I wasn't familiar with the works of Ellen Raskin, but we inherited two of her books and I'm not sure how I could have missed these!
In
Nothing Ever Happens on My Block, the opposite, of course is true. Bringing to life the mother's aphorism that, "Only boring people are bored," Chester complains and complains about how uneventful life is on his street, totally oblivious to not only interesting but outlandish things happening right before him (or rather, behind him).
In
Spectacles, a little girl sees all kind of strange things (a fire-breathing dragon, a chestnut mare, a blue elephant) that turn out not to be at all what they seem... until she finally gets the glasses she needs.
Both were written in the 1960s and a quick Wikipedia search revealed Ms. Raskin's authored quite a few books, including some young adult novels, as well as illustrated many written by other authors.
There are probably many forgotten gems like this, and they are all the more interesting (for the parents) because they are little windows into their eras, at least style-wise.
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