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331I: Father Injured During Gold Rush, Daughter Sells Hardtack to Miners (Solved!)

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The book I am looking for is a YA about a young girl that hides in her father’s wagon when he heads to California for the gold rush. She brings a small pail of milk and it churns into butter. At some point they meet up with a lady and possibly another child, the dad gets sick or injured, maybe he dies. They go to San Francisco? – their house is on a hill? – and start baking and selling hardtack for the other miners. The book describes ships sitting in the bay empty due to the sailors abandoning them to look for gold. One night several of the ships catch fire. I read it in the mid eighties, definitely before 1990.

331G: Paranormal Handbook For Kids

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I am looking for a book that I read when I was about 7. It was probably published in the late 80s to early 90s and was basically a paranormal handbook geared towards kids. I would check it out from the juvenile section of my local library and it featured directions for basic ghost hunting and how to test ESP. It featured Shel Silverstein-like illustrations of kids doing the experiments (you know, that line art style that was so popular in the 80s). It may have had any (or none! how exciting!) of the following words in the title: paranormal, extrasensory perception, ghosts.

331E: Red Wagon, Romani Adventure Novel

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When I was a young girl in the 70s, there was a chapter book that my mother used to read to me. This book stayed at my great grandmothers home, and we would read it when we visited. It was probably written for young adults. I think it was written before the 30’s or 40’s. All I can remember is the story was about this gypsy girl’s adventures. I remember a picture of a Romani style wagon, and the color red. I loved it, but can’t recall the title or the plot. Please help. I would love to revisit this book.

331D: Hostile Alien Wildlife Combined With Earth’s Failures Leads To Space Colony Catastrophes

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Not sure if this is one book or a series. Earth’s first colony loses touch with Earth. Without supplies they’d counted on from Earth (food, building materials, vehicles, weapons), the colonists struggle, mostly because the planet’s wildlife (plants and dinosaur-ish animals) are all deadly 24/7. The main female character is the Sheriff, who, at the beginning, has to rescue a female friend in the badlands from a large dinosaur-ish thing. Half-way through the book, the female Sheriff crash lands in the middle of the deadly wilderness. The main male character, who she doesn’t like, goes to rescue her. After a week or so and lots of peril and at least one broken leg (hers), they end up getting back safely by making a canoe out of the shell of a huge animal (and in love).

The colony has major political and leadership issues, some gun-fueled, and then Earth shows up and wants to take over everything. There’s also a creepy guy who starts a brothel and a gambling establishment and schemes to be get elected the boss. Somebody starts a stampede of the dinosaur-ish wildlife down the town's main-street in the middle of the night, and also traps the main male character in his house with a big dinosuar-ish animal by blocking the door with a programmable excavating machine.

331C: Girl With The Ribbon

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I'm looking for an illustrated children's collection of stories. The story I remember most vividly is that of a girl that always wears a ribbon around her neck (I think it was yellow), and eventually her husband removes it and her head falls off.  It is NOT from the book "In a Dark, Dark Room."  The illustrations were simple black (or blue?) and white, with pops of color (kinda similar to Robert Bright's).  The book also had a story about a young man that only had a couple hairs on his chest, and he was trying to grow more to prove that he was brave (my memory of this plot line is pretty fuzzy though).  I borrowed it from the library as a child in the 90s (I was 5ish?), and it was pretty beat up then so maybe published significantly earlier?  I attribute this book to my lifelong irrational inability of wearing anything around my neck (necklaces, scarves, turtlenecks, etc.) and would love to prove that this book exists.

331A: Russell Raccoon Discovers Wonderful World Of Daytime (Solved!)

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This was a favorite book of my children in the 70’s and 80’s and I made the motherly mistake of giving it away, so would dearly love to find a copy.  I don’t think Russell’s name was in the title.

Russell Raccoon was not like the other raccoons.  He couldn’t sleep in the daytime and fell asleep at night when his gang was out scavenging  One day when he couldn’t sleep he wandered out of his home to discover a whole wonderful world of daylight.   He met a little boy with whom he became friends.  There was a delightful picture of Russell riding on the back of the boy’s tricycle.  When the boss of his raccoon gang, Emma Jean Smudge, found out what he was doing she hit him on the head with her purse and told him to stay away from humans.  Picture of that was very funny.  One day when Russell went to visit his friend, the boy brought him inside his house and showed him the bedroom that had been made for Russell, complete with a little bed with his name on it.  Russell decided to move in with the boy.  The last page of the book shows all of Russell’s group including Emma Jean standing in line outside the house door at night as Russell hands out fig newtons.

330Z: Toy Horse Comes To Life

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It’s a children’s book, I think middle grade level?  Not sure though, but I don’t remember it having pictures.  A girl wants a horse for her birthday, but her parents get her a model horse instead.  Girl is disappointed (I would be too!).  She climbs a tree with the model and puts it on a branch, but is mad at it and flicks it down to the ground.  It comes to life (full sized) and talks.  She rides it around.  I don’t remember how it ends.  I probably read it in the early 90’s.