Request #323 From Jyoti

I’ve been trying to find a book for years but it’s practically impossible to find. I have a lot of nostalgia attached to this book- it was given to me by a family member at a funeral when I was about 9 and when I moved to the US at 13, I never brought this along with me (aka my biggest mistake ever). I’d reread this all the time as a child but now I haven’t been able to find it at all and I really want to pass it on to my little cousin who shares my love for reading. So anyway about this book, I assume it’s quite old and it’s a chapter book with pictures. I was 9 in 2010 so I’m positive this was published before then or around that time. I was given this book in India but I’m pretty sure the author was British or European because the denomination for currency was not Indian. I think they used tuppence. The chapter book was a collection of different stories and the pictures were devoid of color. It was a children’s book but did not feel as childish as some and I distinctly remember the picture of a bee in there. Some of the stories were pretty unique which I thought would make it easier to find online but I’ve had no luck. Let me describe the stories to you in no particular order.

1. One of the stories was about a little fairy who finds a bee. The bee basically explains that it has pockets to collect pollen. The fairy needed to deliver some packages so the bee offers to store the packages in its knees where the pockets are and gives the fairy a ride. I feel like this story was titled something like “do bees have pockets” or “where do bees keep their pollen”. Something along those lines…

2. One of my favorites: a boy is visiting his extended family. His aunt has a special recipe for black currant tea that she makes only when the kids are sick or hurt. This boy really wants to drink it so he fakes being sick but his aunt sees right though him and refuses to give it to him. He sulks but later notices a cup of what looks like black currant tea on the table. Tempted, he secretly drinks it but is surprised when it tastes horrible.  The family finds out that he drank it and are shocked because it was actually leftover dirty paint water and not actually black currant tea. They laugh about it and the boy is embarrassed but the mom makes black currant tea for him to feel better. 

3. There was a story about talking shoes. Don’t remember the plot but their pictures had faces on them and the girl could talk to them.

4. There was a story about ice cream, and cornetto was mentioned specifically. I vaguely remember something about a girl giving up her ice cream because she sees another girl getting injured so she wanted to cheer her up. She’s sad about it because she had used her pocket money to buy it. Later on when she gets home her mom has surprised her with cornetto ice cream. 

5. There was a spooky story about a witch who lived in a house and she had a black cat. I don’t remember anything else but just that it was spooky and weird in a cool way. 

6. There was a story about dolls. One doll somehow gets lost from her owner and she meets other dolls. Some have horrible owners and in the end she finds the right owner for her.