Story Donated By Gene And His Mum

We found a copy of Busy Busy World, a book by Richard Scarry. My Mummy liked this book when she was a little girl and she had been searching for the book for me to read as well. We looked everywhere and then we found what we were looking for right on our doorstep in Bramley!
Gene and his Mum

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

As well as a passion for Puffin books I also adore Ladybird books, just opening one like What to Look for In Spring or Helping at Home whisks me back to childhood, not that I spent much time looking for things in spring and still struggle to identify trees and flowers, and avoided helping at home as much as possible. This Ladybird Book collection is my pride and joy, I even have a couple in Welsh, and my favourite of all is Ned the Lonely Donkey, who works hard at the seaside giving rides to children and in the end gets to live in a sanctuary with other friendly donkeys. Lucky Ned. I once even checked out on the internet how to date them. It’s easy when you know how. The most pristine are always Sunday School prizes e.g. the religious ones like Three Stories Jesus Told, received and never opened again.
Sarah Howells

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

When I was a child my Mum was a teacher at a primary school in Seacroft, Leeds and, without consulting any of us, gave all our books to the school library to give it a boost - I never got over the loss of Gobbolino the Witches Cat, The Little Red Fox, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, all Laura Ingalls Wilder, Harry the Dirty Dog, The Land of Green Ginger yada yada yada - even joining the Puffin Club didn’t ease my pain. So from my late teens to date I set about buying them all back, from charity shops. Gobbolino, the Little Red Fox, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, Laura Ingalls et al and Harry are back in my life, along with a few more including 13 Dr Dolittle books (no I didn’t know that either). Once I even had them all in alphabetical order by author, but then the shelves fell down.
Sarah Howells.

Story Donated By Abby Dix

I bought this for one of my best friends. No prizes for guessing what her name is? The red colour used on the front cover of this book is amazing, its really rich and it looks great against all the gold leaf. Its hard to believe that the book is over a hundred yeras old, its in such good nick. The inscription on the inside cover says that it was given to Sarah Illingworth whilst she was at Beeston Sunday School at Whitsuntide in 1905. Although the front cover looks like its a book about enchanted castles its actually a hefty biblical tome. My theory is that Sarah Illingworth put the book on her bookshelf in 1905 and it didn’t see the light of day until I bought from a charity shop in Pudsey 2008 which is why it still looks brand new!

I haven’t given this book to my friend yet. We have a bit of a thing going where we buy each other presents from charity shops but then can’t bear to part with them. She has a fine collection of Snoopy paraphernalia that is, by rights, mine. Maybe she’ll swap them for this book?
Abby Dix