I was gifted a book by my dad when I was young but lost it a few years ago and he also does not remember the name. The book was a green hardcover, apparently Canadian and I distinctly remember it being for 3rd graders.
It had about ~50 stories with coloured illustrations. The stories were categorized in 5-6 different groups like In the city, In the village, Animals, Folkore etc.
Some of the stories that I remember are:
- 500 Hats of Bartholomew
- Cinderella
- The Sleeping Beauty
- The Three Giants - Three brother giants help a prince win a princess with an evil (step?) mom. All three have different skills, one of them having very good eyesight and is dubbed "Bright Eyes". The evil mom sets three tasks, but the prince uses the skills of all the giants to win.
- Who stopped the train? - A few kids travel by train to their uncle and the train keeps stopping in between. Turns out it was a baby elephant who was being transported, it kept pulling the emergency brake(?).
- A story about a squirrel lost in a shopping complex during Christmas, riding a toy train and seeing his photo published the next day.
- A story about a girl buying a dress(?) for her grandma in exchange for allowing the salesperson stay at their home for a night.
- Be careful what you wish for - An old couple wish for their house becoming 10 times larger, their cat hunts them now that it is 10 times bigger too.
- A story about an elf(?) who helps people in a town till the day a woman gifts him a sweater and he has to leave since he cannot take gifts.
- Something about Red Indians, a girl exchanges something for a beautiful feather(?).
- A story about a kid learning to fish(?)
- A story about a porcupine and salted wood(?)
- Father, son and donkey - not sure if it was in the same collection.
- There were 3-4 stories involving the same kids Jack, Marry, Allen(?). In one of the stories their young sister thinks animals can talk but it was their uncle pranking her. This was probably the first story of the collection. Another story was their grandma confused by their twin friends (with surname Swift) thinking he is one boy moving very fast.
- The Story of Simpleton - A young boy goes to sell a goose to a king the gatekeepers ask him for half the reward each and he ends up asking for 100 lashes.
- Hot as Summer, Cold as winter - A prince demands to eat something cold and hot at the same time, the royal cooks are given 1 day to prepare or be executed(?). The dishwasher helps them by making ice cream with hot chocolate sauce(?)
- A story about a deer getting trapped in a house and almost running through the glass window.
All of the stories were somewhat kid friendly and were abridged versions I think. I have no clue about the title, I remember the front cover having no text. My dad thinks it was a Canadian collection, and I vaguely remember seeing 3 on the spine/reading in preface(?) it was for 3rd graders. I got the book around 2008 I think, but it could be much older since it was bought from a flea market. It also had detailed attributions at the end of the book for each story I think. It could have been 200-350 pages long.
Any help in the identification of this will be appreciated.
