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This book sounds like one I read when i was a child (early 80's).  It was a large hardback with a pale purple cover and featured gruesome scaninavian fairytales. It had very distinct (and quite scary) illustrations  back and white "wood block" style line drawings at the top of the pages and full-page colour ones too. I remember a story about a clever cat outwitting a hideous troll,  a princess riding on the back of the 4 winds to find her missing prince and a story about a priest and a wolf. hope some of this rings a bell
G34 grettir the strong: Tales From Silver Lands, the book mentioned as having similar illustrations to the one wanted, has woodcuts by Paul Honore. Allan French did a retelling, Grettir the Strong, illustrated by Bernard Blatch and published by Bodley Head in 1961. Robert Newman did one, also called Grettir the Strong, illustrated by John Gretzer, published Crowell 1968. There are several others that don't appear to be illustrated. I couldn't find any collection of Norse or northern tales illustrated by Honore specifically.
French, Allen, The Story of Grettir the Strong, 1908. Allen French's retelling of the Saga of Grettir was first published in the US in 1908. It had a colour frontispiece, a colour vignette of Grettir on the title page, three other colour plates and three black and white plates. The colour illustrations are signed by F.I. Bennett, and dated 1908. The black and white plates are by a different illustrator, and are signed CAB and dated 1908. This edition was reprinted several times. In later printings the colour frontispiece is also used as the dust jacket illustration. The most recent printing I have seen is the twelfth printing, dated 1966. In that one the three black and white pictures by CAB are omitted entirely (they are no longer included in the list of illustrations at the front of the book). The five pictures by F.I. Bennett are retained, but are printed as black and white drawings only, except for the cover picture, which is in full colour on the dust jacket, but in black and white where it is used as the frontispiece. The British edition of Allen French's retelling of the Saga of Grettir was published in 1961, with new black and white illustrations by Bernard Blatch. I don't think it was ever reprinted, and it was sold mainly in the UK.One of these could be the book your reader is looking for.
Jones, Gwyn, Scandinavian Legends and Folk-tales, 1956, copyright. I believe this is the book that is most likely to be the one your reader remembers.
It is a collection of legends that included the story of Grettir the Strong. The illustrator is Joan Kiddell-Monroe. The book is one of an extensive series of collections of myths, legends and folk-tales for young readers published by Oxford University Press in the 1950s and 1960s. All the books were illustrated by Joan Kiddell-Monroe, but several different writers wrote the books.

Gustaf Tenggren, illustrator, The Tenggren Tell-It-Again Book. Parts of the description seem to fit so well with this one  Gustaf Tenggren is Scandinavian, my copy of this book is vibrantly illustrated, although all the drawings are in color, even the smaller ones (but before relocating it, I also thought the smaller drawings were black etchings). The main difference is that not all of the gruesome aspects are present. Falada is taken to a distant part of the stables instead of having her head whacked off and displayed...BUT the description gave me a very vivid memory of yet ANOTHER anthology. You may be remembering two different books, this one and the more gruesome one that I also have a memory of. Check out this website on Tenggren and for some other illustrators, like Kay Nielson go to this website.
I am the person who posted the original query and want to respond to the suggestions posted as possible solutions. To wit: Thanks for the suggestions, but I am sorry to say that after checking out the links you provided, neither of the illustrators you suggested is the one I am looking for.   Furthermore, it was definitely one book (not two that I might have confused) and Falada was also definitely beheaded, hung on a wall, and talking to the Goose Girl.  For what it's worth, I absolutely loved Tenggren & Nielson's work (thanks!).  I am browsing the book website on which you had found them and think it might have been John Bauer (his trolls and hags look very familiar)... Here's hoping.
Everywhere I look at books I'm trying to find answers to these stumpers!! I'm going buggy!!!! Is it possible that your book is one of those collections that has multiple illustrators?? Today I came upon The Platt & Munk Treasury of Stories for Children. It contains Goose Girl in which Falada's head is hung on the wall and he speaks. The illustrator of the story is Eulalie-- but the artwork is very different from her colored work in the Bumper Book,- rather it is simple black and white line drawings that may have a hint of the art deco to them. Other stories had other illustrators: Lois Lenski, Tasha Tudor, Margaret Hoopes,George and Doris Hauman. This particular book does not have The Pied Piper so it is probably not the one you are seeking. However, under the acknowledgements it is stated that Goose Girl comes from Famous Fairy Tales, edited by Watty Piper and illustrated by Eulalie and others- Copyright 1922,1928, 1933 by The Platt & Munk Co. Sure hope this helps! Oh! Someone has stated that Famous Fairy Tales is number 95 of the Platt& Munk Star Book Children series. For those people hunting for series of books this may be a useful bit of information!
Illustrated by Fritz Kredel. Translated by Mrs. E.V. Lucas, Lucy Crane and Marian Edwardes, Grimms' Fairy Tales. I am pretty sure this is the book you are looking for.  I have it sitting on my shelf. There are both colorful pictures and some just sketches (mine are in red and white).  The stories are pretty gruesome, including a talking severed horse head named falda.  Most of the stories include some death or dismemberment.  Some other titles, if this helps, are: The twelve Dancing Princesses, The Three Spinning Fairies, King Thrushbeard.
Marie Ponsot, Translator, The Fairy Tale Book:  A Deluxe Golden Book. (1961)  Recently rereleased in the early 2000s, I still have my orginal copy.  Battered and beaten, with the cover all but destroyed, the illustrations are as fresh and lovely as the day it was given me.
Grimm Brothers, Grimm's Fairy Tales,1929.The original copyright of this was in 1919 by the Platt & Nourse Co., Inc., Copyright 1929 is Platt & Munk Co. Inc. I think this is the same book mentioned in the original query.  It has an orange cover with a black Sleeping Beauty illustration and line drawings throughout.  The art deco look and the clogs are all there. The first story listed is Rumpel-stilts-kin and the last is Clever Grethel.  These are the gory oldies for the most part.  I have no idea who the translator is.  The last page notes that this series was published as "The Star Books for Children: Happiness on every page".  I hope that helps.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, Hansel and Gretel and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm,1925.Your description of the illustrations reminded me of Kay Nielsen'\''s haunting style, and he seems to be from the right era. This collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales includes "The Goose Girl".

A possible is Castle of Comfort, by L. Atherton, illustrated by S. Findley, published London, Faber 1958, 153 pages. "Ten year old Nell has the happy knack of going into the past through the door leading into the flower
garden. Her home, the Castle of Comfort, then becomes the setting for various historic scenes, and is intended, with Nell herself and her family, to be a focus for each bye-story." (Junior Bookshelf Mar/58 p.64) It does
seem that the historic scenes are all loosely connected with the house, though, which this a less likely match.
G50 grandmother's garden: there is a book called Grandmother's Garden, by Hazel Cook Corcoran, published Parthenon 1961. No plot description as yet, but it seems to be fairly rare and there is no LC listing.
I started to read a book once in school called Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Time (I think) about a girl in a garden to which something magical was about to happen related to the thyme plant when the teacher consificated to book and I never got to finish it.
Edward Eager, The Time Garden, 1950s.  Someone suggested that your book might be Parsley Sage Rosemary and Time, but it probably isn't--that book takes the girl only goes back to Colonial America. In the Time Garden, though, there are 4 kids staying with an elderly woman, and they travel back in time to meet famous people from the past--Louise May Alcott and possibly Joan of Arc. It's worth looking at--paperback is still in print.
Trevor Meriol, Sun Slower, Sun Faster, 1957.  "Two modern English children go back into their countries past and live historically significant religious periods." I'm not sure if this fits- might have possibilities.
Hazel Cook Corcoran, Grandmother's Garden, 1965. This is a small book of poetry.  I have this book and the companion book  The Garden Grows, pub. 1970.  Both are signed by the author.  I am trying to find out more about the books and author.

Bill Peet, The Pinkish Purplish Egg.  Probably this book, but I believe the griffin hatches FROM the egg.
If the griffin hatched FROM an egg this would be The Pinkish, Purplish, Bluish Egg - Bill Peet 1963 and still in print. Maybe Could you be getting it mixed up with Horton Hatches an Egg?

Kraus, Robert, Night-Lite Storybook, Windmill, 1975.  A long-shot:  I have two Night-Lite Calendars, both illustrated by N. M. Bodecker, which have various tiny animals (hedgehogs, rabbits, etc.) in assorted settings. The signs, lighted windows of houses, etc., in the pictures glow in the dark.  Illustrations are copyright 1972 by Bodecker for Night-Lite Library, but the only book showing on a google search is Kraus's Night-Lite Storybook (and Kraus's publishing house, Windmill, was the one that issued the calendars).

I am wracking my brains over G62 ...I absolutely *know* those pictures - I will get back to you if and when I can find my copy.
My college-age children and I all agree that the illustrations look very familiar!! I am inclined to suggest Gateway to Storyland by Watty Piper (late 50's edition) which was mine as child that I kept for my children.  It's up in the attic--I just went to check, but it's about 130 degrees up there and I didn't find it immediately and had to leave!! I'll try to check later.
Ok, it cooled off and it looks like I sent in a false lead--it is NOT A Gateway to Storyland.  I still think I KNOW those illustrations--could you tell me a little more info--what are the dimensions of the book and what was time frame you first had the book?  I looked thru all the books I have here with no luck--but there is a falling apart book of Mother Goose at my mom's that I'll check next time I'm home.
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes.  I think we had this book as children too.  Those pictures are definately familiar.  I would try Mother Goose.
Just a suggestion! I have a book called Favorite Nursery Tales that is similar to what you describe. It is smallish- 62 pages
long. It has all the stories but Three Little Kittens- but there are some poems along the way. The book is put out by Golden Books and the illustrations come from Little Golden Books. Mine is a 1970 edition. There is an edition from 1963- perhaps that resembles your long lost book.(I have never been able to pull up your pictures to see what they look like!)

Sutton, Margaret,The Haunted Attic, 1932.  I can't remember the entire plot of this Judy Bolton mystery, but this might be the one.
This is not the Haunted Attic by Margaret Sutton.
You mistakenly classed one of my stumpers as "solved". This story is not The Haunted Attic by Judy Bolton as somebody clearly stated. I have also read that story-a couple of days ago-and it is not the book that I am looking for. Can you please put it back under "unsolved"? Thanks!
Jean McKechnie, Penny Allen and the Mystery of the Haunted House, 1950.  The Allen kids discover a girl hiding in the cabin they're living in. She has been drugged and has amnesia. It turns out she was kidnapped by a man who then drugged her and tried to convice her that he was her father. The kids go in search of the girl's identity and her real father. They travel along a river in a cabin cruiser, pursued by the kidnapper and his gang. In the end she's reunited with her father.
Margaret Buffie, The Dark Garden.  Probably not the book you're looking for, but enough of the details match that it's a possibility.

I don't remember a Lemon in Charlotte's Web, but that's what I think of when I think of Fern....
Elizabeth Enright, Thimble Summer, circa 1939.  Thimble Summer is about Garnet, who lives on a farm in the Depression, and her friend Citronella (which you may be remembering as Lemon!). It includes a visit to a fair.  It was a Newbery winner and should be easily available.
Elizabeth Enright, Thimble Summer,1938.  Could it be Citronella, not Lemon? The other main character, named Garnet, has a pig, which might have led to the association with the name Fern.

SOLVED: Glen Cook, Doomstalker.

G84: Mystery of the Silent Friends (1963, in Solved Mysteries?) The details don't quite fit, but there are both "no-evil" monkey sculptures and very old automatic dolls on platforms. One wrote, one drew a picture of a chalet and one played a harpsichord(?) I remember begging my mother to find dolls like that. Of course, who knows if dolls like that were ever common even in the 19th century - and there I was, asking for them in the late 1970's!
Ruth Sawyer, Rollerskates, 1960s?  Rollerskates is about a ten-year old girl living in an hotel (or possibly an apartment building) with two elderly relatives.  It tells of her adventures over the course of a year, and all the unusual people she be-friends.  However, it is set in late 19th / early 20th century rather than the 1960s.
Eloise at the Plaza, children's book series.
M.B. Goffstein, Daisy Summerfield's Style.  I just reunited with this book myself!  I'm pretty sure it's the same one you are looking for.  What I remember is that somehow this girl is supposed to be going one place, but she switches luggage(?) or luggage tags with a girl named Daisy Summerfield, goes to a different place and kind of takes on a new identity.  I remember her being in nyc also, and the store with the monkeys is an art supply store.  She wants to be an artist and she buys soapstone(?) and carving tools.  She carves figures with moveable parts, and I think in the end she ends up selling them.  I also remember that in order to have this fantasy life, she has to carefully budget the money she had for whatever it was she was really supposed to be doing.  I can't remember the ending though!

G109 might be The Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter
Gene Stratton-Porter writes of Indiana, I think.
Cid Ricketts Sumner, Tammy series.  1950s-60s.  A possibility: Tammy Out of Time, Tammy Tell Me True,  Tammy and the Millionaire
CS Lewis, The Magicians Nephew.  Most of the things you talked about are in this story.

Lampman, Evelyn Sibley, City Under the Back Steps.  Maybe? Not exactly right but: Craig and his cousin Jill have been reduced to minute size and taken prisoner by an ant colony in punishment for stepping on one of its members. Down beneath the ground they are herded, down to the city under the back steps, where the haughty and Queen ruled with an iron hand, each of her subjects with a vital task to perform. Craig and Jill are put to work!
G117 Didn't the  princess and Curdie follow something like that through a tunnel? Or a wild guess Lampman The City Under the Back steps?
George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin, 1872.  I agree that this sounds like the story of the princess and her friend Curdie, who followed an invisible magic strand to escape the goblin'' underground lair.  Loved that book!

C.S. Lewis' Narnia series includes a title called The Silver Chair...
This is a long shot: The Silver Crown by Robert O'Brien. It was originally published around 1968.
Robert O'Brien, The Silver Crown, 1968.  I'm guessing this one rather than The Silver Chair by Lewis, because the latter is easier to find.  "Ellen awakens one morning with a mysterious silver frown on the pillow beside her. What magic powers it possesses she has not yet discovered, but the sudden changes in her life are unmistakable: her house is burned down, her family has disappeared, and a man in a dark uniform is stalking her. Can Ellen ever find her family? Can she use the power of the silver crown to thwart the powers of darkness? What diabolical force hides inside the mysterious castle in the woods?
I'm inclined to second the recommendation of The Silver Chair.  I don't recall where the children are when they get pulled into Narnia in this book, but they are sitting on a railway bench when their adventure starts in The Last Battle.  Sounds as though the requester may be combining these two titles into one.
c.s. lewis, the silver chair. i agree.  the book starts out with "jill pole" sobbing on a bench or something behind the school.  "eustace scrubb" finds her.  they run away from the mean kids at school by going to narnia, half on purpose, half-accidental.
Charnas, Suzy McKee, The Kingdom of Kevin Malone.  This is a contemporary fantasy that begins in Central Park, then moves into an odd sort of alternate setting in which teenaged Kevin is both prince and anti-hero.  Not a perfect fit for the posted description, but close enough to be a distinct possibility -- and if not, there's a small chance that Charnas' other YA trio, a trilogy beginning with THE BRONZE KING, might be the right answer.

Rainbow Brite.  Wasn't there a big toy merchandise collection of toy unicorns for little girls in the 1980s and early 90s, called Rainbow Brite?  Or was that just horses?  This sure sounds like a book based on those toys.
Thanks for the suggestion, but it was definitely not Rainbow Brite. It was an Apple Paperback book.
Coville, Bruce, Into the Land of the Unicorns: the Unicorn Chronicles Book 1.  NY Apple Scholastic 1994.  Right at the tail end of the possible period, but anyways, the right publisher and topic. "The story of a young girl destined to save a gentle land from the dangerous, evil hunters trying to destroy it." "Fantasy and mystery combine when Cara is forced to flee Earth, clutching her grandmother's amulet and carrying a message for the unicorn queen." There's a dragon and something called a Squijum.
Patricia Reilly Giff, Polk Street School series, '80's, approximate.  Emily Arrow is in the second grade at Polk Street school. Other characters are Sherri Dent, Richard "Beast" Best and Matthew. Emily has a rubber unicorn, Uni, perhaps an eraser.  Uni accompanies Emily on quite a few adventures.  I don't remember much reference to rainbows, but there is definitely a spooky book about an old house in the series, and Emily has a falling out with her best friend, Dawn, in another book.  Probably the best known books in the series are SNAGGLE DOODLES and THE BEAST IN MS. ROONEY's ROOM.  Hope this helps.

G159 This is DEAR LOVEY HART, I AM DESPERATE by Ellen Conford ~from a librarian
Ellen Conford, Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate, 1975.  Could it be the book Dear Lovey Hart, I am Desperate by Ellen Conford?  In Conford's book, the main female character, Carrie, secretly writes an advice column in her school newspaper. The description of the cover also seems familiar as well.
Ellen Conford.  I haven't read these in a while, so I'm not sure if some of the details fit, but Ellen Conford wrote Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate and its sequel We Interrupt this Semester for an Important Bulletin.  Girl writes advice column for high school newspaper and tries to impress cute guy who's also on the newspaper staff.
This is incorrect. I have this book and the character is not a girl who was overweight. "lovey heart" is also set on the east coast, in New York, not California.
Beverly Cleary, The Luckiest Girl, 1950's or 60's?  This may be the book that you are looking for.  It has to do with a girl writing for her school newspaper, and it takes place in Northern California or Oregon.  It has been a long time since I have read it.
Suzanne Rand, Ask Annie, 1982. This is one of the original "Sweet Dreams" paperback teen romance series.

Irvin S. Cobb, Faith, Hope and Charity, 1930.  Sounds very much like Faith, Hope and Charity by Irvin S. Cobb. I have this short story collected in a book called 101 Years' Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories 1841-1941, edited by Ellery Queen. I have a vague memory of this possibly having been done as a 'Twilight Zone' or similar show episode.

G162 This is a shot in the dark, but since no-one else has answered, I figured I'd try. Could it be one of the Kit Williams' books, possibly MASQUERADE? The whole book is posted online.  There was a treasure hunt involved. ~from a librarian 

I think I know this book, but of course author and title currently elude me.  The spy kid meets some girls who live in the only painted house on the island, and there is a man named Eugene who runs a sort of general store.  The medium of exchange is called krinks, and the children sing a song "Earn krinks for Eugene to drink a-drink drink.  Maybe this will trigger someone's memory that's better than mine.
Grattan, Madeleine, William Pene du Bois. Jexium Island. Viking, 1957, 1st b/w title page and chapter designs by artist 184 pp. . Drawn from memories of a childhood near the banks of the Garonne and inspired by tales of the Resistance. The heroes crack a ring of kidnappers who capture children to work on a North Atlantic island of jexium deposits. An uneven but memorable book.
Trans. from the French by Peter Grattan, Jexium Island (1957)  I am so delighted to "return the favor" someone did for me, and identify a stumper!  I am sure this is the book you are seeking.  It has black and white illustrations by William Pene du Bois, and is the story of Serge, who makes his way from France to the coast of Newfoundland to search for his kidnapped foster sister Angele.  There he finds many children who have been captured to work on an island of jexium deposits.
Grattan, Madeleine, Jexium Island (1957 approximate) Illustrated by Wiiliam Pene du Bois

Marion Conger (illus. by Eloise Wilkin), The Little Golden Holiday Book,  1951.  This is just a remote guess, depending on how definite your memories are, but your description reminded me of this book, which has Peter and Mary going through the year with the different holidays.  For Thanksgiving, Mary's grandparents come to her house and there's a picture of her watching Mother take the *pumpkin pies* out of the oven -- they are the color of gingerbread and she has baked a small one herself "for Gramps". (The stove is old-fashioned with a big copper kettle on top.)There are several pictures in the Christmas section  one is double-page and has Mary in front of the tree, looking at a creche on a small table next to the fireplace. ?? There's a short description in the Solved Mysteries section. Hope this helps...
Wilken, Elosie, Baby's Christmas.  This sounds an awful lot like Baby's Chrsitmas by Eloise Wilken, except I don't
think they go to Grandma's. I think all of the Christmas activities take place at "Baby's" home. In the original version of this book the illustrations were absolutely gorgeous!
It's NOT Baby's First Christmas (I just checked multiple editions of that one) but I do remember the book. The children are facing the creche, holding hands, with their backs to the reader. . . I think it probably is Wilkin although it could be Tasha Tudor . . . I'll find it, it's around here somewhere!
It may be the Golden book Christmas in the Country.  Betty and Bob, along with their parents, travel to visit their  grandparents in the country for Christmas. Betty strings popcorn and cranberies in the kitchen for the Christmas tree which Bob chops down in the pasture. It was published (I think) in the late 1950's the illustrations place the story around the turn of the century. The story ends with imagining the animals in the barn getting ready for Christmas.
Marcia Martin, illus. by, Waiting for Santa Claus, 1952.  A Wonder Book.  This doesn't match exactly but it's very close.  Three children, Bobby, Sally, and Baby celebrate Christmas with their parents.  There's a picture of mother taking gingerbread cookies out of the oven and a picture of Sally and Baby looking at a nativity manger under the tree. They also go shopping for ornaments, sit on Santa's lap, and pick out a tree with Daddy.  For Christmas Bobby gets a red scooter, Sally gets a doll and a sewing set, and Baby gets a 'big brown Teddy bear with black shoe-button eyes''  Grandparents come later to visit and have a big turkey dinner.  At the end the children say "Oh, we can hardly wait until next Christmas!"

sigh* This has been posted quite a while and no one has a clue? Thanks anyway!
Hyman, Trina Schart, How Six Found Christmas, 1969.  Okay, this is a long shot but the description of the cover reminded me of this book. The girl is in the snowy woods and there is a fox peeking out from behind a tree.  The background is dark green.  But the girl and the animals are searching for Christmas because they have never seen one so while the anxiety is there the story doesn't sound the same.
Andre Norton, The white jade fox. I know this is the wrong colour, but the psychic elements and the atmosphere described brought this book to mind.
I am sorry to say that neither one of these is the book I am searching for, I really wish I could remember more about it, sometimes I think that something is about to surface, but is gone before it formulate's in my mind. Thank you for trying! The Search Continues!
Severn, David, Foxy-boy, illustrated by Lynton Lamb (US title The Wild Valley).  London, Bodley Head 1959.   This may be a bit early, however Severn's books do sometimes have supernatural or unsettling elements to them. "When nine-year-old Phillippa arrived to spend her holidays with her godmother at Lilliput Castle, she was disappointed to find that the other children had moved away, and the prospect of a long holiday with only Kitty and Prudence as her companions was not a very exciting thought. The two women share of the work at Lilliput Castle between them  Kitty, Philippa's godmother, worked outside, on the farm and in the garden, while Prudence enjoyed doing all the household chores, the cooking polishing and cleaning. So Phillippa was left to amuse herself, and it was during one of her solitary walks in Wild Valley that she first saw Foxy-boy. Was he a Fox or a boy? What was he doing in the Valley? And would Phillippa ever be able to get near enough to him to find out?" Hey, this might work for G54 girl with wolf friend, too!
Unfortunatly, Foxy-Boy wasn't it either. If I recall correctly, I think the girl may have become a fox in the end, but I'm not ever 405 possitive about that. Thanks for trying!
I. M. Chilton, Nightmare, 1971, approximate.  I think this might be the book you're searching for  -- I looked for it for years too!  Girl is in motorbike accident and gets sent back in time as an old woman in a forest.  She finds a fox tail, which she wants to sell to have food for the winter.  The fox (evil spirit) starts haunting her.  She travels back & forth in time, trying to convince everyone in her 'real world' that she's not crazy.
L.M. CHILTON, NIGHTMARE, September 1971, copyright.  95 page short story excellent.

Frank Herrmann, Giant Alexander series.  One of these?
G188 It may be one of the series but it is not Herrmann The giant Alexander in America. He holds a little friend Timmy in his shirt pocket - if that helps identify the book as one of the series.

See T59 for some suggestions.
Lucy Sprague Mitchell, The Golden Book of Nursery Tales (Silly Will), 1948.  This sure sounds like "Silly Will" by Lucy Sprague Mitchell,  except it's a little boy, instead of a girl. But it does have the  same theme of ungratefulness, with the trees taking back the wood from his house, the sheep taking back their wool, the goose taking back the feathers from his pillow, etc. This story appears in The Golden Book of Nursery Tales (A Big Golden Book) published by Simon & Schuster in 1948. The illustrations are black and white, except for one full-page color picture of Will standing naked & shivering in front of where his house used to be, at night, with all the animals and the trees in the background.  Picture is in dark tones.  The story was also published in The Here and Now Story Book pub. by E.P. Dutton & Co.

Here are two to look up on the Solved Mysteries page:  George the Gentle Giant by Adelaide Holl (1960) and Arnold Lobel's  Giant John (Harper & Row, 1964).
G192  Your friend may be thinking of THE BIGGER GIANT: AN IRISH LEGEND retold by Nancy Green, illustrated by Betty Fraser, 1963, 1966. Scholastic Book Club put out a paperback version. It may also be worth looking at FIN M'COUL by Tomie DePaola but it looks like it may have been printed in 1981. If not, it may help to know that the smaller giant is Fin M'Coul (or Finn MacCoul), his clever wife's name is Oonagh, and the bigger giant is Cucillin.~from a librarian
The story is called "Fin M'Coul," and it appears in They Were Brave and Bold (Book 5 of the Wonder Story Books readers). This book also contains the stories Pecos Bill, Beowulf, The White Cat, Sinbad, The Girl Who Hunted Rabbits & others.  Cover is dark blue, w/ Pecos Bill riding Mtn Lion on front cover, old man on flying tractor on back cover.  Fin M'Coul also appears in Celtic Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs.  Hope this helps.

I keep thinking of Ghost Garden by Hilda Feil, but I've never read it, so can't say for sure.  There is a good description under "Solved Mysteries."
The book definitely isn't Ghost Garden by Hila Feil.  In the book described, the girl who befriends the hippy girl is very straight laced.  She goes to the hippy's house and the girl has an enormous room which she can skate in - but she doesn't have her parent's love.
Konigsburg, Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth.  I know that the description doesn't immediately fit, but I think this is the book you're thinking of.
This is not Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth... and Me, Elizabeth which takes place during fall and winter in a large city, probably New York. It sounds more like The Birds of Summer, but in that book the children's mother is the one who is hippie-like and they live with her.  Set in the 1980s, the novel tells the story of Summer Mclntyre, who lives with her mother. Oriole, and her sevenyear-old sister, Sparrow, in Alvarro, California. Oriole harbors romantic visions of getting back to nature and living the simple life, but she depends upon welfare to raise her family. The Mclntyres live in a wooded area in a trailer that they rent from their friends and neighbors, the Fishers. The Fishers own some greenhouses in which they grow strawberries and tomatoes to sell in town.
Mary Francis Shura, Maggie in the Middle (The Seven Stone)  I remember this book, the friend's room is painted blue with astrological signs or starts on it.  She learns about runestones from one of the friends too.
Wylly Folk St. John, The Ghost Next Door (1981, approximate)  I remember clearly the owl with "love" in its eyes.  The girl went to visit family and met the ghost of her half-sister who had drowned.  There was an owl figurine which her sister had made that solved a mystery.

Rachel Field, Polly Patchwork, ca 1928.  This might be Polly Patchwork, a short story included in The Junior Classics Volume 6,  1958 edition.  Polly is a little girl who lives with her grandmother.  They are very poor, and the grandmother makes Polly a dress out of an old patchwork quilt, telling Polly stories about family members who contributed squares to the quilt.  When Polly wears the dress to school, the kids make fun of her, but in a spelling bee Polly looks at one of the squares and gets help from an ancestor in spelling Mississippi.
Hmmm ... That sounds like it should be it, but I don't think it is. I distinctly remember "green," as in a green dress or coat.
I don't remember the title or author but the story I'm thinking of was part of a larger book like a reader.  The girl's family might have been Quaker or Amish or something like that because she says that her mother knew how to make beautiful dresses without ruffles or trim.  Another family loses their home (a fire?) and the girl volunteers to give her dress away.  Her family is surprised but she actually means to give her everyday dress so she can wear her new green one.  Her grandmother makes her fetch her new dress to give away and she grumbles to herself because her everyday dress should be good enough for that other girl.  The story had a turn-of-the-century feel like a Laura Ingalls Wilder (although it was not the Little House series).  Hope this is the story and gives a few more clues.
I remember reading a bioliography of Susan B. Anthony that describe that story.  It also had a story about her working in her father's thread mill, and seeing it as unfair that young girls work hard and their father would take their earnings.  She had gotten the job after wishing on a star for something excited to do.  Also after she gave away her new dress she actually felt happy because she didn't need to worry about keeping her new dress prefect.  It seems that I remember the bioliography as part of a nonfiction series of varies American heros, Presidents, Presidents wives or mothers.  Hope this help.
Monsell, Helen,  Susan B. Anthony : champion of women's rights.  This is the story that I was thinking of but I don't know if the dress was green.  The grandmother is the one who tells Susan B. Anthony that she can't give her old dress away.  The girl who receives the new dress just had her mother die after a long illness so the mother had not been able to take care of the family for a long time.  At the end, Susan is happy because her old dress is comfortable and she wouldn't have been able to jump across the creek if she had been wearing the new one (for fear of getting it dirty).

Carolyn Haywood, Betsy and the Circus
Make-believe daughter, 1972.  I'm not sure why this one comes to mind, but you can see a copy of it on this website.  It's about three friends, all named Matilda (except they have different nicknames), and I'm pretty sure one of them has some kind of oddball family background such as being circus performers.

That sounds so familiar... but it's not Best Loved Doll or the others I just checked....
Barbara Chapman, Santa's Footprints, 1948.  If this is the same book you people solved for me some time ago!  It sounds very similar to the short story The Wonderful Mistake.
Thanks for your suggestion, but I just looked up The Wonderful Mistake, and I'm afraid that's not it.  In the book I'm looking for, the first girl (not rich per se, just middle-class) is given a beautiful new doll, and invites her friends over so she can show it off. The poor girl is somehow invited also, though I don't think she is liked by the others. Possibly the first girl's mother made her invite the poor girl? Or maybe the girl just invited her whole class and the poor girl tagged along? Anyway, the doll disappears, and everyone assumes the poor girl stole her - which she may have done, I don't recall. The doll is later anonymously returned to its owner, but the first girl meanwhile gains some understanding of or sympathy for the poor girl. She decides (perhaps with some urging from her mother or some other relative?) to give the poor girl one of her own dolls, and selects the new one, rather than an older (but well-loved) doll. She might even have dropped the doll off anonymously for the poor girl? The story takes place during the winter time, at or shortly before Christmas. I seem to recall the first girl walking home through a light snowfall after giving away her doll.  The book itself was fairly small, I think with a blue cloth-covered binding, and the writing on the cover may have been in silver.  It was mostly text, but I think there were small line drawings on the first page of each chapter, above the text. There may have also been some larger line drawings scattered throughout the text, but I don't think there were any color pictures. (Despite the choice of keeping the old, well-loved doll, this is not The Best Loved Doll, either.) I'm almost positive that the book was a single story, not a collection of short stories. Thanks for your help!

This seems too obvious, but could it be Goodnight, Moon?  It's been years since my son and I read it, but maybe?
What a wonderful tribute to Goodnight Moon, but the words "I love you" do not appear in the book.
Thanks for the reply but unfortunately it is not Goodnight Moon.  My daughter did remember that on the page that said "goodnight mother, I love you" was the picture of a little girl in bed telling her mother goodnight.  She also remembered that it was not a "Golden Book" (it was smaller in size) or hard bound book.  Any and all input is appreciated.  Thanks.
Lynn and Mandy Wells, The Goodnight Book (1974)  The book The Goodnight book published by Tell a Tale books in 1974 by Lynn and Mandy Wells.  Starts out "Goodnight Red sun, goodnight stars, goodnight bus goodnight cars...
Lynn and Mandy Wells, The Good Night Book, 1974, copyright.I have this book -- it too was one of my favorites as a little girl and it took me a long time to track down a copy. It's about a little girl getting ready for bed and she's saying "Good night" to everything she sees like the sun, the things and people she can see out the window. Then she says hello to her bed and good night to her stuffed animals and her baby sibling then she says "Good night, Mother. I love you!" and a few more good nights before she falls asleep.

Just wanted to add that I think the Green Glassy of the story title, which I believe was a snow globe, had inside of it the figure of a bear. I remember being awed by the the b&w illustration of the bear inside the snow globe (I was 5 or 6 I think).  I am still hoping someone remembers this story.
Mary Grannan, Just Mary Stories.  Just Mary was a radio personality in Canada.  This book which has both the skating mice and the Bear in the Glassy is a combination of two of her books - Just Mary and Just Mary again.

Try looking at some of Joan Aiken's adult novels from the 1970's - there was one that seems similar - the girl was a musician or music teacher and there was some kind of mystery subplot.
The Greengage Summer.  I'm not sure of the author, maybe Penelope Mortimer.  I think this could be your book.
Greengage Summer is by Rumer Godden and is definitely NOT the book you are searching for.

Flanders, Rebecca, Yesterday Comes Tomorrow.  Harlequin 1992.  I'm dubious about this one, but it's the closest I've found so far. "It began as a simple mystery weekend. Then the present and the past merged, and Amelia Langston was back in 1870 on the Aury Plantation with Jeffrey Craig, the prime suspect in a murder. There she discovered everything that had been missing from her life...excitement, adventure, rapture with the man of her dreams...Jeffrey. Was this a fantasy or a frightening reality?"
Thank you for your help and the attempt at a solution.  I don't believe that there was a murder and it didn't have a plantation.  It was almost from a Victorian time.  I have other details, too if it helps:  There was a nutty professor in the book who invented things.  He made a kind of washing machine and a toilet.  As the book unfolds, you learn that the professor had also come through the sundial.  He wasn't inventing things, he was re-inventing things.   In the story there were 2 brothers.  The hero was the black sheep of the family.  When the girl had gone back in time she knew some of the characters and the plot of the mystery regarding the stolen necklace.  She was very suspicious of the black sheep brother.  I really believe that the word Time was in the title.  I thought the name was A Stitch in Time.   The girl had been fired as a travel agent, but had received the invitation to a murder mystery weekend at a new B&B.  She brought her best friend.  Every other guest for the weekend had a title.  She was called the Mysterious Lady.  She thought that she was gypped.  It turns out she was playing herself in the mystery.  I come home from teaching every day and I look to see if one of your readers remembers.  I have faith in your site!  It'll happen.  My sister is sending a couple stumpers your way, too.

..., Gold Heart (Guld Hjerte).  I just read an interview with the director Lars von Trier who said that all of his movies are influenced by a book called Gold Heart -- I wonder if it's the same one? "It tells the tale of a little girl who lives in a lonely cabin in the woods who one day goes out into the forest and gives away everything she has. In the end, broke, cold, and alone in the woods, at what should be her deepest moment of despair, a mysterious power favors her with wealth  and the boy she gave her sweater to turns out to be a prince, who marries her for her kind heart."
G216 Poster may want to see a picture of a Danish version on which a filmmaker based a movie (online here).
Grimm, Star Money.  This should be in any full collection of Grimms fairy tales.  it may be under a different name but Star Money is the title I've seen.
Grimm, The Falling Stars, 1985.  Illustrated by Eugen Sopko.  A beautiful picture book version of Star Money by Grimm.
May be out of print as I got my copy years ago.  It is a great story for the Christmas holidays. The story of Star Money is used in many Waldorf schools around that time of year.

Brown, Margaret Wise, Margaret Wise Brown Storybook? 1950s?  In this large Golden book of stories (the name of which I can't remember exactly, but I have it at home) is a story about a little BOY who doesn't want to take a bath.  He goes outdoors to see how the cat, the pig, etc. take their baths and in the end decides to be a little boy and take a bath in the bathtub.  Might be what you're thinking of.

James Thurber, The Great Quillow,  1973.  perhaps...
David L. Harrison, The Book of Giant Stories, 1970's.  The book cover is green with a giant on the front.  It contains three different stories about three different giants.  I also had this book as a child in the 70's...I hope this is the one you are looking for!

Jessamyn West, Leafy Rivers. Not 100% sure, but a possibility.

Late 70's.  It was definitely a witch, and I think she was trying to be a little girl.
Anna Elizabeth Bennett, Little Witch. I don't remember Minikin (Minx) baking cookies, but thought I'd suggest Little Witch anyway. Maybe the stumper requester could look at Solved Mysteries, to rule it out?
I remember this book too, but unfortunately no more details.  I think you're right that the witch baked these green and purple cookies for Parent Night or Back-to-School Night.  I think the rest of the parents who were there found them very unappetizing (they were lumpy and misshapen too).  The witch might have been hiding the fact that she was a witch, and trying to go to school like an ordinary girl -- that might be why she didn't ask her parents to make the cookies, because either they didn't know or didn't approve?  I would have read it in the 70's.

G247  Storey, Margaret.  Timothy and two witches.  illus by Charles W Stewart    Dell Yearling, 1966. popular British story about children, witches, a dragon
This book is definitely not Timothy and Two Witches, due to the plot explanation on the Solved page. This book is written for an older age group, but I can't remember the name... :(
I bought Timothy & 2 witches - definitely not the right book :-(
Alison Farthing, The Mystical Beast. I think this may be the same as "E108: Evil witches, good dragon" which seems very similar--right down to the blue pudding.  Someone posted there that it was The Mythical Beast.  Worth checking out, I would think.

{Young Mutants} or {Young Aliens}, 1984.  I don't remember anything about a teenage girl anthology, so this story appears to have been printed in a book of short stories with a different focus. Regardless, it's there.  This story is either part of Young Mutants (possible) or Young Extraterrestrials.  Contents at the bottom of this webpage. Young Extraterrestrials cover (big).  Young Mutants cover (big).It could also be other books in the Young series, but I think it's one of those two.
Series listed here, although I disagree with the review content.
Brock, No Flying in the House.  This story is about a girl who feels different and finds out she's a fairy (she can kiss her elbow). There's a little magical dog as well.
Kris Neville: Bettyann (1970). This is indisputably the science fiction classic Bettyann. When a "car accident" (actually a spaceship crash, I think) kills her parents and damages her arm she's adopted by an old couple. As a teenager she has an instinct to heal sick people. Her real family find her and tell her everything. They are shapeshifters and show her how to restore her arm. They take it for granted she will want to come back with them, but she changes into a bird and flies back to her earthly home.  It is somber, as you said, but beautiful. There is a sequel called Bettyann's Children.

Thanks to the people who have sent suggestions. The book definitely isn't No Flying in the House. The story I'm thinking of is fairly somber. I'll try to find a copy of the Young... books. They sound promising.

Palmer Brown, Beyond The Paw Paw Trees, 1954. This is a long-shot but there is something like this in Beyond the Paw Paw Trees by Palmer Brown, from 1954. The girl's name is Anna Lavinia, she travels on a train and is given, I think, some kind of food by an old woman. Whether or not it's jelly donuts, I can't confirm right now, since my Mom has the book. Do "lavender blue days" a cat named Strawberry and floating down to the ground with an umbrella after jumping off a cliff sound familiar?
Dorothy Canfield, Understood Betsy, 1930's, approximate.  In this book, there is a chapter where Betsy and Molly go to the fair and the people they are supposed to ride home with leave without them.  Betsy earns the money for train tickets by running the donut booth so the girl can go to dance with her boyfriend for an hour.  When the girl comes back, she hands Betsy a bag of donuts.  "Take all you want," she says.  "Momma'll never miss 'em."  Later on, the 2 little girls are riding on the train and eating the donuts.  Maybe this is your book?

Catherine Storr, Marianne Dreams. The link has a synopsis of the story.  Doesn't quite match the description in the stumper, but some how it feels like it might be the book being looked for.  I read the book a while ago.  Our local library no longer has a copy, but wasn't a movie made of it a year or two ago? Link.
Thanks for the feedback, but this book is definitely not Marianne Dreams. I do remember Marianne Dreams though, as it was a TV series in England during the Seventies, and I was disturbed by the rocks with eyes. I also thought it silly that she drew a lighthouse as a light source to aid their escape, instead of a constant source of light.

Kate Seredy, The Good Master. How about this or The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy?
Kathryn Worth, They Loved to Laugh. A deluge of ripe apples is Martitia's introduction to the five fun-loving Gardner boys when their father, Dr. David, brings the sixteen-year-old orphan girl to the hospitable Gardner home in North Carolina.
They Loved to Laugh. This is about a young girl, Martitia(?), who goes to live with relatives who have a house full of boys. Her aunt always says, "Every tub must stand on its own bottom" and the boys make her think she is eating dog meat.
Daringer, Helen F., Adopted Jane.  Wonderful book about an orphan who goes to stay with an older woman, then stays with a lively family on a farm and has to decide if she will stay there or return to the woman.
Thank you.  They loved to laugh could indeed be a possibility and it's good to know that it's been reprinted.  I will obtain a copy very shortly & will respond further then.  I had considered Kate Seredy's books before, but the descriptions don't sound right nor the Hungarian setting.  I am very sure this story takes place entirely in the USA.
Carol Brink, Caddy Woodlawn. I wonder if this MIGHT be "Caddy Woodlawn"?  Caddy herself lives on a farm with her siblings however, some cousins from the city visit, and there's a lot of adjustment and "growing up," including "goading" of each other. (As I recall, Caddy's a tomboy and the girl cousins aren't, which leads to problems.)  The "mood" and time you described seemed right, so I wondered if maybe your memory had inadvertently "reversed" the plot, remembering the more common plot where the protagonist goes to the cousins' farm instead of having cousins come to hers.  Since you've tried so many other books with no luck, I thought I'd suggest this.
Louisa M. Alcott, Eight Cousins. A long shot -- but perhaps this is it?  There is a hoard of cousins ... the pre-teen Rose is left with her uncle, there is a great deal of health-regaining and romping about.
Thank you for these additional tips!  I will give Adopted Jane a try and take another look at Caddie Woodlawn and also the sequel Magical melons.  I had dismissed "Caddie" for the very reason you stated, but one never knows how memory can play tricks!
Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. This is probably a long shot, as it's such a well-known book, but is there any chance this could be Anne of Green Gables or one of its sequels?
Irene Hunt, Up A Road Slowly.  This one kind of fits. The character is named Julie. She goes to live with her aunt after her mother dies. The book covers her life from age 7 to age 18 or so.
Louisa May Alcott, Eight Cousins.  This is a far out in left field suggestion but it does involve hoards of cousins.  Rose is orphaned and is sent to live with her father's aunts in San Francisco.  She befriends her 7 boy cousins and they have adventures that include sailing, gardening, visiting the country, etc.  She spends a great deal of time adjusting to her new life since she has spent most of her life in a girls' boarding school.
Thanks for more suggestions.  No, it's not Eight Cousins or any of L.M. Montgomery's books.  My sense is that the author is much more obscure and that's one reason I can't pin down this book.
What about Jennie Lindquist's books: The Golden Name Day, The Little Silver House, and The Crystal Tree? Maybe too young, but have the feel that you're looking for. Nine-year-old Nancy is sent to live with her Swedish grandparents for a year. I wanted flowered wallpaper and a sewing basket for years after reading these books.
Elizabeth Witheridge, Never Younger, Jeannie, 1963.
Wow! It's great to have so many possibilities and to re-read and get acquainted with some excellent books.  I am working my way through all your suggestions.  Unfortunately, I know now that my long lost book is not either of the Caddie books, which are simply wonderful stories.  In fact, I am wondering if my unknown writer writes as well as some of these others.  I think my adult self may be alot more critical of a very sentimental, sweet, and even overwrought story which I suspect I am looking for. It may also be written even earlier than I think - two reasons why I am doubtful about Up a road slowly which is next in line.  Thank you again to everyone, and I will continue to keep you posted.
Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs.  This is a total long shot. Only part of this book takes place on a farm. The protagonist's name is Judy & she is an orphan. She did wear gingham uniforms in the orphanage... She is older when she is on the farm-- she is sent to college by a mysterious benefactor. The book is epistolary, very sweet & wholesome. Something about your description triggered thoughts of this book. As I said-- a long shot. But a good read anyway!
No, it's not Daddy Long Legs although it was a fun read - skimmed through the online version and want to come back to it later. I'm still waiting for more of your suggestions to arrive in concrete form as ordered books. Alas, need to be reading nothing but school books before too very long, so all this enjoyable detective work will have to be put on hold for awhile!
Never younger, Jeannie just arrived today.  There is nothing familiar about the look of it, but just in skimming through the text it certainly has the "right feel", as does Up a road slowly.  I have now also had a chance to glance through the Lindquist books - yes, they look too young & the stories don't fit what I remember, but am sure they are a delightful read. Like a number of other readers/contributors to this site, I am beginning to wonder if my memory hasn't juxtaposed two (or more?) books, so still not solved with the books to date. This is a truly remarkable service you offer, Harriett, and I thank everyone for their interest & patience.
Alice Lunt, Eileen of Redstone Farm, 1964.  Probably not it, because this one takes place in Scotland or England, but otherwise it sounds similar.
Thank you for continuing to take an interest in my archived post!  I will order a copy of Eileen of Redstone Farm - you just never know... although you'd think I'd be able to remember this title since my name is also Eileen! I have enjoyed reading these books with a similar theme.  I did read They loved to laugh and thought it was a moving and well-written book, with a very similar feel to what I'm looking for, but alas not the one.  Of that I am very sure.
Frances Salomon Murphy, Runaway Alice. This could be it - Alice is an orphan who goes to live on a farm as a foster child.
Mabel Betsy Hill, Along Comes Judy Jo.  (1943)  Has the gingham and berries feel, but not sure if it's really a farm story or not.  Might be worth a try...
This isn't by any chance Bluebonnets for Lucinda, is it? Written by Frances Clark Sayers and first published in 1934 with illustrations by Helen Sewell. That is long out of print. One chapter was reprinted in pre-1966 Childcraft, the one where Lucinda's been told to stay away from the foul-tempered geese, but she finds that if she plays her music box the geese become interested in the music and calm down.
Once again, I do appreciate more suggestions for my post.  It still haunts me and I fear my memories are just too vague.  "Runaway Alice" and "Along comes Judy Jo" are charming books but not the one. "Bluebonnets for Lucinda" is not it either.
Gates, Doris, The Elderberry Bush. (1967)  Could you be looking for The Elderberry Bush by Doris Gates?  I am not sure what this book is about, but I have the dimmest memory of gingham and/or berries. Good luck!
Thank you again but it's not "Eileen of Redstone Farm", although you're right - it's similar, but the setting is wrong.  It's not "The elderberry bush" either, published too late.  I know I didn't read it any later than 1966. I think I need to be hypnotised for this one!  The name Pat, Patsy, or Patty seems to ring a faint bell also.  She may have been one of the cousins and Julie or Judy was the heroine or vice versa.

Rita Ritchie, Ice Falcon.  This sounds very much like the sort of book Ritchie wrote - it's not The Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan, so Ice Falcon may be a possibility, although I can't recall anything about it specifically.
G256. This book may be the one:  Knox, Esther Melbourne    Swift flies the falcon; a story of the first Crusade.    illus by Ruth King    E M Hale    1939   England - 11th century   Gareth and his sister Margaret [Meg] and some helpers spend many months with scarcely any provisions travelling from England to Jerusalem searching for their father, a Crusader. The pet falcon with them was a big help.
I'm the original poster and it's neither Ritchies' ICE FALCON, which I own and is set wholly in the north, nor the other which was only printed once, AFAICT, in 1939.  The book I'm trying to find was *new* in approx 1970-72.  THe school library copy was brand new with no dust jacket but a picture of the  falconer on the cover holding his white falcon.  He was in the Holy Land for most of the book, IIRC (which I may not).  Don't remember any family members being involved, either.  Just the falconer.  And a bit where he explained 'falco greenlandicus' to a Saracen.
S F Welty, Knight's ransom, 1951. Young Vahl Thorfinnsson, falconer to the son of the Duke of Burgandy accompanies Crusader's to Turkey on Crusade Expedition. To release the noble knights from bondage, he fights pirates & icebergs to obtain 11 Greenland falcons for the Sultan of Turkey.

G258 I don't know which collection the person is thinking of, but the poem could be James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" also published as "The Gobble-uns'll Git You Ef You Don't Watch Out!".
Don't know the book, but the part about the goblins sounds like James Whitcomb Riley's poem Little Orphant Annie ("An' the Gobble-uns'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out!").
James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), Little Orphant Annie, 1900. I think this is what you are looking for. It is a poem, and the refrain repeats the line "An' the Gobble-uns'll git you Ef you don't watch out." It tells what happened to children who didn't behave. For example, "Wunst they wuz a little boy who wouldn't say his prayers...". You can find the poem here http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1703.html Sometimes you see it as LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, and with the spelling corrected and not in dialect.
James Whitcomb Riley, Little Orphant Annie. This sounds like the refrain to Little Orphant Annie: "An' the Gobble-uns'll git you / Ef you / Don't / Watch / Out!"   The poem is online here.  I have no idea which anthologies it's in, but this should help a little.
Jane Werner (ed), The Big Golden Book of Poetry,1947.I betcha it's this one. I was looking for this same book, now that I have a two-year-old. I remember the James Whitcomb Riley poem (Little Orphant Annie). The artwork on that page used to scare the bejeebers out of me. I liked There Once Was a Puffin, especially. See here and search for Werne.

James Stephens, The Crock of Gold, 1920s.  "Meehawl MacMurrachu's old skinny cat kills a robin redbreast on the roof one day, forging the first link in a long, peculiar chain of events. For the robin redbreast is the particular bird of the Leprecauns of Gort na Gloca Mora, and the Leprecauns retaliate by stealing Meehawl MacMurrachu's wife's washing-board, and Meehawl asks the Philosopher who lives in the center of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca for advice in locating the washboard...and the chain leads on and on, up to Angus Og himself and to the country of the gods. Unique and inimitable, this is one of the great tales of our century." Could this be it? It's a great book - well worth a read anyway!
I don't know the book, but the story reminds me of the folk tale The King's Highway. A king builds a new road, and decides to have a contest to see who can travel the road the best. The contestants complain that there's a pile of rocks in the road finally one weary traveller comes carrying a box of gold that was hidden under the rocks. He wins, of course, because "he who travels best is the one who smooths the way for others." 

Margot Benary-Isbert, The Ark.  Definitely the book.

Piet Worm, Three Little Horses At The King's Palace.  This book is extra-tall, features three girls and three ponies, one of each with red/brown hair, blond/white hair, and black hair.  There is a circus man with a mustache in this book, but no whale-shaped submarine or land with balloons.  However, there was a prequel to this book called Three Little Horses and that might have those things.

Otto Whittaker, The true story of the tooth fairy (and why brides wear engagement rings), 1968.  "Because a little boy and girl share their humble supper with a beggar, they become the tooth fairies responsible for the money left whenever a child loses a tooth and for the diamond engagement rings brides wear."

Marlys Millhiser, The Mirror, 1978.  This might be it  a similar query was posted on anothr forum.
Marlys Milheiser, The Mirror
Marlys Millhiser, The Mirror, 1978.  The night before her wedding, Shay Garrett and her grandmother, Brandy switch bodies, sending Shay back to 1900.
I hate to disagree with the solution to this stumper, but I know The Mirror well (I even have an autographed copy!), and while the plot of the stumper is close to The Mirror, there are several signifigant differences between the two, and I do not believe that this stumper is solved. The daughter and the grandmother switch places in the stumper story AND in The Mirror, but those are the only two things the two books have in common. Here is what happens in The Mirror. First, the name of the two women who switch places are Shay and Brandy. Shay is the modern girl, just about to be married to a guy named Mark, and she switches places with her grandmother, Brandy, the old fashioned girl, on the eve of her wedding.  Second, the grandmother, Brandy, was never raped. The Mirror is very clear on the fact that Brandy was a virgin when she was married. (The doctor comes to examine her on her wedding night, because, by that time, Brady now has Shay's soul, and Shay is a bit dizzy and faint. In comes the doctor, who states very cleary that she is a virgin, and that her new groom has nothing to worry about.) Brandy (who is really Shay), marries Corwin, a Welsh miner, who is killed in a mining accident. Then Brandy/Shay marries a man (who is one part of a pair of twins) and she gives birth to a daughter named Rachel, who turns out to be Shay's mother. Shay never returns to the present day, and Brandy never returns to the 1900's. Shay is a modern girl with modern ideas living in the 1900's but she is not a black sheep, nor an outcast. Brandy, in the modern time, adjusts to living there, and ends up marrying Mark, the man Shay was originally going to marry. And that is the plot of The Mirror! If the original stumper stongly remembers a rape and an attempted abortion, a black sheep issue, and a return of the charactesr to the right year, then perhaps the stumper is asking about a different story than The Mirror.
Are you sure that the Mirror isn't the story?  In the story I remember (but didn't remember the title of), the grandmother Brandy wasn't raped, but Shay was pregnant when the switch was made, so Brandy had to go through the pregnancy.  Penny was the baby Shay had with the miner. From her 'future' she knew the baby wouldn't live to adulthood, so she tried to avoid getting pregnant (with a copper penny).  The baby was sickly and died after a few weeks.  Shay wasn't sickly then, but later had TB for years.
The Mirror (possibly).  Your description of the book definitely sounds like the plot of The Mirror to me, but the orignal stumper didn't. I had forgotten about the baby Penny, who died early on. It could be that the orignal stumper had remembered the baby being born of rape, even though she wasn't. Maybe the original stumper can shed some light!

Help! I'm a Prisoner in the Library!  Just a guess -  it's been years since I read it.
Catherine Woolley, Chris in Trouble, 1968. This could be Woolley's second book about Cathy Leonard's little sister Chris.  One day, she and a friend go inside her school when they're not supposed to and accidentally leave their dolls in a classroom.  They're locked in the school and have to climb out a window to get out.  Later, when Chris tries to retrieve the dolls without being seen, she tries to avoid the school's janitor.
Catherine Woolley, Chris in Trouble,1968.Could the book be Catherine Woolley's Chris in Trouble (part of her Cathy Leonard series)?  Nine year-old Chris gets into difficult situations one weekend such as sneaking into her school with a friend and then accidentally leaving their dolls behind.  There's a janitor they try to avoid.  And Chris has to avoid him again when she tries to retrieve the dolls undetected.

G274: Green boy with wings
I saw a book at a bookstore about a decade ago. On the cover was a girl with brown shoulder length hair, dressed in white clothes and holding a white orb in both her hands. She was standing on a giant leaf which was floating in water and being pulled by a green boy with dragon or faerie wings, and long black hair. The back of the book said that the girl was a princess and I think the boy was her pet, I'm not sure. There was also a sequel or a prequel to that book, which showed the boy flying in the air, and bellow them you could see the princess girl and a guy in armor next to her, and both of them were looking up at him. I hope that's enough to go on.

Norton, Andrew, Flight in Yiktor.  The "girl with orb" book is Flight in Yiktor, and the "boy flying while others watch" is probably Dare to Go A-Hunting.
Andre Norton, Flight in Yiktor, 1986.  The cover is as described, and it is one book in a series, but the plot is a little different: the girl is a sorceress and the green boy is a former slave she has rescued.

I'm not sure which book you have....  But here's a bio and bibliography for Bessie Pease Gutmann.

Zenna Henderson, The People.  Just finished reading the G281 stumper and have to say this sounds a lot like "The People" stories (I read them as short stories but I think they were all gathered into a book) by Zenna Henderson.  I read them a LONG time ago, 1960s, I think, so date does not fit, but everything else does.  A race of people with various powers must evict their planet and they crash-land on earth and are scattered.  The stories follow the experiences of the various alien characters and their encounters with the people of Earth. Written in a style that is both highly realistic and beautifully sensitive.  Don't remember the character who can see connections between people, though.  There was a boy who was learning how to fly who fell in love with an Earht girl, there was a baby named Lala by its finders, there were many others.  Even if this is not the solution, I consider this series as one of the best science fiction series of all time and definitely worth any reader's attention.
Orson Scott Card, The Memory of Earth.  A possibility: the first book of the Homecoming series. One of the girls in the book (Luet?)sees connections between people, and the characters have to leave the city of Basilica. (and, eventually, the planet) Other characters are called Nafai, Wetchik, Shedemei.
Zenna Henderson, Pilgramage/ The People Stories, 1967 - 1987.  This would be my first recommendation.  When one of the People comes of age, their natural "talent", or "gift", such as healing, sensing metals, "lifting" (flying) becomes apparent. The people must leave their disintegrating planet, and the ties between mother and daughter, and  husband and wife figure strongly in the decisions made for the evacuation. The grandmother in particular senses the ties between the women in her family, and how they change when her grandaughter realizes her love for a young man is as strong a tie as the love of her birth family. This is a compilation of short stories previously published in other sources. The complete People collection is published as Ingathering: The complete People stories of Zenna Henderson.
Zenna Henderson, The People - No Different Flesh.  The name of the short story in the series that deals with the evacuation of the home planet is called "Deluge," originally published in 1963.
I think this is not a People story. I've read Ingathering (all the People stories, including unpublished ones), and there's nothing about being able to "see connections between" people. Possibly part of the reason it sounds like Henderson is that the first People story is about a woman who discovers she is a "Sorter" -- she can see *into* people, into their deepest psychological processes. (In later stories, we find Sorters can rearrange and erase people's memories, too.) My guess is that the Orson Scott Card book is it. Thanks for having this service!
Orson Scott Card, Homecoming.  This is the book you're looking for.  There's a series of six books, but it's in "Homecoming" that she can see connections.  Gold strands for some, silver for others.  Still available in paperback.  I always remember that description. :)

I'm wondering if this could be one of Janice May Udry's books? I believe her books were read on Captain Kangaroo a lot. I'm not sure which one it is, however. At first I thought it was Let's Be Enemies, but that's not it.
You may want to look at the books by Phyllis Krasilovsky, as well. Hope it helps.
I still haven't found this book----more memories of book the main character would alway try to do things but did it wrong...her friend always did it right...thus the jealousy

Lois Duncan, I Know What You Did Last Summer,1973.  Possibly? Julie, her boyfriend, and 2 friends hit a boy on a bike while driving back from a picnic and later find out he died. Julie wasn't driving, they were in a normal car and Julie doesn't work at a flower shop, but the person who stalks the friends a year later figures out who she was by asking at the flower shop where she ordered yellow roses for the boy's funeral and sent them without a name. Her boyfriend was in the car with her and thus knows all about it, but he leaves town soon after and doesn't come back until a year later, and at the end they decide together that they need to come clean about the hit-and-run.
Lois Duncan, I know what you did last summer.  There is a similar situation in this book but there are four people involved in the hit-and-run that kills a boy on his bicycle. Julie and her three friends take a vow of secrecy but she receives a mysterious message saying "I know what you did last summer."  Suddenly all four of them become targets of revenge.
Hope Dahle Jordan, Haunted Summer, 1969.  I am absolutely positive the book you are looking for is Haunted Summer by Hope Dahle Jordan. Rilla Martin is a teenage girl who is working a summer job delivering flowers to save money for college. On a rainy night she hits something and it turns out to be a boy on his bike. She takes him to the hospital and runs away and they think she is a boy. She feels guilty all summer and tells her boyfriend. He eventually convinces her to go to the police. The boy does not die.

Lynne Reid Banks, Fairy Rebel, 1988.  The fairy gets the colors mixed and has to do an emergency fix to make sure the baby doesn't have blue hair. Later there is trouble with the Fairy Queen who had forbidden contact with humans.
Lynne Reid Banks, the Fairy Rebel, 1985.  My daughter and I believe this is the book.  The name of the fairy is Tiki and she helps Jan have a baby.  This makes the queen fairy very angry.
Lynne Reid Banks, The Fairy Rebel.  Your description about the fairy using her power to create a child for a human sounds a lot like this book. The fairy is punished by the (bad) fairy queen for helping a human. I don't think there's anything about the human woman knowing the fairy as a child. We do, however, get to see the child the fairy creates for the woman grow up to about the age of 10. I read this book in the early 90's in upper elementary school.

Scott O'Dell, The Island of the Blue Dolphins, 1961.  The pencil stub is out, but this Newberry winner is the best girl Crusoe tale ever, based on the true story of a Native American girl who managed to survive alone on an island off the Californian coast for 18 years. Magic!  Some images which may help: as her people are being evacuated from the island, she dives off the boat and swims back to be with her brother - who dies shortly afterward;  she makes a beautiful dress of green-black cormorant feathers;  she tames a feral, wolflike dog (and then his son) who keeps her company and helps her hunt. There was a spate of wonderful lone child survivor stories I read growing up in the 60s and 70s... others include Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry, My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George... great stuff!
Monique Peyrouton de Ladebat, The Village That Slept, 1965 (American ed.).  Could this be The Village That Slept?  The girl is not alone -- there is a boy and also a baby, all victims of a plane crash in the Pyrenees.  They find shelter in a recently deserted village, and eventually find a dog, cow, sheep, and chickens too.  Their names (which at first they don't remember) are Lydia and Franz.  They are ingenious at surviving, and after a year or two are found and rescued.
Mazer, Island Keeper, 1982, copyright.  Not sure if this is it, but plot is similar to your search.
Brink, Carol Ryrie, Baby Island. Re G294, this is quite a long shot, because the most important detail, the fact that your heroine is alone, doesn't match, but several other things do.  Could you maybe be thinking of "Baby Island" by Carol Ryrie Brink?  In this book, 12 year old Mary and her 10 year old sister Jean are stranded on a deserted island with four babies under the age of 2 after the ship on which they were passengers begins to sink.  While drifting in a lifeboat, Jean's disorganized pockets turn up a stubby pencil, among other odds and ends, and the girls discover a good supply of canned food in the lifeboat, including canned milk, which they feed to the youngest baby, Jonah.  When they run aground on the island, they find things to eat like bananas, coconuts, crabs and clams.  They build a teepee out of the lifeboat's sail, and ingeniously construct other things like a pram that they can pull the babies around in, and even make dishes out of coconut shells (think Giligan's Island minus the idiocy).  Jean starts writing letters to their

Aunt Emma by putting them in the empty food cans and letting them float away.  They discover a hermit named Mr. Peterkin living in a hut, which he somewhat reluctantly shares with them after a storm destroys the teepee.  They are eventually rescued by their father and the fathers of the babies.  This little gem was originally written in 1937, and was reprinted by Scholastic Book Services in 1965, which is when I found it.  As I said, this is a long shot, but the pencil stub, the hut, the very few things and the ingenuity all match.  Good luck with your search! 

Joan Aiken, A Necklace of Raindrops, 1968.  Could it be a story from the collection A Necklace of Raindrops?  It has the silouette illustrations, but it's a series of short stories...with children in magical situations.

Elizabeth Hamilton Friermood, Circus Sequins, circa 1968.  A real longshot!  From what I remember, the girl in this book has flaming red hair, which people make fun of.  She's good with horses, and somehow ends up in a circus as a bareback rider, where she makes a green dress which shows off her red hair and everyone thinks she's beautiful.  At the end of the summer, she has to decide if she should stay with the circus or go back to the country and marry her boyfriend, who had supported her through all the teasing.  Maybe worth a try, anyway!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I know that's not it.  The fabric for the dress was the same color as a leaf the girl found (I think) and was intended to match her hair, so it's some variety of brown/reddish brown.  Definitely not green.  And I think the girl is of the 10-14 year old range, not marriage material.  Thanks for helping.

I've been looking for this book for years i remember the girl with red hair freckles plays in the woods with her friend, barefoot has her first period talks with a southern accent written in the 60's or 70's.

C.S. Adler, Goodbye Pink Pig. Worth a shot- the girl has an unhappy home life and imagines adventures with her animal figurines.

Cynthia Voight, Izzy Willy-Nilly, 1986.  This is probably not the book, but there are some similarities. The girl was in a drunk-driving accident, and had to have one of her legs amputated at the knee. Have a look online and see if this is the book.
Babbis Friis, Kristy's courage, 1965.  Translation of a Norwegian book (Kjersti) and published by Harcourt, Brace & World in the US.  A little girl has problems adjusting to school life after an automobile accidnt disfigures her and causes her to have a speech impediment
I checked out those two books and neither of them are the book.  I also remembered a few days ago that the girl was a cheerleader before her accident.
Barbara Conklin, I Believe In You, 1984.  This could be the book that you are describing. Some parts don't match, the girl's brother isn't bothered by her accident and she wasn't a cheerleader. I can't remember for sure how she had the accident but in this book the girl's name is Penny Snow and she injured her hip and leg. She used to be a great swimmer. She's afraid to exercise in any way now because she used to be great at all kinds of sports and now she would be average or less. She goes out to Oregon to help her grandfather move to a rest home, meets a boy who teaches her how to believe in herself and how to run. She competes in 6 mile race at the end. It's #67 in the teen romance series Sweet Dreams. Hope this helps.
Could this be a nonfiction book?  I remember a true story - very inspiring - of a young girl named Kristie or Christy or Kristy (!) who was hit by a car while walking or running.  I vividly remember she was knocked out of her shoes.  The books told of her rehab, and relearning all the basics of living.  I'll do some sleuthing and see if I can find it.  I think the title was just the girl's name.
Funny! I just got off the phone with my mother and she said it WAS a non fiction book, but she couldn't remember the name either. Thanks!
Barbara Miller, Kathy, 1980.  The Millers were a typical American family until the day a speeding car left 13-year-old Kathy critically injured, in a coma from which the doctors said she might never recover! How Kathy won back her health, gave her family the gift of faith, and ran in an international marathon less than six months later.
Collins, Joan, Katy, 1982.  This book tells the story of actor Joan Collins daughter Katy, who is injured in a bike accident and deals with her rehabilitation.  I remember reading it when I was about 10 or 11 near the time of publication.

Albert G. Miller, The Pop-Up Tournament of Magic,1968.

Alfred Hitchcock (nominal editor), Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful, 1961.  The first story described is "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall" by John Kendrick Bangs.  This has been anthologized many times, but the only appearance of it in a Hitchcock anthology is in HAUNTED HOUSEFUL.  I think the second story listed may be "Let's Haunt a House" by Manly Wade Wellman, which is the first story in the anthology.  It also contains one Sherlock Holmes story -- "The Red-Headed League."  The cover as described isn't the cover I'm familiar with, but there may have been other editions.
Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted House, early 60s.  Hi, I may have the solution to the G308 stumper.  Title may be Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted House.  I was a little hesitant to submit this as a solution because although the stumper's description of the book's date, size, number of stories, etc., all fit, the description of the cover does not.  My cover had a very scary illustration of Alfred Hitchcock's face coming out of the door of a obviously haunted house.  The cover art frightened me more than any of the stories!  Don't recall many of them but one that comes to mind is about some children convinced that a woman- perhaps an aunt, perhaps a nanny- whose name was "Wasywich" or similar, is a witch.  A black and white illustration to that story showed a thin woman with piercing eyes accompanied by some children. I am not sure but the Sherlock Holmes story called "The Red-Headed League" may have also been included in that book.

Robert A. Heimlein, Menace From Earth.  Many of the details sound like the novella/long short story "The Menace From Earth." Others sound like details from other Heinlein YA stories and novels. These have been fequently anthologised.

Lyn Cook, Pegeen and the pilgrim, 1957.  How about this one? I also vaguely remember a blue cover on the original. It was reprinted by Tundra Books in 2002.  Here's a synopsis from their website:  Twelve-year-old Pegeen lives in the sleepy town of Stratford. Money is tight since her father’s death, and she must help her mother run a boardinghouse. She even has to share a room with old Mrs. Leonard. Pegeen’s dreams of becoming an actress seem hopeless. Then an extraordinary thing happens – a Shakespearean festival is planned for Stratford. As the festival develops, so does Pegeen. She learns a great deal about Shakespeare, the boarders at home, and her circle of friends, including the mysterious pilgrim, Mr. Brimblecombe
Betty Cavanna, Stars in Her Eyes, mid-1950s.  Girl was named Magda...her Dad hosted a TV show in NYC and she wanted to be in the business.  Worked as a waitress on Cape Cod around the summer stock areas
Helen Dore Boylston, Carol plays summer stock, 1940s.  Maybe one of Helen Dore Boylston's series of 4 Carol books?  US titles are - Carol goes backstage, Carol plays summer stock, Carol on Broadway and Carol on tour. UK titles are - Carol goes on the stage, Carol in repertory, Carol comes to Broadway, Carol on tour.  I think they all have dustjackets with one colour surround and picture of Carol in the middle - can't remember which, if any, is blue. Although these are '40s not '60s, they were reprinted fairly often and I am sure would have been around in the '60s. Carol does quite a lot of growing up over the 4 books, and there is a romantic interest.
Janet Lambert, Up Goes the Curtain, 1946.  Maybe? This is one of the Penny Parrish books. She spends part of it working in summer stock, and then gets to be in a Broadway show, where she meets Josh MacDonald, the stage manager.
Betty Cavanna, Two's Company, 1951.  I think this book may be Betty Cavanna's Two's Company, in which the heroine does summer theatre in Williamsburg Virginia.
Marjory Hall, Straw Hat Summer, 1957.  Could this be Straw Hat Summer by Marjory Hall? Gail becomes interested in the theater when a summer theater group rents her family's barn to put on plays. Our copy has a picture cover with Gail standing and looking at the barn/theater.
Wow! You've already given me so many great ideas, and I'm off to investigate.  Straw Hat Summer sounds very familiar, and led me (through a mistyped google search) to the 1957 title Straw Hat Theater by Mickey Klar Marks...I'm also going to track down Summer Stock Romance (aka Polly's Summer Stock) by Elizabeth Wesley (Adeline McElfresh).  There are more possibilities than I'd anticipated!
Virginia Hughes, Peggy  Lane series.  I think this is a long shot, but there is a series of Peggy Lane books - Peggy Find the Theater, Peggy Plays Off Broadway,  and others that I can't recall, but one of them is about summer stock.
Rosamond DuJardin, Showboat Summer, 1955, copyright.  This is about twin girls, not just one girl, but could it be this? From the description: "A summer vacation aboard the Harwood College Showboat was an exciting prospect for Pam and Penny, the twins of Double Feature. To Penny, it meant being with Mike who had a job on the tugboat that pushed the old Regina from town to town along the Ohio River. To Pam it meant a chance to act, and perhaps a leading role in one of the gala showboat performances."
Tiffany, One Summer in Stock, 1947, copyright.  Here's another possiblity (I have this in my little bookstore, but haven't read it.)  Main character is Nan, and it appears to be a typical late teen romance novel of the 1940s-1950s.
Eleanor Shaler, Gaunt's Daughter,1957, approximate. Could it be Gaunt's Daughter?  The girl's mother, a theater actor, dies and to avoid moving in with her mother's Quaker relatives, she gets a summer stock job.  Turns out her estranged famous father is going to be there too.  At the end she has a family emergency with the Quaker family and gives up her father and the play to go to the hospital.

Witch's Sister by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, maybe? "Lynn's growing conviction that her sister is learning witchcraft from a neighbor reaches its peak when Lynn, her sister, and brother are left for a weekend in the neighbor's charge." I never read it, but ever since I heard a few details mentioned on the TV show Big Blue Marble, it's stuck with me.
It's not Witches Sister. That book is too new. The book I'm looking for is from the early '70's.
I haven't read The Witch's Sister by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, but it was written in 1975, so it's certainly worth examining.  It was reissued in paperback editions in 1993 and 2002, which may be why you think it's too new a book to be the one you're searching for.
I don't think it's Witch's Sister, either.  There's only one real witch in that book:  Mrs. Tuggle, although, she's trying to get Lynn's sister to become a witch as well.  No forest scene either.
G312 How abt this prequel to Witch's sister? I just cataloged it  yesterday: Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Witch water.  illus by Gail Owens. Atheneum, 1977.   Lynn is afraid her  friend “Mouse” will be made into a witch by Mrs. Tuggle - juvenile  fiction by an award-winning author
Is the poster really sure it's Witch Water or any in Naylor's series?  It's been a long time since I read those books, but I read them repeatedly way back when, and I don't remember any friendly witches (or, again, any real witch other than Mrs. Tuggle) or any broomstick riding.  Mrs. Tuggle's thing seemed to be more about control over people than about broomsticks.
Thanks for all the suggestions! I checked all the books by Naylor, and none of them are the one I'm looking for. I believe the cover showed a night scene of the sky, with a big moon, and a witch flying on a broom. It was also a pretty short story.
Patricia Coombs, Dorrie and.....   Could the girl actually have been a witch herself? Then it might be one of the Dorrie books by Patricia Coombs.
Chew, Ruth , The Wednesday Witch.  Could it be one of the Witch books written by Ruth Chew?  The scene you describe sounds familiar to me.  I read many of her books in the late 70's-early 80's and they were quick and easy to read. The cover for the Wednesday Witch also seems similar to your description - except the witch is on a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom.
I checked both of the above books- neither one is the one I'm looking for. I think the cover may have had more then one witch flying on a broom.
Adrienne Adams, The Halloween Party,1974.Is there any chance at all the main character was a little boy named Faraday (kind of an androgynous name)?  Your description made me think of The Halloween Party, and A Woggle of Witches, both by Adrienne Adams.  The cover shows a witch on a broomstick, flying across the moon with gremlin children behind her.

Rosemary Sutcliff, Mark of the Horse Lord  & Warrior Scarlet.  This is a long shot, but the description reminds me a little of Sutcliff's Mark of the Horse Lord.  It's about a gladiator who impersonates the prince of a British tribe and dies in the end (not wrapped in cloak though, and I don't remember if he was a net-and-trident fighter).  Warrior Scarlet is not about gladiators, but involves a red cloak (I think) and is by the same author.
While The Mark of the Horse Lord is about Phaedrus, a gladiator in Roman Britain who impersonates the lord of a northern tribe and nobly dies for "his" people, it was published in 1965, twenty years too late for the stumper requester.  Warrior Scarlet was written in 1958 and is also unlikely to be the book sought, particularly since there's no gladiator in it.  Warrior Scarlet is about Drem, a disabled boy (withered arm) who has to kill a wolf in order to attain manhood and the right to wear the warrior's scarlet of his Bronze Age tribe.
I'm sorry I don't have the answer, but I can tell you that the book you're looking for is probably not The Crimson Cloak by Lois Montross (1924), which is a volume of poetry.  It is also unlikely to be The Red Cape by Rachel M. Varble (1928), which is described online as the story of "A little girl [who] is taken into a peasant's home."

Might be Janet Lunn's Double Spell. It was originally published as Twin Spell.
Lunn, Janet, Double Spell. (1968) also published as Twin Spell.  This features twins, ghosts and dolls, however the twins are named Jane and Elizabeth and they buy the doll rather than find it under a tree.  Strangely attracted to an antique doll, twelve-year-old twins buy the toy and soon find themselves haunted by powerful and tragic memories of ancestral twins who had also been owners of the doll
Lunn, Janet, Twin Spell. (1968)  I think this is it. See the "Solved Mysteries".
Lunn Janet, Twin Spell, 2003, reprint. I am really certain that the doll and twin part of this stumper refers to Janet Lunn's Twin Spell, reprinted later as Double Spell.  It is a haunting book about twins Jane and Elizabeth who live in Ontario Canada and find a doll in an antique store which inexplicably seems to belong to them.  After they move into their Aunt Alice's mysterious old house, they begin finding themselves sharing the past experiences of two other twins, Anne and Melissa, who were their ancestors and lived in the house (which was smaller and did not have new additions built on it then) many years before.  They also have visions of a frightening girl named Hester who seemed to hate the earlier twins.  In the end they solve the mystery and discover that Anne had died in a fire (in a room they now use as an attic) that had been accidentally started by her cousin Hester, and that it is the ghost of Hester who is haunting the house.  They discover this just in time for Elizabeth to save Jane, who is trapped in the attic with the ghost.  I think the original stumper may have mixed up the plots of two different books by Janet Lunn.  She also wrote one entitled The Root Cellar in which the main character is a girl named Rose, who finds an old root cellar in the ground which leads her to ghostly experiences with a long ago family on the farm where she is staying. 

Kathryn Jackson (author), Richard Scarry (illustrator), The Strange Pitcher. (1955)  Possibly this one?  A little boy receives a strange pottery pitcher from his grandmother who lives in Italy.  The pitcher is made of pottery, "with odd-looking leaves on it, the colors of fruit, and fruit that was the color of leaves."  The little boy doesn't like it, but his mother says it matches with their dishes, and uses it to serve orange juice, milk, chocolate milk, or lemonade at their meals.  "Day after day, the little boy poured good-tasting things from the pitcher, and by and by, it didn't look strange any more."  Finally, he writes to his grandmother thanking her for the beautiful pitcher.  This story can be found on page 11 of The Golden Book of 365 Stories: A Story for Every Day of the Year (A Big Golden Book).  It is the story for January 6th.  Please note that this book has been reprinted numerous times with at least three different titles and covers.  The two other titles I've seen are: The Bedtime Book of 365 Stories: A Story for Every Day of the Year OR Richard Scarry's A Story A Day: 365 Stories and Rhymes.  Unfortunately, the pitcher isn't green (though it does have green on it), and while it is a gift, the boy doesn't receive it for his birthday.  Also, none of the covers I've seen for this book are brown or green---I've seen blue or white covers with pictures of animals or children on them.  So you may be looking for a different story in a different book---or your memories may have faded over time.
The more recent versions of The Golden Book of 365 Stories: A Story for Every Day of the Year may not be exactly what you remember.  Here's an online description: "Reissued after many years, this beautiful collection offers a year's worth of original stories and poems, including new selections for Hanukkah, Martin Luther King Day, and Kwanzaa."  Unfortunately, I can't figure out exactly when the changes were made!  I can tell you that the edition I have (from 1969) does contain "The Strange Pitcher" but I can't vouch for any edition later than that.

There is a page that sounds a lot like this in the book about the Yami of Yawn, with the main character Wide-awake Jake. Might this be it?
Thanks for the response, unfortunately "Wide-Awake Jake" (c. 1974) cannot be it, because I owned this book pre-1963.  My book may have been an anthology.  I have already checked the "Little Brown Bear" books.

This might help a little:  SRA Reading Series cards/booklets were once organized by color (I remember from the 1960s.)
SRA Reading Laboratory.  You are after the SRA Reading laboratory - there were several editions of these - I'm not sure which one you are after.  We had different boxes of stories for different grade levels. they're still being made by McGraw-Hill.
Ghost Cat.  i read a book called ghost cat that seems kind of like the one you described the one girl from the futer goes through her garden and finds a girl from the pasti dont remember much else about it but i think it was from a color coded series of some sort hope that helps

Watson, Nancy Dingman, The birthday goat. (1974) The Goat family enjoys its outing to the Carnival until Baby Souci goat is kidnapped

Could this be one of the Star Ka'at books by Andre Norton?  They were published in the 70s.  I don't remember much of the storyline, but the cats talked and were actually aliens.  They met a boy and girl on Earth, who helped them either fit in or get home. (My sister actually read the books, I think I just skimmed them.)  The cover of one of them had a girl imerging from a wall.  the illustrations were grey and misty-looking. Might be worth checking out, anyway.
Judith Goldberger, Looking Glass Factor. (1979) This book is in the solved mysteries section.  I read it a couple of years ago after reading the description when another reader was looking for it.  I am sure this is what you are looking for.  It is available at ABE and through interlibrary loan.

The description reminded me of a Ruth M. Arther book, but I couldn't find a title to match.  Does that author sound familiar to the original poster?

Nicola Smee, The Tusk Fairy. (1994)  Not sure if this is your book, but your description made me think of this one.  It was one of my daughter's favorites when she was little.  The elephant isn't polka dotted, though. But the girl is often wearing polka dot pants.  The grandma crocheted the elephant as a birth present for the girl, and it did everything the girl did - including learn to use the potty.  One day something dreadful happened to the elephant, but the grandma was able to fix it up.  Great Book! Even if it's not the one you're looking for!
Astrid Lindgren, Bill Bergson, Master Detective, 1946, copyright.This is from one of the Bill Bergson series of books, I don't know which one. Two groups of friends, the White Roses and the Red Roses, "war" over possession of a stone which they alternately hide. Other titles are Bill Bergson Lives Dangerously, and Bill Bergson and the White Rose Rescue.

Betty Sue Cummings, Hew Against the Grain,1977.This book is about a young girl named Mathilda.  It's set during the Civil War.  Mathilda's family is divided by the war.  She is attacked and raped by a neighbor during the last year of the war. Mathilda kills her attacker and learns to heal with the help of her grandfather.

Cora Annett, The Dog Who Thought He Was A Boy. (1965)  Ralph the dog wanted to be a boy, so the family let him.  The son finally got sick of not having a pet and told the dog that he was a dog.  Maybe the father's name was George?  The dog did wear clothes, go to school, etc.
Nope, nobody in Arnett is named George. I just read the whole book.
Phyllis Rowand, George Goes To Town, 1958. I dont think he wears clothes, but the dog's name is George, and the book is from the correct time frame.  Might be worth investigating, anyway.  Phyllis Rowand also wrote an earlier book about him, simply titled "George" (c. 1956)

Ottenheimer Press, My Giant Story Book. (1971) I'm pretty sure this is the book.  It is on the solved pages already (it was my original stumper!) and all the stories are there plus the Cinderella has the big flowers on her pink dress at the ball.  Only thing different is the cover but the book I received when I ordered was a completely different cover than I had.  Hope this is it.  Worth checking out.
Thank you, but I don't think it's "My Giant Story Book".  It looks like that one had Little Red Riding Hood in it, but the book I am looking for did not.  Thank you anyway.

Francine Lewis, Polly French and The Surprising Stranger,1956. My copy of this book is a Whitman glossy edition with illustration that look Trixie Beldenish.  Polly French's family host an exchange student from Peru.  Her name is Lita Barrios.  She is older than Polly but in the same grade because of the language difference.  Lita fits in well and Polly is jealous of her.
This sounds like it could be Cathy and Lisette, by Teresa Crayder, published in 1964. Cathy is excited for the exchange student from France to come and stay with her family, but quickly becomes jealous of Lisette.

Girl's clothes walk away  - I've never read this one, but the description of the book The House That Had Enough by P. E. King (1986) says: "Tired of being mistreated, Anne's furniture, clothes, and house decide to leave until she promises to take better care of them."

I wonder if the person is thinking of one of Sheila Moon's books?  It's not KNEE-DEEP IN THUNDER, but there were a couple others feature a girl who seems to be Native American in a strange world on a quest with animal friends. I think the girl in all of them was named Maris.  I read them in the late 70s, which is the right time frame for the OP.

Florence Taylor, Growing Pains.  This one is probably it, with various life lessons and illustrations by Lucile Patterson Marsh. 

Joan Aiken, The Shadow Guests, 1980.  This could be The Shadow Guests, by Joan Aiken. The main character's name is Cosmo, and he is sent to England to live with a cousin who teaches at a university. I remember that he was visited by spirits from the past, and there's a dark family secret too.

G357: Sounds like the short Greek myth of Dryope, who picks flowers off a tree, which bleeds (it's a nymph) and Dryope is punished by being turned into a tree herself - but not before she has the chance to tell her family to warn her baby never to vandalize plants.
It probably was a version of that myth, I don't remember a baby and I swear someone cut her after she turned into a tree, but it was probably just the version I read (someone taking liberties or something). Because I'm pretty sure it was a myth, or maybe it was a fairy tale?

Lutie A. McCorkle-(Sheldon Basic Reading), The Little Cook- (Story Caravan), 1957.  Oh,think I can help you with this one. It was my reader too and I looked forever on the internet trying to find it until I stumbled on it by accident. The story is The Little Cook about a girl who has to stay home while her family goes to George Washington's Parade. She ends up unknowingly serving him breakfast on his way there. And He tells her to tell her family that she met him before they did. There are many other wonderful stories in this book that perhaps your teacher may have also read to you so it's worth checking out the Story Caravan.

William Papas, Tasso, 1966.
This is definitely Tasso by William Papas. I bought my copy a few years ago, having remembered it being read to me during library time at school, in Australia, back in the late 70s.

Byars, Betsy, Rama, the Gypsy Cat, c. 1966, reprinted by Scholastic
This could be The Mystery of the Green Cat by Phyllis Whitney (1957).  I read the Scholastic edition during the 1960s.  It was always one of my favorite books!  It is definitely set in San Francisco. The names of the children involved were Andy, Adrian, Jill, and Carol.  If you think this could be the book, then you should check the official Phyllis A. Whitney website for the full plot description.
I wonder if you're combining two different books by Catherine Woolley Ginnie and the Cooking Contest and Ginnie and the Mystery Cat.  Ginnie and the Mystery Cat has friends Ginnie and Geneva in Europe, traveling with their families.  There's a statue of a cat with gold hoop earrings that they're carrying around that people keep trying to steal.  No cakes or San Francisco though.  In Ginnie and the Cooking Contest, there's a bake-off that Ginnie's participating in that has a chocolate cake and grating chocolate.  I think the contest is in San Francisco, but I'm not sure.  No cat though.  Both these books came out in the 1960s.  Good luck!

Kristal, Keren, The Brainbox.  London: Methuen Childrens, 1987.  "Kiki shrinks during her birthday party and has the opportunity to travel inside someone's brain."
That's it! I've been looking (albeit not very hard) for years. My childhood is reclaimed. Thank you so much.

Ellen Conford, Dreams of Victory

Mousekin's Golden House?  See Most Requested.
The book described is NOT Mousekin's Golden House.  In that book, Mousekin is a young mouse who finds a discarded jack-o-lantern in the forest, in which he takes up residence.  He fills it with seeds and fluff, preparing for winter even though the other forest animals think "that house will never do".  However, as it grows colder, the mouth, eyes and nose of the jack-o-lantern slowly close to make a fine, cozy home for a mouse in the snow.  Though it is a beautifully illustrated, poetic book, there are no human characters in Mousekin's Golden House, nor does it follow the plotline described by the requester.

Maybe not A Room for Cathy by Catherine Woolley - see Solved Mysteries - but worth checking. (Cathy would be too young to be reading Tolkien, I think.)
Jean Little, Look through my window, 1970. The mention of Tolkien makes me think of Jean Little. Might this be Look Through My Window, in which Emily moves to a new house and claims an attic room for her own? Or possibly another Little title, maybe Kate? Although I'm pretty sure the room features mainly in Look Through My Window. There's a little more description under the Solved Mystery for Lulu's Window.
Enright, Elizabeth, The Four Story Mistake, 1942. Not sure about this one. I vaguely remembered this book, so thought I'd try some searches. I found a book which has a girl with siblings and a cupola and was a popular book, so worth a look. "The Melendy family moves to a house in the country where a secret room, a cupola, a stable, and a brook provide Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver with adventures far different from the city life to which they are accustomed"
Another long shot...but could it be The Velvet Room, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder?  Robin's family moves a lot (I think they may be migrant workers).  In their latest home, she finds a deserted mansion, with a library full of books.  She finds a way in, and spends much of her time reading the books I remember either a cupola or a glass window-seat where she spends most of her time in the house.  The book was originally published in the late 60s/early 70s.  It's worth a shot!
Park, Ruth, Callie's Castle, 1974.  I'm pretty sure this is the one. It was highly commended by the Children's Book Council of Australia in the awards that year.

Barbara Michaels, Patriot's Dream. If it was an adult/YA book, this might be it. Standard Barbara Michaels fare - our heroine is living in Williamsburg, falls into  a time-travel/out of body experience.  Goes back to the Revolution.
I can't remember much about this book, just that I read it when I was young (sometime probably between 1978 and 1989), and it was about a girl who somehow traveled back in time to Colonial Williamsburg. This sounds like it could be PATRIOT'S DREAM, by Barbara Michaels, aka Elizabeth Peters, not a juvenile book, but one of my favorite novels by this author.  It is set in the early to mid 1970's, it may even have written in 1976, given the patriotic theme.  A young woman in her 20's is staying with an elderly aunt and uncle in current-day Williamsburg, but has dreams that are very real, about her Revolutionary-era ancestors.  It is part mystery, part time-travel/fantasy, part romance, as Barbara Michaels does so well.  There was also a sequel.
Cynthia Blair, Freedom to Dream, 1987.While this isn't Colonial Williamsburg, it is a time travel back to Colonial times.n accident hurls modern Philadelphia teenager Katy Morris back to Philadelphia in 1787 where she meets Abigail, witnesses the making of the Constitution, learns what daily life in Constitutional days was like, and begins to appreciate her 1980s lifestyle.
Janet Lunn, The Root Cellar, June 1981. I can't remember if Colonial Williamsburg was in this book but to quote the synopsis on the back cover of the book: "Rose Larkin is lonely and unhappy when she moves in with relatives who live in an old Ontario farmhouse (this part takes place in the present).  But amazing adventures await her when she discovers that an old root cellar is her entrance to the world of the 1860's.  Here she makes friends and gets caught up with them in the excitement and chaos of the Civil War across the border."
Could this one be Another Shore by Nancy Bond? Originally published in 1988, it doesn't take place in Williamsburg but in Louisburg,Nova Scotia. Here's a blurb--Lyn Paget is spending the summer before college working as a serving girl at the reconstructed 18th-Century Nova Scotia port town of Louisbourg. She researches the life of a young girl of that time period named Elisabeth Bernard to give her character a real base. One day she blacks out and awakens to find that it is 1744 and that others regard her as the original Elisabeth. Struggling to understand what has happened to her and to survive, Lyn/Elisabeth discovers that she is not the only person to have slipped back through time, and the others have been unable to find a way back to the 20th Century. I'm a fan of the time travel genre and this is one of the best I've read.

Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone. I don't remember the details but sounds like the general flavor of this book..

Helen Creswell, A Gift from Winklesea. I'm fairly sure it's out of print, but it rings a bell. Could this be it?

Mahy, Margaret, Raging Robots and Unruly Uncles. The start of this stumper sounds immensely similar to this book, but Prudence doesn't return home. She joins up with her cousins (who have been chased from their home by an evil robot, just as she has been chased out by an overly perfect doll) to start a business, then they eventually rescue their fathers from the doll and the robot.
Nope, sadly Raging Robots and Unruly Uncles is not it. I think think the fact that the book is entirely (I'm *pretty* sure) black and white may be a key clue since it seems to me that most books for children have at least some color in the illustrations. Also, this is really a picture book, not a "chapter" book. Thanks for trying!

Lapp, Eleanor, In the Morning Mist, A. Whitman, 1978. Just a guess since I don't have the book, but the description reads,  "A young child and her grandfather set out on a fishing expedition and find the countryside transformed by the morning mist."  I'm thinking that maybe the mist gave the illustrations you remember a creepy feeling.

Antonia Barber, The Ghosts. The children create a time-travel potion with herbs from their garden.   A memorable part of the book has the girl walking down a burning staircase hand in hand with someone, and surprised that the flames don't burn.  She realizes the man with her (a solicitor?) is absorbing the pain as penance for not protecting the ghost children the first time around.  In the end, they check the local cemetery and see that the monument is different.
Antonia Barber, The Ghosts, 1969. I believe this is THE GHOSTS, by Antonia Barber.  A movie called "The Amazing Mr. Blunden" was made, based on this book.
Antonia Barber, The Ghosts,1969, 1993. While staying at a rundown English country house (their mother has been taken on as caretaker), siblings Lucy and Jamie meet the spirits of Victorian children, George and Sara. By using a magic potion, Lucy and Jamie are able to travel back in time 100 years to save the George and Sara from a tragic fire.  Through one of those odd little time-travel paradoxes, Sara later turns out to have been the great-grandmother of Lucy & Jamie.
Barber, Antonia, The Ghosts, 1969. Definitely this book (also made into a tv series called the Amazing Mr Blunden).  The brother and sister are Lucy and Jamie - the Victorian ghosts Sara and Georgie
Antonia Barber, The Ghosts, 1969. '"Lucy and her brother stood in the garden and watched two pale figures -- a girl and a boy -- coming toward them. That was the beginning of a strange and dangerous friendship between Lucy and Jamie and two children who had died a century before. The ghost children desperately needed their help. But would Lucy and Jamie have the courage to venture into the past and change the terrible events that had led to murder?"
etc.
sounds like one of the Green Knowebooks by L. M. Boston. the books are still in print - it should be easy to see if one of the series matches your recollection.
Peck, Richard, Voices after Midnight. If that other book isn't it, try this one.  A brother and sister go back in time and save another brother and sister from a fire.

Tizz , Elisa Bialk. Could this be the Tizz series?  They were short books, about 3rd or 4th grade reading level.  I last read them in the early 70s, but Tizz was a palomino pony in a riding stable, and (I think) the girl who was the main character had just moved to the area.  I remember there were at least eight or ten volumes.

The Old Man With A Bump, 1964. How funny! I'm visiting my mom, who still has our set of Childcraft volumes. The story you're looking for might be The Old Man With A Bump. It is from The Dancing Kettle and Other Japanese Folk Tales, and it is "retold by Yoshiko Uchida. It appears in volume 2, "Stories and Fables," in the section named "Tales From Other Lands." An old man has a large bump on his right cheek. Every day it grows bigger, and no doctor can cure it. One day, the old man shelters in a hollow tree during a storm. He hearns many, many ghosts and spirits walking toward him. He is terrified! The spirits begin to dance, and the leader calls for someone who can dance better. The old man jumps out of the tree and begins to dance. The spirits like his dancing so much that they ask him to come back the following night. To ensure that he will, they decided to take something precious from him as a forfeit. After much discussion, they decide to take the bump, since such bumps are said to cause good luck. The old man went happily home and celebrated with his wife. Next morning, a greedy neighbor with a similar bump came over to borrow some food. When he heard the story, he decided to copy the first man's actions. He told the spirits that he was the same man, but they hated his dancing. They scowled, and frowned, and told him, "Here, take back your precious lump." So the greedy neighbor had to go back home with a bump on each cheek. "Ohhhh," he cried, "Never again will I try to be someone else."
Sol Stember, The Monster's Grave. 1966. I wonder if you are thinking of a story in the "Scientists and Inventors" edition of the Childcraft library of books.  It tells the story of young Heinrich Schliemann who goes to a graveyard after his father told him a story about a wicked man who is buried there and sticks his foot out of the grave.  Heinrich finds the gravestone, says "Hennig! Show me your stocking!" and then is scared to see a light coming towards him.  It turns out to be his father looking for him.  Heinrich grows up to find the lost city of Troy and is considered the rather of archaeology.
Henig. I remember a Childcraft story about an evil man named Henig who wore green stockings.  When he died they said he would never show his stockings again, so each year his leg came out of his grave.  Very spooky. Could this be the story you remember?'

L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1908. Could this possibly be one of Lucy Maude Montgomery's books? She has so very, very many, and it's been at least 15 years since I've read the books.  In Anne of Green Gables, Anne has a few dresses made by Marilla - all of the same design but made from different fabrics.  And, Matthew, purchases a dress with puffed sleeves for her that she just goes ape over.  Of course, LMM wrote so many other books about so many other characters that it's hard for me to remember them all.  It just sounds vaguely familiar.  I'm sure there are LMM fans with far better memories than mine who can set me straight if I'm wrong.  Good luck in your search!
I am the originator of the book stumper request. The book I am searching for is not one of the Anne of Green Gables series. I have read the series and that is not the book I am searching for.
Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Not sure about this, but it's worth checking out - I flashed on Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm when reading your stumper.  My memory of the book is fuzzy, though.
Eleanor Estes, The Hundred Dresses, 1944. Could be this -- The book is about Wanda Petronski, a poor and friendless Polish-American girl. Her teacher, outwardly kind, puts her in the worst seat in the schoolroom and does not intervene when her schoolmates tease her mercilessly. One day, after they laugh at the faded blue dress she wears to school every day, Wanda claims she has one hundred dresses.

Scott Corbett, Pippa Passes, 1966. Pippa (short for Penelope) is a famous child star. She's not happy  though, and when she gets a chance to be a "normal" kid (by joining two sisters on a train to summer camp) she jumps at it. She bribes/threatens/begs the sisters to help her cut and dye her hair, and call her their cousin. Once at camp, she makes friends and decides to star in the camp production...which makes her realize how much she enjoys acting.  I think one of the sisters is "Callie".  Could this be it? The other camp book from that time period that was popular is Laura's Luck by Marilyn Sachs.  I don't know if there was a Penelope in it though...
Dorothy Maywood Bird, Mystery at Laughing Water, 1963. I am sure that this is the book you are looking for, as it is a favorite of mine! Laughing Water is a camp for girls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Collie is one of the campers and is known for her fudge making talents. The mystery revolves around Phyllis, the main character, and Penelope Castor, also known as "Beaver." As a baby, Beaver's great-grandfather was found by a trapper named Castor. The baby was wandering in the woods around Laughing Water, during a forest fire, clutching a garnet eardrop in his hand. The trapper and his wife kept the baby when they couldn't find his family and named him Jacques Castor. The campers hunt for clues as to his original family. A wonderful read by a fabulous author! Two other books by this author are Granite Harbor and The Black Opal, both set in Michigan, also.

Joe Kaufman, Joe Kaufman's How we are Born, How We Grow, How Our Bodies Work, and How We Learn, 1975. I'm pretty sure this is it.  This is an oversized (it would have to be to accomodate that long title) book from Golden Books. Pages 14 and 15 have the information on heredity and genetics with the picture of the red-haired child with his ancestors. There are 91 more pages of profusely illustrated biology and anatomy for kids in this book.

I know I read this book too!  Could it be Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright?  I think there's a bit where they see the church spire under sticking out of the water.  There are no ghosts in either this or the sequel though.  There was another book that reminded me of Gone Away Lake when I  first read it...I think the title was something like "The Riddle (or maybe Secret?) of the Stone House" and the authors last name was in the W-Z section of the shelves. I think that had a lake with the tops of buildings and an old tree sticking out of the water.
I don't know the book, but there's a list of "drowned town" fiction here that may list it: http://beyondrivalry.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/08/29/drowned-towns.html
-- maybe Mollie Hunger's The Walking Stones or Michael Shea's The Color Out of Time, since those two at least are described as novels with supernatural elements?
It's definitely NOT Gone-Away Lake - there is no lake at Gone-Away lake anymore (hence the name), just a bog.

 A Present for the Princess. Definitely the one.  It was also included in a collection of about four stories that we had years ago (can't remember the name of that one though).
I'm not sure if this is A Present for the Princess or another but similar book, unless the original poster has the roles reversed. It was a Little Golden Book about how the royal family was going to be coming through town, and a little blind boy (I believe he was a gardener's son) had it in mind to grow her the perfect strawberry. He did, and she ate it and kissed him and he blushed and it was so cute. She was getting all these lavish gifts, but she liked the strawberry best.
This sounds like A Present For The Princess (A Rand McNally Tip Top Elf Book #8425) by Janie Lowe Paschall. A young boy who's blind wanted to give a princess something special. He planted a strawberry plant and grew it with the animals' help.

Anabel Johnson, An Alien Music. This is the book you are looking for.

Elizabeth Pope, The Sherwood Ring.  This book is about a young girl who goes to visit her uncle in upstate New York and meets the ghosts of Revolutionary war soldiers.  I believe that one of them gives her, or leads her to, the ring of the title.  I think the girl's name is Peggy.
Unless the original requester really messed up the details, this book isn't THE SHERWOOD RING.  No flower under pillow, no ghost preparing to go into battle, no aunt...
This is not the book.  The book I am talking about was written in the late 1960's or early 70's. It was a story in a book that contained other ghost stories that I do remember.  The details I have submitted regarding this are accurate.
Bruce Coville, The Ghost Wore Gray, 1988. Sixth-grader Nina  Tanleven convinced her architect father to let her best friend Chris go with them to stay in the old  inn he's restoring. On the afternoon they arrive, the girls find a faded Civil War photograph of a  very handsome Confederate soldier. Nina and Cris are stunned when the ghost of the young soldier suddenly appears at the dinner table that night! They  realize he's the ghost who they've heard haunts the  inn. When he appears to them  again--no one else can see him--Nina and Chris know that  the ghost is trying to tell them something. But  what? To find out, the girls begin investigating  the old country inn. And soon they are swept up in  a frightening mystery that began more than one  hundred years ago--a mystery involving danger, greed,  a hidden room... and a buried treasure!

I just read this old scholastic paperback- it is definitely Myrtle Albertina's Secret by Lillian Pohlmann-illustated by Erik Blegvad (in black and white)! The picture is a birthday present for her mom. The story also involves a mystery about missing gold nuggets from the mine where the father works.

Bendick, Jeanne, Good Knight Ghost, F. Watts, 1956.  Don't have a plot description, but the title looks promising.
This is definitely THE HAUNTED SPY by Barbara Ninde Byfield, 1969. The illustrations are great. There are other books about the spy and the
ghost, but this first one is the best.~from a librarian.

Joan Walsh Anglund, various books. The illustrations sound a bit like Joan Walsh Anglund: http://logan.com/loganberry/most-anglund.html'.
Delton, Judy, Pee Wee Scouts, 1988-2000. The cover illustrations seem to match your description as do the helpfulness of the kids in the books.

Mary Chase, The Wicked Pigeon Ladies in the Garden.  I wonder if it could be this one again. Maybe it's Maude, not Maeve? Perhaps look at the solved stumpers? There is that business with the leprechaun in the garden...

Betty Ren Wright, Grandpa's House, 1959, copyright.  Oh my goodness.  This was one of my very favorite childhood books.  I have it sitting right here in front of me.  Everything the poster describes is in the book exactly - except there is no little boy, just a little girl and the dog, fuzzy Tim.  Several of the pages have flocking, so when the little girl tries on the coat, you can actually feel the fur.  "I like to go to Grandpa's house and sit in Grandpa's chair.  It's big and fuzzy - soft and nice And I play Grandpa there."  This was from the  "Fuzzy Wuzzy Series" of books from Whitman Tell-a-Tales.
Mary Phraner Warren, The Treasure Trunk.  This is a Junior Elf book that might be the one you're thinking about with the little girl and fur coat.  A brother and sister go through a chest in the attic.  The girl does have brown hair but I'm not sure the coat is a raccoon coat.  As for the chocolate cake picture, I remember a thin cookbook that had a similar picture on the cover- maybe a McNess cookbook?
Eleanor Estes, The Moffats.  I seem to remember a scene in either "The Moffats" or "The Middle Moffat "  where the little girl dressed up in an old raccoon coat.   I think I read these books in the sixties.
Betty Ren Wright, Grandpa's House, 1959, copyright.  Just a quick addendum on this - in some of the pictures the little girl is wearing a typical puffy sleeved '50's dress but in others she is wearing a cowboy suit.  With her short hair she looks somewhat masculine in the cowboy getup so maybe if this is the right book that is why the poster is thinking the book has both a boy and girl visiting the grandparents.

Fitschen Dale, Rotten snags! Rotten hair!, 1975, copyright.  A little girl is tired of her snarled hair but learns that there are things worse than tangled locks.

Coffin, Patricia, The Gruesome Green Witch, 1969, copyright.  It must be this book - it's the only one I know with the text printed in green ink!  "Two schoolgirls, Puffin and Mole, discover a magic land entered through a closet. They have various adventures, do their homework in Merlin's concentration cave, where answers are caught as they bounce off walls, attend an undersea party presided over by Neptune, with Cinderella, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy among the revellers, then Puffin incurs the wrath of the villainous, gruesome green witch (who turns her enemies into statues) by seeing her back, and Puffin's brother is captured when the girls bring him into the land so he can profit from the concentration cave. But eventually the witch is conquered by a magic brew which Puffin slips into her tea, and melts down into a pile of green rags."