When I was a kid I got as a present 2 children’s books. They were both very large anthologies of children’s stories. Not popular or famous stories, just kid’s stuff. Stories I’ve never seen again in any other books.
The books were large, about the size of a phone book and may an inch and a half thick, printed on cheap paper. The stories were divided by theme and each theme had its own color paper. You know, all the animal stories were in the purple section, heroes in the green, etc…
I loved those books, I read the stories over and over. I lost those books one afternoon in a fit of parental rage and it always saddened me.
Now that I’m an adult and I have the resources to replace those quirky things that made an impression I’m finding that I cannot replace those books because I can’t remember what they were called. The only details I remember are
1) A story about a little girl who finds a stray black puppy. She brings him home and puts up signs. The owner comes for the puppy and the puppy’s real name is Demitasse. This one stuck with me because I had never seen the word ‘Demitasse’ before and I had to break it down and figure out what it meant, then I had to look it up. I also expected the guy to let the girl keep the puppy but he didn’t and I came to understand that just because it’s the nice thing or the thing you want it doesn’t mean that other people won’t be affected by it. The man obviously loved the puppy too!
2) An underwater kingdom is threatened, the hero of the story has to swim through the dense seaweed of the Sargasso Sea. I’m sure he saved the day, but I don’t remember. I just remember having to look up the Sargasso Sea because I’d not heard of it before.
Anyway, yeah, sometimes even if you want something and you have the resources to get them, you just can’t have them because they don’t exist anymore. I’m sure these books were put out by some cheap fly by night printhouse and picked up on the cheap. They certainly were not of any high quality. Maybe someday I will find them.
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Fundraising for the Walk for Animals has been coming along beautifully! I’ve had to increase my goal again. I am very please about this. I even contact the Humane Society to find out exactly how to make sure that the funds donated are done in Ghengis’ memory. I am very excited about this. Thank you to everyone.