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379B: British 1960s or 1970s YA book about a teenage adopted girl

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My sister and I each read this as a hardback (Oxford??) library book. I read it in the 1970s when I was in early secondary school, and it felt pretty recent and ‘realistic’ at the time. It was definitely set in the UK.

SPOILERS. The girl overhears her mother speaking. The girl has recently misbehaved in some way and she hears her mother criticise her and say that she’s just like her ‘real mother’. She’s discovering that she’s adopted, and her adoptive mother knows her biological mother.

Eventually the girl discovers that her mother’s younger sister is her biological mother.

The girl is upset by the discovery but is helped by her grandmother, as their relationship hasn’t changed.

The aunt/birth mother had babysat the adopted girl and her sister when they were babies. The adoptive mother reminisces about how, when the aunt/birth mother babysat, the adopted girl missed the adoptive mother much more than the other child had.

379A: Need Book Name (Solved!)

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I need help remembering the name of a book.

-I think it was set in Appalachia

-Opens with women in family/neighborhood bleaching a young girl’s hair

-Main character friends with neighbor girl

-father figure dying of cancer and secluded to front room of house

-Main character sexually assaulted by relative in an outbuilding/woodshed, but doesn’t remember it until years later

-Main character wins a beauty pageant and is awarded luggage

-Main character leaves home for many years only to return in adulthood to stay and teach


Thanks!

378Y: Just… Thank You (Solved)

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I have been hunting for the name of a book that I read in my childhood for literally years. Every so often I would come back to my search and try again. Finally, I don’t know what changed this time, but I happened upon your anthology finder page under collectible children’s books. It was Young Years. It was a book given to my mom in 1977 when she was only 8, and then she gave to me. I read it all through my childhood, but ultimately lost it in so many moves. I’m so sad I won’t be able to get back the one that had a note written to my mother inside it, but now I will at least be able to find another copy on ebay or something. Thank you so much for helping, even if you didn’t realize you were.

Signed, a very happy 30 year old in NY trying to find her inner child again.

378V: Have you ever heard of a book with a chapter the E-A-Gool giant

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I can’t find any specific reference to a book with a chapter titled “E-A-Gool Giant” or featuring a giant by that name in the sources I have access to. The search query seems to point toward texts about giants, but none directly match “E-A-Gool.” It’s possible the name or title is misspelled, or it could be from a niche or obscure work not widely documented.
Some relevant books on giants include The Book of Giants from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which expands on the Genesis narrative about the Nephilim and Watchers, but there’s no mention of an “E-A-Gool” in its fragments. Similarly, Edna Ferber’s Giant and other works like The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro or A Book of Giants by Ruth Manning-Sanders don’t reference this term.

378U: Boy finds buried treasure after encountering barracudas, porpoises & dolphins

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This was a beautiful book I read a lot as a kid, so it definitely existed in 1984. The pictures were very colorful, perhaps made with colored pens or pencils & watercolors. 

The story is about a boy with blonde hair who lives near a beach and he goes out snorkeling or swimming. It looks like Florida or the Caribbean. There are many gorgeous pictures of underwater scenes. He finds a pink conch shell containing a pearl that is part of the treasure search I think…..

At one point he encounters a school of barracuda fish and it’s full of tension. I believe he is threatened by a porpoise at one point, and a dolphin comes to his defense… or maybe the porpoise saved him from the barracuda? The fish don’t talk or anything, the only thing “fantasy” in nature is that the dolphin came to save him.

It’s hard to remember! But the final scene is he finds the treasure in what looks like a little tide pool in the sand and the gold & jewels are sparkling in the sun. Please help me find this so I can share it with my child! Thank you.

At one point in the story, They see a shipwreck and find a pearl (perhaps from the conch shell). Something scares them, maybe the shark – and they drop the pearl. But a little seahorse catches it in the curl of its tail. 

378T: Trying to find this book and/or author

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A guy in his 20-30’s suddenly feels a “ripple” and is transformed into another identity, another situation, and totally different place within the United States. It was paperback, I read it in the late 1960’s – 1970’s in English. Sci- fi main character this one guy, one scene: he leaves his clothes on the bank of a pond to go skinny dipping with a friend (a woman), they go under water and feel the “ripple” and then when they come up out of the water they are somewhere else, with no clothes. They catch a ride with a man in a pickup truck. Another scene he is in Hawaii with a group of people getting ready to walk on a bed of hot coals.

378S: Old Doll Left Behind for New Doll, Then Reclaimed by Girl (1960s–70s)

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I’m searching for a short children’s story I remember from the late 1960s or 1970s, possibly from Reader’s Digest, a school reader, or a children’s magazine. It’s told from the point of view of an old doll.

In the story, a little girl is packing a suitcase for a trip. The old doll is thrilled to be included and looks forward to the adventure. At the last moment, the girl gets distracted by a new doll, grabs it instead, and leaves — the old doll is left behind, heartbroken. Later, the car returns, the girl rushes in, drops the new doll, and takes the old doll with her.

378R: Surreal Nautical Quest for Strange Creature (Solved!)

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I’m looking for the title of a picture book that I read as a child in the mid-1990s. I believe the book was written in the 1980s or 90s, though it could also be from the 70s. I don’t remember any part of the title. It was a large-format hardcover edition.

It features illustrations with a watercolor style and a brightly colored, somewhat flat, surreal aesthetic with greatly exaggerated proportions. Its protagonist is an explorer who is dressed in a blue 19th-century naval outfit and sailing a large (and very tall) ship by himself.

He is searching for a rare creature that has some giraffe-like features and eats bananas, and on every page you can see that this creature is following him just out of sight. During his exploration, the protagonist meets several huge, frightening monsters, one of which I seem to recall was named the “purple lumpy thumpet”.

When the explorer finally finds his creature, it is revealed that it has many babies, and also that the monsters he encountered earlier were all friendly. All characters then have a picnic together on an island.

As a young child I read this book over and over again, captivated by its unique blend of unsettling, dreamlike  visuals and mischievous, lighthearted storytelling. I have now been searching for its title for nearly a decade with no luck, and just found out about this service.