When I was a young teen, I had the opportunity to read some books that my mother who was a great reader collected.  The books appeared to be very old and included such classics as My Friend Flicka and Mrs. Tim of the Regiment.
I remember a book and I would love to read it now as an adult, but I can't find it in the collection and I am not even sure that is where it came from.  I don't know the title or author and so I am hoping you can help me.
The plot of the book centered around being the wife of an RCMP officer in "the olden days" travelling in the North.  I remember the story about building their home, the trials of the woodstove, including a story about having a weasel come down the chimney and go after the baby.  There was hardship, but joy and I love these books about frontier women in Canada.
I was 13 years old in 1977 and I think that is when I read the book.  I would guess it was published in the 30's or the 40's?  My mother likely obtained it in Kelowna BC.
Please help!
Name:  Leslie Adams, Golden
Answer: Title: Mrs. Mike A
Author: Benedict & Nancy Freedman
Publisher: Longmans, 1947
Other: this is one of my all time favourites, too! I must have read it about the same time you did. Apparently it was based on a real person. It's set in Alberta beginning in 1907, and it's about a 16 year old girl who is sent out from Boston to stay with her uncle in Calgary because the climate is supposed to help her pleurisy. She meets and marries Sergeant Mike Flannigan of the RCMP and they live in different places in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.  It's hopelessly romantic and tragical, and I remember it being quite thrilling for a teen reader way back when, although by today's standards it's probably pretty tame, not to mention probably politically incorrect. It also requires a lot of Kleenex. You will be pleased to know it's available in the Okanagan Regional Library, and still in print according to Amazon.ca
Query:
  I'd love to find the book about a boy who got a pony for his birthday! I
can recall the picture of him coming to the breakfast table and seeing a
live pony standing right there in the kitchen.  I'm 50 years old now and
still hope that one year there will be a pony waiting for me at a
birthday breakfast!
it was probably a "little golden book" from the early 60's read to me
right here in BC

Name: Shawn Brouwer, Langley

Answer:
Title: Billy and Blaze
Author: C.W. Anderson
Publisher: Collier, 1936

Other: Billy and Blaze is the first of a series of 11 books about Billy and his beloved pony.  I'm not surprised that you remember the part about Blaze being a birthday present-what child wouldn't want to look out the window on his birthday a see the pony he had asked for! The best thing about these books are the amazing black & white illustrations. I'm not sure if they're pencil or charcoal, but they certainly inspired me as a child, and for years almost the only thing I drew were horses. Some of the titles are still in print, and Billy and Blaze is available from the Fraser Valley Regional Library.

Query:
I have a beloved if dimly remembered book from the mid to late seventies
in Port Coquitlam, BC.
The story takes place in Greenwich Village in New York City. It is about
a small boy who lives with his beatnik father. The boy has a favourite
teddy bear who goes everywhere with him, including to guitar lessons.
His guitar teacher is a thief who hides a big diamond in the teddy bear.
While mostly text, there are lots of illustrations, in a very 60's black
and white line style.
If by some miracle you can tell me what book this is, I would be
THRILLED!
Thanks for your time

Name: Graeme Partridge-David, Coquitlam

Answer:
Title: The Teddy Bear Habit
Author: James Lincoln Collier
Publisher: Price Stern Sloan, 1967
Other: I remembered this right away as something I really enjoyed, although I couldn't remember very many details.  George gets stage fright, and can only perform if his teddy bear is hidden on stage while he plays.  James Lincoln Collier wrote many books about American history, often with his brother Christopher Collier.  He has also written about the history of jazz for adults, and is himself a jazz trombone player. The Teddy Bear Habit is one of his lighter books, and there is a sequel called Rich and Famous.

Query:
I'm looking for a book of crazy, often destructive or violent inventions, equal parts Rube Goldberg and Marquis de Sade. I must have checked this book out of the Port Moody Public Library dozens of times when I was growing up in the late '80s and early '90s. (To those who suggest children aren't affected by the media to which they're exposed, I'm now working on my Ph.D in engineering.)
Unfortunately, I haven't got many clues to go on. The book features such goodies as "Ye Olde Relative-Flattening Bedde", a canopy bed for the in-laws with a handy granite slab on top and an equally handy lever on one side. I also remember a diabolically huge factory-on-wheels that wreaked all manner of havoc -- I remember suction hoses slurping up stray cats and detritus from several manhole covers at once, only to spray the proceeds god-knows-where.
I would desperately like to find this book. It epitomizes the things that have become verboten in the childrens' books I loved most. (George's Marvellous Medicine?) About a year ago, I became an uncle, and I would like my nephew to get as much (twisted?) pleasure from this book as I did.
Name:  Graeme,  Vancouver
Answer:
Title: Rodney Rootle's Grown-Up Grappler and Other Treasures from the Museum of Outlawed Inventions
Author: Chris Winn & Jeremy Beadle
Publisher: Atlantic Little Brown, 1982
Other: this sounds like a fun one! If you can't find a copy for your nephew, I would also suggest "The Way Things Really Work (And How They Happen)" by Henry Beard or "The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups" by David Wisniewski
Query:
In the late 50's I was in Sick Kid's Hospital in Toronto for an extended stay and one of my aunts gave me a book. What I remember is it was about kangaroos, and the only line I recall is "Pink and Blue and Hullabaloo went for a walk in the city zoo."   I think the book wore out and was tossed in a move. It's too bad; the book gave me a lot of comfort in its rhythms and rhymes. I used to recite it to myself when I couldn't sleep in the hospital. Maybe it would help me now with my 4 a.m. wake-ups!  Thanks very much!
Name: Cecilia Penner, Victoria
Answer:
Title: Hullabaloo
Author: Georgiana (that's all that appears on the cover)
Illustrator: Nettie Weber
Publisher: Whitman, 1951
Other: this is available from several online used book stores
Query:
For years I have been trying to discover the book that was read to by the teacher to our fourth grade class. It was a weekly ritual, the reading of this novel, and one that we as a class, collectively had to earn through our behaviour and academic performance. A tally was visible throughout the week and specific students identified. We helped each other with homework and in class assignments as a result as well as monitoring each other's behaviour - bad was a mark against, truth telling about it a mark for.
The book takes place in the future. Humanoids compete in sporting events and are honoured with being taken to the planet of advanced alien beings via spaceship. It's a generational tradition that is highly competitive. What the folks back home don't know is that upon arrival, the winners become slaves on a planet that has thin air and extreme gravity.
I'm almost 40 now and the book has always stayed with me. That grade four year, summer vacation came and even though he read for most of that last afternoon, the book wasn't finished.
Since then I've chosen to put down many a book without regret and sometimes with relief or disgust.  But I'd love to know how that story ends. It's one regret I'd rather not have.
What's it called? Who wrote it? I promise to give only books for Christmas if you'll solve the mystery.
Name: Klodyne Rodney, Vancouver
Answer:
Title: City of Gold and Lead
Author: John Christopher
Publisher: H. Hamilton, 1967
Other: This is the second volume in the Tripods trilogy (between The White  Mountains and The Pool of Fire). A prequel to the series, When the Tripods Came, was written twenty years later. In the books, an alien race has taken over the world and controls humans by "capping" them and controlling their minds. The two characters are taken to an alien city which is actually still on earth. You should be able to find copies in the library or online.
Query:
I read this book in the era of 1959 to 1961.  It was a story of 2
children, I think a boy and a girl who had amazing adventures on the
13th of the month.  They had a black cat named Merlin and on the 13th
they would draw a chalk outline of a trapdoor on the floor and
somehow Merlin was involved as they opened the door and went through
it to great adventures.
I can't remember if the 13th had to be on a Friday or if it was just
a better adventure if it was Friday.   When they came home Merlin
became an ordinary cat again.
I really loved this book and have attempted many times to find it
with no luck.
If it was a flat that the children lived in then it would have been a
British book.  The title had something to do with luck or the 13th
but that is all I have to go on.
I hope your panel of librarians can help me.
Name:  Lynn Erskine  North Saanich

Answer:
Title: The 13th Is Magic
Author:  Joan Howard
Illustrator: Adrienne Adams
Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepherd, 1950
Other: this is set in New York City, and many of the adventures  Ronnie and Gillian go on take place in Central Park.  Merlin the cat magically takes them to the unmarked  13th floor of their apartment building on the 13th of the month, where they meet an interesting cast of characters. It's out of print, but available used.
Query:
I read the books in elementary school. The characters names
were Honey Bunch and Norman. They were neighbours and friends. They were
adventure stories.
  Name: Fran Begley, North Vancouver
Answer:
Title: Honey Bunch (series)
Author: Helen Louise Thorndyke
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap, 1923-1955
Other: there are 32 titles in the Honey Bunch series. They were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the same folks responsible for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  So Helen Louise Thorndyke was the pen name for several different authors who wrote the actual books. The covers look quaint and old fashioned, and you should be able to find them on sites like abebooks.com .

Debbie Staples from Westwold
My favourite book was called "Puddledock Farm". The main character was a young man who wore a tall black hat, and his name was "Scut". The story was about this young fellow who arrived at a farm in rural England and offered to work for room and board. He befriended the family's baby and he and the baby had marvelous adventures in the forest with the rabbits and hares who lived there. It turned out at the end that "Scut" was a hare as well (magic!) The book itself was a slim volume, in hardcover with a canvas coloured fabric cover, and was about 8" x 10" and only about 1/4 " thick. The paper inside was a nice shiny quality, and the illustrations I think were beautiful watercolours, with one picture on every page. Can you help? Of course, I can't remember the author, or the publisher. The book may have come from England with our family around 1960.

This is Puddledock Farm by Grace Lodge published by Hutchinson in 1947. It's no longer and print and very difficult to find a copy. nibh.

Jim Toews
...a book called "Taily Poo", about an old man who lived in an isolated cabin who was visited by a creature with a large tail. The old man was very hungry and eventually ate the animal. It then came back to haunt the old man and eventually destroyed the old man and his cabin leaving only the chimney in place. Now that I'm writing this description of the story it sounds really
creepy, and something you might not want to read to your children just at bed time.

This is Tailypo, an old story that has been retold many times, both as a picture book and as a part of scary story anthologies. Joanna and Paul Galdone's retelling of it is largely available in libraries.nibh.

Craig Kelly from Chilliwack
I am looking for a book I remember from the possibly late 1970's- 1980's-possibly early 1990's here in Canada. I'm sure we borrowed it from our local library during the 80's. It was a picture book that had the pages divided in half (top and bottom) so you could flip either the top page or bottom page to create a new picture. Or, you may have only been able to flip the top half, while the bottom half stayed the same - I can't remember. I believe there were 5 items across the page that made things like 5 smoke stacks, 5 trees, 5 fingers etc as you turned the page. I've been looking for this book for about 10 years with no luck.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

This is Graham Oakley's fabulous book called Magical Changes. It was published in 1979 by MacMillan (London) and in 1980 by Atheneum (New York). It received a Boston Globe- Horn Book Award illustration special citation and the American Library Association notable book citation. nibh.

Evan Mitchell from Nanaimo
When we were kids in the 40's growing up my dad would often read us stories from a book which was published around the 1900s. If my memory serves me they were a series of two page stories about hygiene. Each facet of health had a gross and hideous character which was suppose to elicit fear in you for not practicing proper hygiene. Some characters were a long fingered nailed character who chased children with scissors, a fellow with bad hair very long and bug infested ( I think) and my most fearful was a character who promised if you continued to suck your thumb (which I did) at some point it would fall off and lodge in the back of your throat and protrude out the back of your neck, fully illustrated of course . Not the best of bed time stories but beautiful art work even though they were hideous characters

This is Der Struwwelpeter (1845) a popular German children's book by Heinrich that has been translated into many languages including English. It is a series of short cautionary tales depicting horrible consequences for naughty or slovenly children, much like Hilaire Belloc's highly entertaining and gruesome tidbits. nibh.

Lil Forshaw from Osoyoos
I was most interested in your program this morning with the librarians. When I was a child, I had a favourite book called "The
Little Bed That Ran Away" or something very close to that. I have tried to locate a copy of it now for years, but as it was one that was read to me as a pre-schooler and I am now 73 years of age, I cannot track it down at all. When my children were small, I related the story to them - as much as I could remember. It was about a child that never wanted to go to bed and his little bed was so sad that he was not wanted, so he ran away. I would be so pleased if I could find a copy to read to my children and grandchildren! Thank you for trying to locate it!!

This is The Little White Bed That Ran Away by Patton Beard, a short story published in a couple of places; notably Childcraft Book Trails Series 2 (Book Trails for Baby Feet) in 1946 and Tucked in Tales published by Rand McNally and Company in 1928. Although both are out of print they are available through second hand book sites. Here is a link to an audio file of the book. nibh.

Marianne Larsen
What a wonderful opportunity to see if you can track down books in my memory. There were I think 4 in the series. Would have been late elementary school-about grade 5-6. I am now 62 so about 50+ years ago. Valley of....... , Castle of....... I think there were 4 kids getting into these adventures. I often think of these stories, but no one that I have described them to make any connections. I went to elem. school in Mill Bay on Van. Island.

Casey Wolf
The first was a book I read as a child. I think I still lived in Winnipeg when I read it, which would have made it before 1967, but in my proto-dotage I'm finding my memory for these things is becoming unreliable. I had thought it was called Adventure in Mystery Castle, but when I searched I couldn't find anything by that name, or by Mystery in Adventure Castle. It has an Enid Blyton-y sound to the plot. A handful of kids ramble around in a castle and have adventures. What stands out is that one of the boys kept a hedgehog in his pocket, which even as a child I knew was dangerous for the animal and probably, since they're prickly, for him, too. Still, I would have loved to have a hedgehog in my pocket. (Or a kinkajou on my shoulder, but that's another book, and I remember it's name.)

Both are Enid Blyton's Castle of Adventures originally published in 1946. There is definitely a boy with a hedgehog in his pocket! Easily available in libraries, although VPL has it in Special Collections.