Mr. Miacca

A used library copy of Mr. Miacca just came in the mail and read it right away. I ordered it for nostalgic reasons. We used to love this as kids; it was super scary to us. A little boy in Victorian England isn't supposed to go into the street alone, or Mr. Miacca will get him. One day Mr. Miacca catches the boy in a bag and brings him home to cook. But he doesn't have the right spices, and when he goes out to get some, the boy tricks Mrs. Miacca into letting him out. But later he gets caught again. This time Mr. Miacca has him stay under the couch. He has trouble boiling the water and asks the boy to stick out his leg. He cuts off the leg for the stew, and goes to get his wife. The boy runs away, it was the leg of the couch that he had put out.

It is so amazing looking at an old copy of childhood books. I found two great websites. One is this Japanese page that has tons and tons of images of old books from the 50s, 60s & 70s. I guess they're for sale but it's all in Japanese. I can't paste the link because it's too long.

The other site is really amazing. All these people write in questions trying to find old books and people post in response. Just scrolling through it is so cool, because all these things vaguely ring a bell. I re-discovered Hanging out with Cici about a girl who goes back in time and ends up meeting her mother. http://www.rob.com/harriett/stump.html