Category Archives: Status

379M: Looking for a storybook from 1970s

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I am looking for a large, oversized children’s picture book that I read between 1973 and 1976. It was an anthology containing many stories. One story I remember clearly featured two zebras — a father and a son — who would race each other. The young son could never beat his father, until one day he finally did. The book may have been published in the 1950s or 1960s. Any help identifying either the specific zebra story or the anthology it appeared in would be greatly appreciated.

379K: Lost in the Word Factory

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What I recall: 

-Children’s picture book, read in the 90s, but could be from 60s/70s/80s

– Illustratons were very simple, like James Stevenson or Jules Pfieffer

– Plot about a boy who visits some sort of factory or construction site where words are made- very similar to Charlie and the chocolate factory, but with concepts around stuff like words (and maybe some numbers/math too?)

– I recall a section where a kid gets stuck to a balloon (maybe a speech bubble) and floats away, and has to be rescued by an older gentleman who throws some sort of dart to deflate it. The man runs? The factory and gives the boy a tour.

379J: Pre 1990s Children or YA fantasy, plot similar to Wizard of Earthsea

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I read it in 1989, so published in the 80s or earlier, in a UK primary school library (aged 11). Similar to A Wizard of Earthsea, but a bit shorter and easier to read maybe. Plot detail I remember: -boy working in a castle or manor house, has some restriction on his senses due to a stone or charm (it makes him deaf or dumb maybe?). He can do magic natively, and lights a fire using magic, maybe by running his fingers along it. He wears a charm of some sort, which an older magician spots and removes, ‘freeing’ him, after spotting him doing magic -he becomes an apprentice to the magician, and can do powerful magic that other magicians can’t. Some kind of war or battle to win. -he meets a girl along the way -it ends with him defeating the enemy — and I think taking his boots off and putting back on fur slippers, and being with the girl.

379I:  Nefertiti with Glasses (Solved!)

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I’m searching for a teen/YA mystery novel from the 1960’s or perhaps the late 1950’s set on a college campus. Two students, along with their archeology professor, try to solve a mystery of a missing artifact. The one detail I distinctly recall is the male student nicknames the female student Nefertiti with glasses. As a very awkward fourteen year old with glasses, that stuck with me, leading me to believe there was hope yet for me! I’m sorry my description is sketchy after 60 years, but I do remember enjoying the story and would love to re-read it once again.

379H: YA Book set in Russia… I think?

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I am trying to think of a book that we purchased at a homeschool conference when I was a kid (early 2000s). I seem to remember the setting being an aristocrat Russian household, and my vivid memory is of a boy (maybe a servant) trying to get rid of warts by using a frog at midnight… this is perhaps in the setting of a prank? But I think the main protagonist was female. I’d love to figure this out!

379G: Himalayan journey?

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I wonder if you could help me find a book.    It’s one I read as a teenager, but it could have been older than that (I’m 40). It’s a book about a girl and it’s set somewhere like the Himalayas maybe? I know she ends up in India at some point, I’m pretty sure it mentioned the Ganges. She basically goes on some journey. She has a guide, not sure if it’s a familiar or a spirit guide, but it’s a snow leopard that she can talk to. She does battle with a figure of Kali, and Kali bites her hand off. I remember the description of Kali’s foul, rotten breath. Then she sort of manifests a spirit hand. I remember that she treats someone for a fever, and imagines pulling the fever out through the top of the person’s head and rolling it like a ball of yarn. She doesn’t know what to do with it, if she throws it away it might find another person. So she crushes it in her spirit hand.   It’s a lot of specific information but I’ve never been able to find it.

379D: Supernatural Entity in the House

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Middle grade standalone chapter book that I read at some point in the 90’s, in my teacher’s classroom library. This was a parochial Catholic school  and I was surprised and delighted to find something so occult. The book was blue with something white on the cover and it was a shorter title. In the book, a teenaged girl in a large isolated house in the country is contacted (via ESP? Dreams?) by a supernatural entity that is slowly revealed to be evil. It might have some connection with ice, and is male. There is some specific danger to the protagonist’s baby sister. At first the protagonist’s parents and the nanny do not believe her but at some point the nanny seems to come around. The once scene I remember is the nanny standing in a full bathtub while the tap overflows into the hallway, while holding the baby, because the supernatural entity was physically manifesting inside the house and the nanny thought the water would protect them. Its possible the evil entity lives at the bottom of the garden? I think the author was female? 
Finally, my school had a lot of books published by Scholastic.
I’ve been trying to remember this book for 30 years, I hope you know it!