Can any help me decide whether this ruddy book was real, or whether I dreamed it?

[GreenLumpyTonsilsAgain]

It was called "The Birthday Present" I think. But when I search (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones etc) there are other books with the same name but not the one I remember

I was about a child wanting to buy a birthday present for his/her mother, I can't remember whether it was a boy or a girl. Various options get considered and rejected, it goes through all the different colours, and the eventual result is a basket of fruit (ie all the colours in one present). I think there was a rabbit in there somewhere, making suggestions.

Please tell me it really existed. I want to get it for ds2, but I can't find it

Oh!

I remember that one!

I will think more and ask my mum.

Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present. by Maurice Sendak.

Greeny you should just ask me, about books. I always know

we've got that

Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present

Beat ya MP

damn you Franny

Beat ya again

get back to your slash den, filthy lady

To be fair MP you did provide a link

[ashock]

That's it!! Maurice Sendak, the same one who wrote Wheer the Wild Things Are

I am SO getting it for ds2, it is right up his street

OK, Mrs Obscure Book Woman, I bet you don't remember two elves called Fudge and Speck

There are two books of them I had, one was called Fudge and the Dragon and the other one I can't remember but it was mostly underwater.

I need to get those for ds1

Yes thank you Greeny, we were very clever to find it for you, weren't we?

I don't know them but I can find them]

I have contacts, you know

thank you morningpaper, how clever of you to post a link

OK, book whizkids, you don't remember one about a little girl who had an alarm clock she could set and she'd wake up the age she set it for, do you?

Was for older children - teenagers, really.

I presume you are referring to "Fudge in Bubbleville?"

I think you will find all you need to purchase them here, Modom

She set it for being a schoolchild, about 7, and saw her parents together again, she set it for being a baby and told an old lady to piss off from her pram, and she set it for the future and saw that the boyfriend she had now kept her make-up-less and drudge-like - but she had two adorable children with him - and she had the awful decision to make of leaving him and never knowing them, but having a stab at some semblance of life for herself, or condemning herself to no make-up and grey existence so she could see them again.

OK, now I'm impressed

I LOVED those books. You know how you read a book at that age when you are all magical-thinking and imaginative, and then it sorto f becomes a total legend at the back of your mind? These books are like that

Nope, I don't SneakyMouse, but it sounds fab

you might want to ask about it here , they can be very helpful

Yes, I know exactly what you mean Greeny

when I have finished being an heuristic guru I shall return to my previous incarnation as a used children's bookseller, and I will track down everybody's childhood favourites until they weep with joy

oh good, you can help me then franny. I had a french one about guinea pig. it was in english but the characters were french (i think). i think it had something to do with time, i remember a clock on the cover

oh blinking heck

these are getting hard

can I retire now in a blaze of glory while I still have everyone's admiration?

because if you all start posting things like "there was a book, it was about so big, with word on the cover, it may have been pink"

then I am stuffed

Ellie is it any of these? (scroll down for list of Guinea Pigs in literature)

There was another one, I got hit with a ruler in primary school for reading it under the desk when we were supposed to be colouring in cross-sections of the Earth

It was about an "orpheline", it was in English but set in France, red cover, paperback, and had these lovely simple curly line-drawing illustrations, like Art Nouveau but simpler.