stories for Girls, 1936, reprint.  From the internet: The Peggy Lee series, set on a coffee plantation in Central America, consists of four titles published by Cupples & Leon in 1931 and 1932. The dust jackets featured artwork by Russell Haviland Tandy (1893-1961). Tandy is best known for his work as the first illustrator of Nancy Drew. Titles in this series include: Peggy and Michael of the Coffee Plantation, Peggy Lee of the Golden Thistle Plantation, Peggy Lee and the Mysterious Islands and Peggy Lee, Sophomore. In 1936, all four volumes were released in a single oversized edition entitled Peggy Lee Stories for Girls.
This is a pure guess, based on title alone:  Title: Peggy stories, Author(s): Batchelder, Mildred.  Publication: New York, Scribner's  Year: 1924 with illustrations by Eunice Holmes Stephenson.
Anna Andrews, Peggy Lee Stories for Girls, 1937.  If the book really was about 2-3" thick, it may be the omnibus volume that reprinted four Peggy Lee series books.  They were Peggy and Michael of the Coffee Plantation, Peggy Lee of the Golden Thistle Plantation, Peggy Lee and the Mysterious Islands, and Peggy Lee Sophomore. One source describes the first book as "life on the plantation [with] two episodes of theft of gold bars and Michael's rescue of an injured Peggy.  Accompanied by her friends Alice and Billy Carter, Peggy leaves for boarding school in New York."  She "return[s] to Central America for the summer" in the second story.
Thank you so much! I'll check your suggestions out and then I'll post another note on the website.

Sandra Scoppettone, Trying Hard to Hear You, 1973.  The narrator's name is Camilla. During a summer production of "Anything Goes", Camilla's best friend, Jeff, and her crush, Phil, become attracted to each other, then shunned when others find out about their relationship. Eventually the harassment is too much for Phil, and he agrees to go on a date with Penny and let her try to convert him. Very dated now, but a great early-70s time capsule.

Gene Stone, Little Girl Fly Away, 1994.
I am the one who submitted P275.  It is not Little Girl Fly Away because that one was published in 1994 and I read mine in the late 60's or early 70's.  Also, the one I am looking for is fiction.  But I do appreciate the efforts of others to help me locate my book.

Griffiths, Helen, Patch, 1970.  When a mongrel puppy is taken in by an English boy and then left when the boy returns home, the dog travels through Spain to try and find his master again.
Patch is not the book I am looking for.  The book I am looking for had a solid brown ‘puppy’ with short hair, not a spotted, black and white dog.  Thanks.

The Just Alike Princes, Meek, Pauline Palmer, 1966.  This is definitely the book - I love this book too - it is pricey and hard to find though unfortunately.  The twins are  Prince Albert Edgar John and Prince Abner Elmer Tom and they have many disagreements - one is dressed in blue and one in red and the colour theme is carried through their toys.  The royal nurse does indeed separate them and puts them alone in the room back to back in chairs, with just the one toy.  A happy ending ensues.  I think I was just jealous of all their neat toys!!

SRA series, 1960s.  I remember a similar color coded series in my elementary school days in the mid 1960s.  I think it was called the SRA series, and the material was coded by color for reading level.  I know aqua was the lowest level because we cruelly teased the poor kids who were aquas.  I don't believe the stories were in books, but were on laminated sheets of plastic with the appropriate color at the top.  You read the story, then answered questions about it, and as your reading skills increased you moved up the color chart.  I think we used appropriately colored pencils to fill in a square on a big wall chart every time we finished a story.  Thanks to the stumper for jogging my memory!
SRA Series.  I think the reader who posted an attempted solution is confusing the SRA series of brief card-mounted readings with the actual series the original poster described.  I still have my copy of Six Ducks in a Pond, a blue-covered book from the series.  The Purple Turtle was another title.  McGraw-Hill still publishes some of this stuff, repackaged and re-illustrated.  Titles I recognized from my childhood: A Hen in a Fox's Den, A King on a Swing, A Pig Can Jig.  This might help jog the original poster's memory.  Source. 

Daniel F. Galouye, Dark Universe
I agree that this is almost certainly DARK UNIVERSE.  It first appeared as a Bantam pb original in 1961, and was nominated for a Hugo (science fiction) award for that year.  A more detailed review/plot summary is online here. 

Zibby O'Neal, The Language of Goldfish.  In this book, an eighth-grader named Carrie suffers a nervous breakdown/emotional troubles...it's been too long since I read this for me to remember the connection with the pond and the goldfish, but this sounds like the right book.
O'neal, Zibby, The Language of the Goldfish, 1980.  "The Language of Goldfish is a coming of age novel featuring Carrie Stokes, a confused 13-year-old girl on the verge of a mental breakdown. Carrie is the middle child in an affluent, seemingly happy family, and she is struggling with insecurities about growing up and forming relationships with other people. Carrie lives in a chaotic world within her head, and her absorption with her own thoughts leads her to believe that she is going insane."~~e-notes.com.  It's one of my favorite books, beautifully written and seems to match your description.
The Language of Goldfish.  If you can get hold of a copy of Eleanor Cameron's second book of children's writing essays, "The Seed and the Vision", she has quite an extensive analysis of "The Language of Goldfish" in there and you could see if it's the same one. It sure sounds like it to me, from your description and what I know of the book from Cameron. Good luck.
carol matas, of two minds.  This may not be the book, but it does have a princess who looks into a well and sees and hears things. She isn't mentally ill though, it's kind of a disturbing sci fi book someone marketed to youngsters. The cover has the girl's hair sprawled out until it blends with some kind of trees or thorns. The characters are the princess whose imagination makes things real which causes problems and the mind reading prince that she is trying to escape marrying. If it isn't familiar it isn't worth the read!

Gyo Fujikawa (illustrator), A Child's Book of Poems, 1969.  I'm pretty sure this is the one you're looking for.  In addition to The Sugarplum Tree and Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, this book also contains The Owl and the Pussycat, The Duel (Gingham Dog & Calico Cat), Queen Mab, Santa Claus and the Mouse, The Young Lady of Niger, The Little Elfman, The Months, The Kitten and the Falling Leaves, Mr. Nobody, Twenty Froggies, The Swing Song, and many others.  Picture for Wynken, Blynken, and Nod is in color over 2 pages, shows the wooden shoe with a mast and sail, in a starry sky, with three small black boys in pajamas holding a fishing net in which they are catching stars. One boy wears green polka-dot pajamas, one wears tan pajamas w/ red stripes, and the third wears blue pajamas w/ lavender polka dots. The full moon is in the background.  The illustration for The Sugarplum Tree is a black and white line drawing, also over 2 pages.  The tree has a candy-striped trunk, and its branches are full of cupcakes, lollipops, ice cream cones, candy canes, peppermint drops, etc.  There are lollipops growing out of the ground around the tree like flowers, and the chocolate cat is perched on one of the branches.  A little girl w/ curly hair, wearing a short dress and pinafore, stands below the tree with clasped hands and a big smile, with the gingerbread dog sitting beside her. In the background is a sailboat.
Big Golden Book of Poetry.  This might also be what you're looking for.

Young Folks' Shelf of Books.  Don't know if this is the right series, but the poetry volume in my Young Folks' Shelf of Books is orange.  (1957 edition)
Collier's Junior Classics (1950's-1960's, approximate)  This could be it. This is a set of 10 books, each with a different colored cover and each on a different topic. Book 10 was bright orange and has poetry.
Childcraft  There may be a later orange editon available, but 1947 is the  only vol 1 I have, and I'd rather not break up the set.  Childcraft[vol 3 has Little Black Sambo.]

William, Jay, The King With Six Friends.  This is from the Parents' Magazine book club.  All baby boomers seem to remember these books with great fondness.  Thanks to our OWN parents for signing us up for this great set of books!
Jay Williams (illustrated by Imero Gobbato), The King with Six Friends
Parker Fillmore, Longshanks, Girth, and Keen.  This stumper sounds like a variation of this children's story, supposed to be Czechoslovakian.  Check Solved Mysteries to read more about other variations.

Betty Engebretson , What Happened to George. (1958)  Rand McNally Tip-Top Elf Book #1006 "George Pig was a very good pig, but he had one very bad habit - he ate too much, way too much!  One day he ate 12 donuts and - boom - he blew up!

P296: Pig goes to bakery for mother
A pig (I believe it was a girl pig!) is asked by her mother to go to the bakery. She receives a small amount of money from her mother and goes to the bakery. While there, she daydreams about eating all of the yummy treats.  This book came in a white plastic case with a cassette tape. I remember listening and reading along to this book as a child in the 1980's. Please help me find it!

Rose Greydanus, Susie Goes Shopping. I've read this and I think it may be the one you're looking for.  Susie's Mom just wants bread but Susie would really like to spend the little bit of money she has on all the wonderful things at the bakery.

The Magic Porridge Pot, (1959). An edition of "Best in Children''s Books" Volume 21 (1959)(Doubleday) had the story The Magic Porridge Pot, with illustrations by Andy Warhol.  I don''t know if it was published as a stand-alone book.
The posted answer to this stumper is not correct.  I also had this book and am pulling my hair out trying to find out what it was.  The person posing the question did a good job as I thought of posting this question but didn't know how to describe the book.  I remember that the pictures used to frighten me for some reason.

James Barrie(author) Tadasu Izawa & Shigemi Hijikata, Peter Pan, A Living Story Book  1967, Sounds like one of Izawa & Hijikata's delightful books, illustrated with puppets. They did a lot of these books during the 1960's and 1970's, most of them popular fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

Crosby Bonsall , What Spot?, 1963.  This book definitely features at least one puffin - it may be the book being sought. A delightful book from the "I can read" series.

I've never read it, so I don't know if there is a pond and a hat in this story, but there are brother and sister mice named Simon and Lucy in Hurry Up, Slowpoke written and illustrated by Crosby Newell (1961).
Thank you for the valuable service that you provide. I happened to be looking at the site the other day and found the title and author of this book! It is Hurry Up, Slowpoke by Crosby Newell, published in 1961.
Crosby Newell, Hurry Up, Slowpoke (1961)

Rohan O'Grady, Pippin’s Journal, 1962, approximately.  This is a serious long shot.  Also published as The Curse of the Montrolfes or Pippin's Journal: Or, Rosemary is for Remembrance.  Illustrated by Edward Gorey.  Heroine's name is Catherine, nicknamed Pippin.

I don't remember much about Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World, except that it was about pheasant hunting, and I loved it.  It's not a short story, though.
From the details in the stumper description, I doubt Danny, the Champion of the World (Roald Dalhl) is the book they are looking for.  Unless the stumper remembers that part of the book is hilariously funny. Then it might be worth a check - easy enough to do as it's still in print.  Sorry that I can't make a suggestion of a book title, this is the only story with pheasant hunting that I know.

I think that's Disney's second Little Golden Book titled Cold-Blooded Penguin, 1944.
(Walt Disney), The Penguin that Hated the Cold, 1973.  There is another version of that story called, The Penguin that Hated the Cold.. It was in the Disney's Wonderful World of Reading series. I believe it is an adaptation (or maybe shortened version?) of The Cold Blooded Penguin. The artwork and storyline are basically the same, I think. Hope that helps!

G Roland Smith, Paper for play, 1975.  This is a real longshot - just going by the title & approx age.  This was a British publication so probably not widely available in US libraries.

David L. Harrison, Piggy Wiglet and the Great Adventure, 1973. A pig's chase after the sun takes him away from his barnyard, into town, and to the zoo.
David Harrison, Piggy Wiglet & the Great Adventure, 1973, copyright.  This book was illustrated by Les Gray.  Golden Press,Wester Publishing Company, Inc.,Racine, Wisconsin. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-93773.

Noel Streatfield, Ballet Shoes, 1936.  Ballet Shoes tells the story of Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil, who were adopted as babies by Great Uncle Matthew (or "Gum"). Pauline was the only survivor from a shipwrecked boat, Petrova the orphaned child of a Russian couple, and Posy the daughter of a widowed ballet dancer. They are looked after by Gum's great-niece, Sylvia, and her old nurse, Nana. They go on to have success as dancers. Could this be the book?
Noel Streatfield's "Shoe" books are chapter books (for older readers), with a few black and white line-drawings (no color illustrations at all).  I doubt these are the books the requester is describing.
Hi Harriett, I know it's not Ballet Shoes (I got it from the library to see if it was the one and it is not) as this book was definitely a color picture book about a princess who takes orphans from different exotic locations to her castle where they dance with her. I appreciate the suggestion and can only hope that someone eventually might know the right answer! Thank you

Carroll, Ruth, Bounce and the Bunnies, 1934.  "A lonesome puppy goes to live with a rabbit family, but he grows so quickly that Mrs. Hoppit decides she must give him a birthday going-away party so she can have her beds back."

Lobel, Arnold, On the Day Peter Stuyvesant Sailed Into Town, 1971.  All in verse.  Also reprinted in 1987.  About Peter cleaning up New York when he sails into town and finds it a bit messy . . .
Arnold Lobel, On the Day Peter Stuyvesant Sailed into Town, 1971.  Could this be Arnold Lobel's On the Day Peter Stuyvesant Sailed into Town?  The artwork sounds a little like Lobel's pen-and-ink style.
I'm afraid the book I'm thinking of is definitely not On the Day Peter Stuyvesant Sailed Into Town.  This book didn't really have a plot, and the overall aesthetic was more dark, geometric, and two-dimensional than Lobel's work.  (Lots of intricate patterns, but not any portrayal of depth - near, far, etc.).  I'm actualy thinking that Peter didn't appear in the title at all.  I think it had a long, absurd title. Thanks for racking your brains, everyone!
I am also trying to identify a book in which Peter Stuyvesant was a character.  It was about a brother and sister that took a subway train, and it took them back in time.  They had to wear wooden shoes and they had thatched roofs on their cottages.  They went to dinner at the mayor's house (Peter Stuyvesant) and they asked for a fork to eat with.  The mayor thought this was a great joke, as only very rich people had forks.  They finally found a way to get home in the end.  I may be as crazy as you, but does any of this ring a bell?
Caroline Dwight Emerson, The Magic Tunnel. Can't help with the original request, but the person who is looking for the book about the brother and sister who go back in time to meet Peter Stuyvesant probably wants The Magic Tunnel.
I just wanted to say "thank you" to the two posters above me---I read "The Magic Tunnel" many, many years ago (it was either my mother's or her siblings' copy) and have spent ages trying to remember the title. I kept thinking "The Time Tunnel" which was completely wrong!

Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing, 1994, approximately.
There is also a prequel, Walking to Mercury.

This entry sounds like V50 in the Unsolved Stumpers.  No solutions there, either, but maybe it will give more clues.

Cris Freddi, Pork and Others.

I found two elephant "photograph" stories: The Little Elephant, Ylla, 1956 and Mamba-kan, the sotry of a baby elephant, 1954.
Mary Bradley, Alice in Elephantland,1929. I've not read the book myself, but possibly Mary Hastings Bradley's ALICE IN ELEPHANTLAND?  The "Alice" in question is her daughter, who grew up to Alice Sheldon (better known under her usual writing pseudonym of "James Tiptree Jr").  This and Bradley's earlier ALICE IN JUNGLELAND come to mind because of reading about them in the recent Julie Phillips biography JAMES TIPTREE JR.: THE DOUBLE LIFE OF ALICE B. SHELDON.
I should have mentioned that the photos in the book are in full colour, so it must have been a newly published book in the sixties.

If this were a boy, not a girl, I'd say it was Isaac Asimov's story It's Such a Beautiful Day.
Probably OUTSIDE by Andre Norton.
There were two suggestions to my Bookstumper request. I reviewed the storylines of each suggestion and neither of them is correct. Thanks for the suggestions :-) I'll keep searching. I know the mother of the girl in the story teleported to China one day. While the mother was away, the little girl wanted to sneak outside. That may have been the ending when she finally did go outside and everything was fine because the earth had healed itself over time.
Is the requester sure it's not the Asimov? The boy's mother does go to China, by teleport, in that. It still sounds familiar, even if it's not the Asimov, though. Any more details?
I'm sure it's not It's Such A Beautiful Day or Outside. I appreciate the suggestions, though. I sometimes wonder if I have it wrong and the reason they couldn't go outside was because of nuclear devastation. But, I'm pretty sure it was pollution. And I'm positive it was a girl, not a boy, because I always related better to girls in stories. In a way, I was able to place myself in their shoes and become part of the story. If it wasn't a girl, I'll be extremely surprised at my memory. I know in the end, the world was better than it had been before they went inside. I'm tempted to check myself and get copies of both of those books to make sure. But, they just don't sound right to me. I really want to know the name of this book. Thank you for the suggestions.

Lillian Hoban, Mr. Pig and Family,1980. A long shot, but it might be worth looking at Mr. Pig and Family. "When Mr. Pig marries Selma Pig, there are many adventures in store for the new family." Another possibility is Mr. Pig and Sonny Too (1977, also by Lillian Hoban). "Four short stories relate Sonny Pig and his father's adventures skating, exercising, finding greens for supper, and going to a wedding.") Hope this helps.

Mary Luke, The Nonesuch Lure. Does the name Chloe Cuddington sound familiar?
Seton, Anywa, Green Darkness, 1972.   Might be Anya Seton's Green Darkness.  Whether there were three regressions, I can't remember, but here's a partial summary from wikepedia:  In the 1960's, young Celia Marsdon travels to England to visit the ancestral lands of her husband, Richard Marsdon. Once they get there, things get strange--Richard begins acting out of character, while Celia starts to have strange fits and visions. Celia's mother has befriended a Hindu guru, Dr. Akananda, and it is he who figures out what's wrong with the young couple. The troubles of the present time can only be solved by revisiting a tragedy from the past.  And so the older story begins, in the reign of Edward VI, as lovely young Celia de Bohun and her loving aunt take up residence with a grand family as "poor relations."  Anything sound familiar?
Mollie Hardwick , I Remember Love, 1982.This is a reincarnation story involving the Wars of the Roses (1st incarnation), the Dissolution of the Monasteries (reincarnation) and the Victorian era (final reincarnation).Another possibility is Theo and Matilda, by Rachel Billington.  I remember that one had at least four incarnations. One took place in Anglo-Saxon times, another during the Dissolutions of the monasteries, another in Victorian times, and one in contemporary times.  But it wasn't published till 1990.
Mary M. Luke, The Nonsuch Lure, 1976. Almost certainly The Nonsuch Lure - I have a copy of this floating around somewhere.  The modern-day hero is Andrew Moffat, an architect who visits Britain.  He finds out about an excavation site where there used to be a monastery
 the property was taken over by Henry VIII to make into a hunting range and a palace named Nonesuch.  Andrew is unaccountably drawn to the site, but there is an evil presence there that threatens him.  With the help of a psychologist friend of his, Andrew undergoes past life regression and discovers two past lives - one as Julian Cushing, a young American artist from the 1700s who visits England, meets a young woman named Chloe Cuddington, and then mysteriously dies on the site of the monastery another past life is Brother Thomas, a monk who lived at the monastery at the time it was leveled, and who was secretly in love with a local young woman also named Chloe Cuddington - and who also dies tragically.  At the center of the story is the Nonsuch Lure itself, a fabulous royal orb made of gold with encrusted with jewels that at one time belonged to Catherine of Aragon.  A painting of one of the Chloe Cuddingtons also figures prominently in the story.  Thomas and the original Chloe and Thomas are separated by death, only to be reborn over and over as they try to solve the mystery of the Nonsuch Lure and become reunited.  Wonderful book, full of history, and unusual for a romance novel because it is told almost entirely from a male point of view.

Jean and Jeff Sutton, Lord of the Stars. I think this is Lord of the Stars by Jean and Jeff Sutton

Vasiliu, Mircea, Once Upon a Pirate Ship, 1974, copyright. Did you try this book? It seems to fit your description.

Walter Brooks, Caravan of Fun (The Children'\''s Hour Volume 4). 1953. Marjorie Barrows.'This is a bit of a long shot, but if there's a chance you might have mis-remembered the characters' names, it might be worth checking out.  The only Detective Pig I'\''ve been able to locate, from that time frame, is Walter Brooks'\'' character, Freddy, who features prominently in a series of 26 books, in which he is a detective, pilot, magician, explorer, politician, cowboy, football player, poet, etc... The most likely book in the series is Freddy the Detective, in which Freddy becomes an amateur sleuth after reading "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Convinced that there must be some sort of crime to be prevented on Bean Farm, Freddy begins to investigate several mysterious situations. A selection from this book, titled "Freddy the Detective Solves a Mystery" is included in "Caravan of Fun" from The Children's Hour series.  This is the only book in which I can find an anthologized "Freddy the Detective" story. Other stories/poems in this volume include Custard the Dragon, The Elephant'\''s Child, The Huckabuck Family, Dr. Dolittle and the Pushmi-Pullyu, The Ransom of Red Chief, The Walrus and the Carpenter, and many more.'

Fritz, Jean, The Cabin Faced West. The Cabin Faced West might be the book you are looking for, some of the details match. I read a scholstic edition of this book in the early 1970's.  I believe it is still in print.

Walt Disney, The Cold-Blooded Penguin, 1946. A definite long-shot, as it does not include a whale at all, but if it's possible you're combining elements of multiple books, as I've often done, this might at least be worth a look. Pablo the Penguin hates the cold, and refuses to join the other penguins in their ice and snow-based games.  He decides to set out for warmer climates. After failed attempts involving snowshoes, a wood stove, and hot-water bottles, he cuts loose a piece of the ice floe on which he lives, and sails it like a boat to South America.  Neptune, King of the Sea, assists him by lifting up the equator, so he can cross under it.  As it gets warmer, the ice melts and he is forced to complete his journey in his bathtub, using the shower sprayer to stop a leak in the tub and propel the boat. This book has been reprinted as "The Penguin Who Hated the Cold."'

Jane Yolen, Gwinellen: The Princess Who Could Not Sleep, 1965, copyright.  A long shot, but this might be worth looking into.

Clair Jones, Whose Baby is That?, 1969. A Whitman Tell-A-Tale book, illustrated by Stina Nagel.  Paula Possum finds a human baby in the woods, and all the animals wonder whose baby it is?

Judy Blume, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, c.1972.  It might be a long shot, but this book is about a girl whose family decide to leave NY for the summer and sublet a house in a small rural town. Sheila spins all kind of daydreams about the room she's going to have (very girly, frilly lampshades, a fluffy rug on the floor) and is dismayed when she arrives to find she'll be sleeping in a boy's bedroom. Since she told all her friends back home about the pink room she was going to have, a NY friend who comes to spend the weekend is surprised to find that the room is not at all as Sheila described it.

Hisako Kimishima, English version by Alvin Tresselt, Ma Lien and the Magic Brush, 1968, A Parents' Magazine Press book.  Ma Lien, a poor Chinese peasant boy who dreams of being an artist, is given a magic paintbrush by a mysterious old man.  He uses the brush to paint animals that come alive and to help other people, in the end he also uses it to defeat an evil mandarin.
Hisaka Kimishima, Ma Lien and the Magic Paintbrush, 1968, copyright.  Charming story about a poor Chinese boy who dreamed of being an artist. One night, a wizard appeared to him and gave him a paintbrush, on the condition that he must use it wisely. When he discovered that what he painted became real, Ma Lien began using the brush to help others. A cruel Mandarin found out and threw Ma Lien in prison because he refused to paint for him, but Ma Lien escaped through a door he drew in the cell. Eventually, the Mandarin found him and made him draw him a mountain of gold, but Ma Lien was able to outwit the greedy Mandarin.
Demi, Liang and the Magic Paint Brush, 1980, approximate.
The Boy Who Drew Cats.  This is a fairy tale from Japan that has been written about by many different authors.  The boy draws cats on screens and they come to life at night, protecting him from attackers.
Loganberry has a copy of The Boy Who Drew Cats by Arthur A. Levine and illustrated by Frederic Clement, if this is indeed what you are looking for.

Dick Gackenbach, Hound and Bear, 1976, copyright. This must be it.  The book has three stories - The Long Night (Hound paints Bear's windows so Bear oversleeps and misses Hound's Birthday), The Package (Hound returns a package delivered to Bear's house, but package was a gift for Hound)  and The Best Present (Hound finally sees the errors of his ways and promises not to play jokes on Bear anymore.)

Annie North Bedford, Bugs Bunny and the Indians, 1951, copyright.  A long shot, but might this be the one you're looking for?  This is a Little Golden Book with a red cover, featuring Bugs Bunny in full western garb, including a ten-gallon hat, fringed gloves, a yellow shirt and neckerchief, and big furry chaps. He is holding a six-shooter in each hand, and there are two Indians standing behind him. After looking through a number of Golden and Whitman titles, this is the closest I've been able to come up with to what you describe. Porky Pig is not on the cover, but it's possible that he might be one of the characters in the story. While Bugs was typically the title character of most of those old Looney Tunes books, his friends usually provided the supporting cast.
Bugs Bunny, Pioneer, 1977, copyright.  I looked through a Little Golden Book reference book that I have, plus I looked at some of the Warner Brothers Golden Books on ebay, and the closest I could come up with is Bugs Bunny, Pioneer.  The cover is of Bugs leading the way, with Porky Pig and Petunia Pig carrying all their supplies.

Sorry, don't know the answer but want to reassure you that the book DOES exist - my kids had it, too.  There was a wonderful orangy-goldy light inside the pumpkin when the mice move in.  The edition we had was one of those roughly 8"X 8" square paper covered books.
Yes you are correct. I'm not giving up. I know someone knows the name of this book, it was such a cute book with a meaningful story line.
R. A. Herman, Betina Ogden (illus.), The Littlest Pumpkin, 2001, copyright.  The Littlest Pumpkin longs to make someone happy for Halloween, but is left behind as one by one all the other pumpkins are chosen to become jack-o-lanterns. When Bartlett's Farm Stand closes for the season, the Littlest Pumpkin is devastated to be the only one left.  But when a group of mice come along, they make the Littlest Pumpkin the happiest pumpkin in the world!
T. Corey Hansen, The Last Little Pumpkin.  Maybe this one?  Like every pumpkin in the pumpkin patch, Little Pumpkin looks forward to harvest time. Little Pumpkin dreams of becoming a delicious dessert or a jack-o-lantern. However, his dreams aren't as easy to accomplish as he had thought. As the workers pick each pumpkin in the patch, he wonders when his turn will come. Little Pumpkin demonstrates that through determination even the "little guy" can have the greatest impact on someone's day.
Edna Miller, Mousekin's Golden House.  Found this over in the Most Requested - it's the one I remembered (above).
The book as described here is NOT "Mousekin's Golden House".  "Mousekin's Golden House" is about a single mouse (not a family) who finds an abandoned jack-o-lantern (not a pumpkin) after Halloween.  At first, he's frightened of it, but as he explores it he decides it would make a perfect winter home.  So he prepares it with feathers, split grasses, etc., as the other forest animals (a turtle,a bird, a chipmunk) prepare for winter.  He climbs in just before a big snow and as the pumpkin freezes, the mouth, eyes and nose close, making a safe, warm home.  The pictures are lovely and the text is lyrical, but the point-of-view is the mouse's, not the pumpkin. (And nothing about Thanksgiving is mentioned.)
Thank you for your comment. You're right about the ending.
Thank you for you suggestions, those are cute and the The Last Little pumpkin is close, however those are not the one I had in mind. I remember the ending very well, and the family of mice had Christmas in the pumpkin and the pumpkin was very happy.
T. Cory Hansen, The Last Little Pumpkin.  One of the comments WAS the correct book.. It is The Last Little Pumpkin I was looking for, however I cannot locate it at all.  I do have an order with Amazon for a cd-rom of it.  Thank you for this suggest. Problem solved, almost.

Marie Hall Ets, Another Day, 1953, copyright.  I believe this is the book you are looking for.

Marie Hall Ets, In the Forest.  No snowbank, but this one does have a young boy leading a parade of animals through the woods.

Sr. M. Marguerite & Sr. M. Bernabernaida, This Is Our Town, 1963, copyright.  There may be several editions of this story, it was a Catholic-school reader.

Thornton Wilder, Our Town, 1938, copyright.
Thornton Wilder, Our Town.  Are you thinking of this classic play where Emily who dies in childbirth gets a chance to observe the living she left behind?
Maurice Maeterlink, The Blue Bird.  In this play there is a scene in which dead characters explain that they live when people remember them. The plot is about a brother, Tyltyl, and sister, Mytyl, searching for the blue bird of happiness, accompanied by their dog and cat.
Thanks, but it isn't either of these - the dead people are having cocktails and discussing the living.

Caroline B Cooney, Flight #116 Is Down!  This might be it  - lots of details match.
Caroline Cooney, Flight #116 is Down.  This is it, no question. Great book!
Caroline B Cooney, Flight #116 is down, 1992, copyright.  Teenager Heidi Landseth helps rescue people from a plane crash on her family's property, and the experience changes her life forever.
Cooney, Caroline B, Flight #116 is Down, 1993, approximate.  Even before I started reading the other responses to your stumper, I thought it must be this book.  Many details match.  Thrilling story for a YA book!

Zilpha K. Snyder, Season of Ponies.  The answer to Stumper #P379 might be Season of Ponies.  I read this book quite some time ago... I remember it as a subtle, lovely, fairy-tale-ish story of a lonely girl who meets a mysterious boy she calls Ponyboy and of course, ponies.  Like most fairy tales, it has a villain... the ponies and Ponyboy get captured by an evil person- the Pig Woman?- don't recall the exact name- who wants to turn them into pigs.  Lots of swirling mist in this story, so this might be it.  I don't remember the ring of pony hair the girl wears, though.  It's a wonderful read, whether it is the answer or no.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Season of Ponies.  This sounds like Season of Ponies, where a girl is staying with her aunts temporarily, and hears a boy piping music. She follows him to find him playing for a herd of ponies, all different colors. At one point, he braids some of their tail or mane hairs into a bracelet for her. It's a very magical book, and it seems very dream-like and misty.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Season of Ponies, 1964, copyright.  This is definitely the book you're looking for.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Season of Ponies.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Season of Ponies.  I never could understand why this book is so seldom available.  It's a beautiful, ethereal story.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Season of Ponies.  A young girl sees a herd of magical ponies.
Shirley Rousseau Murphy, The Sand Ponies, 1967, approximate.  Could this be The Sand Ponies?  Karen and Tom, who used to live with their parents and their horses on the coast of rural northern California, run away from their abusive aunt and uncle in the city and try to get back to the area they love.  They eventually encounter the wild sand ponies, and Karen collects some loose hairs she finds from the ponies' tails and makes a "wishing ring."  This is a beautiful, bittersweet story that's an old favorite of mine.