Category Archives: Solved

374M: The Rose of Death (Solved!)

Seeking a murder mystery about drowned boy who was bullied probably published around 2000-2003, maybe up to 2005 this book was for high schooler and young adults and I think the cover was blue with a rose. The main story line of the book was an investigator was trying to find the cause of death of a teenage boy who was found in the river who they initially thought was a drowning but then found stool in his lungs that was his cause of asphyxiation. The river had once had a sewage issue, but that was investigated and found that the problem was fixed. He was accidentally killed by other students who gave him a swirly (dunked head into a toilet) that had stool in it that caused him to suffocate. The reason that he was given the swirly was he had a crush on a girl and had given her a rose he had changed the color of from red to (possibly) blue as a magic trick, the book did describe the chemical trick used to perform this. I do not remember the color of the rose, apologies. The girl’s bf or some other significant male figure.

374A: Groundhog Day (Solved!)

I’m looking for a kid’s book likely from the 70’s to early 80’s about a groundhog whose friends didn’t want him to see his shadow so they brought him food when he woke up to keep him in his bed. They emptied all the surrounding gardens but he was still hungry. He wanted to leave his den to get more food but they tried to keep him in. When he asked them why he couldn’t leave they told him they did not want him to see his shadow. After this he informs them that ground hog day was yesterday and he’d slept through it. I have looked for this book for years, even when I was a school librarian for a little while and haven’t been able to locate it. My mom doesn’t remember the name of it but does remember that we had it.Thank you for any help you can give for this.

372K: The Signs Come Alive! (Solved!)

Seeking a short children’s chapter book, some black and white line drawings. Published by the early 1990’s, probably much earlier. Inn signs from around town come alive at night and hang out together. Definitely a rabbit, a mermaid, and either a lion or a tiger. Possibly a unicorn as well. They get stuck in the position they are at when the sun rises, so they must rush back to get to their signs in time. A child notices that they’ve been shifting positions.

372H: A boy named Junior tries to fly (Solved!)

The book was found on the shelf of my grade school library near the Boxcar Children and my best guess of pub date is 1960s to 1990s-early reader chapter book/ middle school reading level. In the first book of the series a young boy jumps from the roof of the family barn with homemade (airplane?) wings and breaks both legs; I think the boy’s name is Junior- the story follows a sibling set who i remember being cared for by an older (non parent) male relative – there is a pet companion involved, a dog? At one point, Junior knocks on the front door to the home from the inside to ask permission to come sit outside with the older male relative in one of the series’ culminating scenes
This book has haunted my dreams for almost fifteen years and I badly want to find an old copy to read. please let me know if it sounds familiar and thank you for providing this essential service to society- that sounds facetious, but I promise I am serious as a heart attack, thank you. 

372G: Fortress Novel (Solved!)

Several years ago I was trawling through Wikipedia lists, and I believe while on some list of ‘greatest books’ (but I cannot recall which one) I came across a book that at the time I didn’t really give a second thought but later I became fascinated by. The details are as follows. It was written I think sometime in the 1880s or 1890s, and I believe by an Italian (though this is tentative). However, it’s setting may have been ‘Central Asia’ in the general and indistinct sense. The framing was that there was some very large fortress that was on the edge of a desert and the main character is serving there, with some sort of army. What I think was what struck me later is that it wasn’t exactly supposed to be the Russian army (which is what one would expect, as the Russian conquest of Central Asia was just wrapping up at this point, and there were indeed several fortresses, as inane as it sounds to say), but it was just ‘an army’. Furthermore, the Wikipedia page described it as a novel about futility and hopelessness, and vaguely anti-war. These things all further intrigued me, later on, as I came to reflect that it at once reminded me of Kafka’s The Castle, Mervyn Peake’s Gormeghast, and Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky.

There was an image associated with the Wikipedia article as well, but I cannot recall if it was a cover or an illustration. At any rate I shall try to describe it. It seemed to be set at night, and there was a eerie olive-dark-greenish hue to it all. It seemed to be done in a hazy sort of pastel way. The image itself was very reminiscent of this (link embedded) illustration of the British retreat from the first Anglo-Afghan war, so much that I am worried in fact I am filling this in artificially. On the left side of the image there was a large fortress, set probably half way up the page, on a rocky outcropping. Down below, on the right side, on what looks like a small road, there was a small silhouetted figure on a horse that was rearing up on its hind legs. This figure and their horse only occupied the smallest part of the page. Beyond them, on the right side, the desert stretched off “ringed by the flat horizon only”. The ‘right’ and ‘left’ sides may be flipped, but I am fairly certain of the features and relations of this composition.

That is as much as I can recall of this book. I would be very grateful if you could find it for me, but please do not put any pressure on yourself to find it.

371S: Two Ants Having a Talk (Solved!)

Phoebe Christ, ptchrist@outlook.com

I’m trying to find a book my mom read to me as a child. She would love to have it to read to her grandchildren. I was born in ’85 and have just the one vague memory about the book so I’m guessing the late 80’s or early 90’s would have been when she got the book and read it to us. My sisters and I cannot remember the title or the author but can remember a line from the beginning of the book. It read “Look on the ground when you go for a walk, and you’ll see two ants having a talk.”