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333M: Boy (Artist?) Finds Flower Fairy, Keeps it in a Glass Dome (Solved!)

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This is a book my sister checked out from our Elementary School Library when we were kids. It’s a picture book. We read it some time between 1996–’99. Absolutely no later than 2001, as we moved to a different state and elementary school that year. I would guess that the book was published in the 80s or 90s. I thought the main character was a prince because I seem to remember him being dressed in fancy medieval purple clothes, but I’m not sure. I think it was just a medieval sort of setting in the story. My sister said she thought he was an artist who was sketching throughout the story. Obviously we don’t remember those details super well. I don’t remember how much text there was because I don’t think I was able to read when my sister got it and our mom read it to us. I don’t think it was a Golden book, but I’m honestly not sure about the cover or anything more technical like that. It MIGHT have been a taller book (rectangular and long on the vertical sides). I’m pretty darn sure it was a standard length bedtime story/picture book. What I remember the most is the major plot points, so that’s what’s most important to follow.
Plot:
The boy (prince or artist) is out in a beautiful garden (I think he was trying to sketch flowers, but I’m not sure) and he finds a beautiful fairy inside a flower. I think he tries to draw her but decides to take her home so he has a better chance to do so. He keeps the fairy in his house by the window in a glass dome (just like the dome over the rose in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast) and he tries to draw her again but just isn’t able to capture her beauty. The fairy needs flowers to stay alive, so he surrounds her with vases full of beautiful flowers. I think he must have told someone about her or something because I think people from all over end up visiting to see her, and they bring flowers until the room she’s in is brimming full with flowers. (Maybe this was how he made money for a while?) One day/night when there are no visitors, he decides to try to draw the fairy again (either that or he just wants to look at her again because she’s so beautiful), and he realizes that she’s still dying despite all the tons and tons of flowers around her. He realizes that she has to be outside with the living flowers in order to remain beautiful and survive, so he decides to let her go. It was kind of a bittersweet ending, and I remember having the feeling that he would never see her again, but she would at least be alive.
Illustrations:
The illustrations in this book were stunningly beautiful. They were more on the realistic end of the scale (NOT cartoony or made of scraps of paper or anything kitschy), and I think they were maybe pastels, watercolors, or colored pencil illustrations. I remember the main boy being blonde with bangs and almost shoulder-length hair (but I could be totally wrong about that). The fairy was the kind that was long, thin, and very elegant. I think she might have been dressed in a flower or dressed in very little, if at all. I remember lots of pictures of big, brightly colored flowers like Easter lilies, day lilies, and irises, etc. I have a specific memory of a two-page spread with the boy on the far left side looking at the fairy on the right side while it’s under the glass dome and next to the window, with a few flowers around it.
We both have absolutely no idea what the text in the book looks like (I only remember pictures), and we have absolutely no clue as to the title or author, but we’ve been wanting to find it and have kept our eyes peeled for 20+ years, so any help would be SO appreciated. So far I really haven’t found anything that seemed even a little bit similar.

333L: Science Fiction dystopia with two AIs and renegades (Solved!)

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The book I’m searching for is:

It starts with a common man who just lived his life, but his life has started to fall into pieces. He has two children with his wife, but as requested the children are genetically enhanced and have extremely high IQs. They have left their parents willingly for a special school, and they were even before that not much child-like.

This drove his wife into insanity (or into alcoholism/drugs). On his way home, he finds a body near their apartment and he is afraid of getting convicted for the murder, because he was the first one who is seen by the body.

Later, his wife is executed for the murder, without a trial. She is put to death in a public arena with a laser. (But I think her husband didn’t know this. He isn’t informed. To him, she just has disappeared.)

With his life torn apart, he starts running and on some days he even runs outside the city.

— The whole population lives in cities and most are dependent on a social allowance of some kind of nutrition bars from a local food bank … that are sometimes – whoops – poisonous. Being outside of a city is counted as suspicious behavior. Everything is controlled by a big AI. —

He encounters kind of a resistance to the government outside the city and he joins them, eventually. In German the resistance is called “Renegaten” so maybe the original term is “renegades”.

The resistance owns a big AI, too and during the endgame their AI fights the government AI. I remember the scene in which the renegade AI bids farewell to the main protagonist.

I can’t remember how the book ended but I think the renegade AI ‘died’.

333J: Victorian Mansion Cross Sections

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I’m looking for a children’s book I had back around 15-20 years ago. It was a large picture book of a Victorian mansion (or castle?). Each page was another cross-section of a wing of the mansion, and a brief description and clue of something specific to search for on that page before turning to the next. I remember one page involving a dance/ball, and another involving a pillow fight, and one involving a garden/outdoors. Each cross-section depicted multiple floors, and the top ones typically belonged to the wealthy family while the lower ones depicted the staff/maids/bulter’s quarters, etc. I believe the protagonist is a young female child, and I vaguely remember there being a pelican involved — not sure if that was a character or part of the title; perhaps a mascot who guides the girl through the book. The pictures were very artistic and detailed, somewhat sophisticated and very amusing, so likely a book for children over 8 years old.

333I: Boy’s Overgrown Chalk Art Washed Away By Rain

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Boy chalks beanstalk or garden all over the pavement/sidewalk of his town, possibly as part of an art competition. Then rain washes it away, leaving only what was done in an alley way.

Children’s fiction - read in 1980/1990s. He was given an allotted space to do his chalk art but he went up the walls and through alley ways etc. At the end it was all rained away.

Beautiful illustrations as I recall - not a chapter book but a child’s story book.

333H: Big sister anticipating little brother, wonders if she can trade it for a dog (Solved!)

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I received a children’s book in 1995/1996 in anticipation of my little brother. We lived in Gardner, Massachusetts at the time (central MA). The book had beautiful illustrations (something about Monique Felix’s illustrations for The Velveteen Rabbit reminds me of it), and was about a little girl finding out she was going to have a little brother and not being excited about it. She wondered if she could trade it for a dog. She also ate an egg out of an egg cup at some point in the story. I believe there was something about her getting a new coat as well, either peacoat or cape-style. The style of the book in my memory makes me think it was not necessarily American, nor necessarily published in that time period (egg cups?!).

333G: Three foster brothers in love with the same woman who became a town sheriff (Solved!)

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Three boys were taken in by the same woman and grew up together. One of them met this girl at what she considered her “secret place”, but she said she would share it with him. His two foster brothers followed him, curious where he was going. When one brother teased him for hanging out with a girl, she punched him. After that, they grew to respect and like her. All through high school they were the unholy foursome. Her parents had money, but they ignored her. She envied the brothers; their foster mother took her in too.
The three boys all fell in love with her, and one night when they were drinking, they all had sex with her. She woke up ashamed, and ran from them. She became a local sheriff. I think her dad is mayor or assemblymen, but he acts like he is president – he is much more important in his head than he actually is, always harping about their “image”.
The book starts with the three men in their office. They went into business together as contractors or builders and they are looking over blueprints, when there is a phone call. It is their foster mom, calling to tell them that their girl has been beat up/attacked at work, and is in hospital. She doesn’t want them to know, but the mother is worried, so she does call them.
The men discuss it – how she ran from them, and they have tried to give her time, but they want her back. All three of them want to be in a menage relationship with her. They built a house for her, and for them, and did it so it would be everything she ever wanted, to show her they love her.
The one brother says “Let’s go get our girl”, or something like that; so they drive up to the hospital, and she is uncomfortable. They tell her they are done letting her run and avoiding them. She can’t go home and take care of herself, so she agrees to go with them. When she is released they take her to their new house. Eventually, they tell her what they want. She doesn’t think it will work – one will get jealous of the others, and it will ruin their friendship, plus she worries about her reputation as a sheriff, and what her parents will say. But she decides to give it a try.
Along the way her apartment is blown up when she goes to get some clothes, and it is plain that someone is after her.
I hope you can help me with it. I read it probably 5-6 years ago? Not quite sure.

333F: Greenwich Village jazz father and son (Solved!)

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Growing up in a small town in Eastern Washington in the early 1970’s, I read a book I still remember. It’s a middle school targeted chapter book with a few line drawing illustrations. My copy was paperback. It features a father and son, the dad is a jazz musician / fan, I think they live in the Village - or at least someplace downtown NYC. Maybe there is some music that is played on the rooftop? Maybe parents are divorced? Published pre-1974.

333E: Young Muskrat Contends With a Forest Fire

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The story is a muskrat growing up, his adventures, from his point of view. Most memorable part is when there is a forest fire going on; he describes the fear, the fire, smoke, etc.

I read this book around 1961-63, so book was definitely published before 1963. Book was dark brown. Illustrations are like a moonlit night as the muskrat travels by a stream and sees smoke, etc.

 

333D: Redheaded Girl’s Scary Witch Encounter Just a Dream

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I am desperately trying to find out the title of a book I used to read to my daughter when she was little. It had to have been published before 1994. What we remember is that the main character is a little girl, maybe a redhead and/or curly haired. She may be walking through a forest and encounters a scary witch. At the end we discover that the whole thing was a dream.
The book, which we used to take out from the library, was a hard back.