Is there a way I can redirect all actions upon a thing to another thing? (Ideally without getting too in the weeds with custom rules as it’s just a one-off need.)
Fake code:
Book is an object.
Shelf is scenery.
Instead of doing anything with Shelf:
silently try the action with Book;
The move here is basically “now the noun is the book”, though you’ll likely need to create some more complex logic for actions with second nouns (like, break up your rules into “…if the noun is Shelf” and “…if the second noun is Shelf…” conditionals).
You might consider making them the same thing.
The book is a thing. Understand "shelf" as the book.
(By the way, the book in this case should probably be a thing, not merely an object. A thing is a kind of object, but so is a direction or a region or a room.)