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332V: Witch Balls & a Cursed Child’s Palm

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I read this book at some point during late grade school/junior high, probably between 4th & 8th grade, so somewhere between 1980-86. It was a pre-teen horror of the old school, by which I mean it assumes kids can actually handle seriously creepy, potentially life-threatening stuff. It was an older library book that our awesome school librarian recommended to me. Maybe published in the 50's or 60's? Definitely before the late 70's, given the age of the library's copy & when I read it. Unfortunately, there's no cover art I can reference as it had a green cloth binding with no dust jacket.

I don't remember much of the plot but what I do remember is as follows: A junior-high aged girl goes to visit her grandmother for the summer in a small village. Grandma is a witch (good, natch). Another woman has moved into town & grandma suspects her to be a bad witch. Bad witch tries to start a witch war. I can't remember if it was for a specific reason or just because she was a bad witch & that's what bad witches do. Similar in feel to The House With a Clock In Its Walls series or the Green Knowe books but a smidge darker. I believe it was located somewhere in New England, but I wouldn't swear to it. I *think* there were cars & telephones but the time frame was kinda vague. Or my memory is. And that's all for the overall plot.

I do, however, remember some weird specifics. The grandma hung a witch ball over the front door to see if the new neighbor was evil. She had a bottle tree, too. There were lots of nifty little folkloric witchy things like that. The thing that sticks clearest in my mind is that grandma gets a letter with what appears to be child's hand print. Grandma recognizes it as the actual skin of a child's hand & proceeds to place the skin inside an old Bible, which she wraps up tightly so it can't be opened because said palm skin is a curse. That scene has stuck with me ever since I read it, as one might imagine. It's pretty unique. Other than that, I can remember exactly where it was located in my grade school library but that's probably not much help. (Second from last bookcase on the left, third shelf from the top, right side, below the Nancy Drew books.)

 

332U: Painter Sacrifices Dream For Fellow Artist

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Can you help me?
I’m looking for an old story about two painters/artists who travel to the big city to make their fortunes. It is very expensive, so one painter gets a normal job. By the time the other painter becomes famous the one that sacrificed their dream for the other no longer has hands with enough finesse and softness to paint.

332T: Atlantean? Girl Next Door

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I am trying to find the name of a book I read as a child. The plot is basically that the girl who lives next door to the protagonist is weird and can 'float for joy' - that is, levitate. She turns out to be a descendant of Atlantis or something similar - an elder race in decline now living discretely amongst humans. They cannot interbreed - at one point the Atlanteans are described analogously to horses and humans akin to donkeys. The result is something like a mule. I think it might have been hazardous for the humans and the others to touch? Painful?

Media - Single Book / Novel

Date of Publication - Pretty sure it was in either a children's section of a public library or a school library and it pre-dates 1995. Might even pre-date 1988.

Major Themes - Decline of a race / empire?

Characters - Two children, one human, one otherwise. However, I cannot remember if the protagonist was male or female.

Language - The book was in English and I read it in England.

Target Audience - Older children? Teens?

332S: Stories About A Little Girl’s Wild Imagination

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The book I’m looking for was a hardcover picture book. I can’t remember the name of the book. It was a series of short stories about a little girl and her imagination.
One story was the little girl asking her Mom what she would do if she left the door open and a bear came in and wanted to eat her. Another was what they would do if the watermelon in the backyard kept growing and got as big as the house. Another was what would her parents do if they caught a whale while fishing. Another was what would they do if it never stopped raining. And the last one I remember was one at bed time when she asked them if she was very very naughty, would they keep her and they tell her something along the lines of they would sell her to pirates to guard their castle and she asks if they would really really sell her and they said they wouldn’t sell her for all the money in the world, or the moon and the stars.
Each story was sweet and had wonderful art work. I’ve been looking for this book for years. My parents don’t even remember it! It’s got to be at least 20-25 years old.

332R: I Spy A Raggedy Family In Questionable Locations

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I'm trying to find what I recall to be an unsettling/odd 'find it' book (similar to I Spy, I guess), in which a ragged looking family comprising of a Mum, Dad, daughter, and son (who I think looked around 10) were trying to get somewhere or find something. Every page put the family in a different location, and the reader had to find certain items for the family to progress. There might have been text that strung it together like a story too (i.e., not like a straightforward I Spy book), but I can't really remember. Each page had a different illustration of different places, and the family were always in the picture looking around. I vaguely remember some of the places they went to: 1. They were on a balcony looking down at a circus (you could see the crowds below them, it was outside, and there were hot air balloons in the sky, I think). 2. They were in a decayed looking room (I think the room was dark or dimly lit; there may have been a blue, cold colour scheme) with an old man/skeleton(the figure may possibly have been a giant?) sitting in a chair at a desk, with dusty old spider webs around him and attaching to the desk he was sitting at - he was either dead or frozen, as the children were inquisitively looking at him/touching him. There were spider webs all around the room too. 3. They might have also been in a sewer or somewhere with water at some point, but I could be making this one up. I remember the illustrations being somewhat striking in that they were pretty realistic (i.e., not cartoony), detailed, and unsettling/strange because the family always looked ragged and worn out on every page. The environments they were in seemed mostly uncomfortable, like you wouldn't want to be there. That's all I can really remember about the book. I think I read the book around 2003-2006 in my school library (I live in Australia, if that helps). I've searched the online database for the state library, but as I don't know the title I didn't have any keywords so I was flooded with various picture books that proved too difficult to trawl through. I hope you can help me find this book; it's been stuck in my head ever since I was little and it would mean so much to me if I could FINALLY read it again. Thank you in advance. 🙂

332Q: Hole In My Heart Interactive Book

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I am looking for books that my husband used to read his children.  Here is as much as I know – but I really want to find them for his birthday.

Our kids are 15 and 13 years old, so it would be at least that old.

The author had at least two books:

  1. He thinks the titles are something like – Apple of My Eye and Hole in My Heart
  2. They are some kind of interactive book – the Hole in My Heart he said has a hole throughout the book on each page.
  3. Some lines he remembers – “you are the apple of my eye, you are the peach in my pie…”
  4. The hole in the heart is something along the lines of that the kids are a part of your heart and if they were gone you would have a hole in your heart.

I am his second wife so I was not there when he had these or read them to the kids.  I have tried for a year to find them and I can’t find them.

332P: Months of the Year with a Blond Curly-Haired Girl (Solved!)

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I am hoping the little info I can give you will be enough to identify a book that I would love to secure for my daughter- one of her favorites. I think the book must have dealt with months of the year instead of days of the week. The illustrations were in pastels and the little girl throughout the book had blond curly hair. My daughter would have been 5-7 years old when she was reading the book. She was born in 1968 if that helps. I have Googled every way I can think of – so far no luck. This is a long shot – I really have no expectations – if nothing else, I am so happy to have found the Loganberry Books website.

332O: Irish Magic And Mobsters

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I am looking for a book about an Irish widow of a mobster who fakes her own and her granddaughter's death to hide them from her son who has taken over his father's business. She hires an American ex-cop as a bodyguard. The author might be Nora Roberts. If not, it is very much like her writing style. I seem to remember Irish magic being part of the plot.