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323Q: Town Gets Rid Of Laws And Other Stories (Solved)

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Growing up, I was born in 1982, we had a book that was a compilation of short stories and some poems and other things. It was a light blue/teal colored hard back book with a paper cover. It was a bigger book, like maybe more of an 8.5×11 size. There was a story in it about a town that got rid of all the rules and laws for the day and people didn’t wear their seat belts and sped around town. And there were pictures in the book. There was also another story about 2 teenage sisters who got in an argument and one sister ripped the nose on the other sister’s David Lee Roth poster and tried to cover it up. The book was definitely super random with stories ranging from life lessons to fun little kid’s stories. At some point my mom has lost or gotten rid of it and I’ve been trying to remember what this book was for about 3 years now. It’s been driving me nuts and both her and my brother have no recollection of it. Please help!!!!

323P: Boy runs errands for mom, takes wrong advice each time

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A male youth does an errand for Mom but does it wrong, and on each subsequent errand he follows the advice she had given him the previous time.
Ex: He is carrying a cat to give away, but it wiggles free from his hands and scurries away.
Mom says, “Next time, put it in your hat so it won’t jump free. “
So his next errand is to take a pound of butter to market.  He puts the butter under his hat.  But it melts.
“Next time,” mom says, put it in your pack.  So the next time, he is carrying something that cannot survive in his pack, but he puts it in the pack.
Great drawings, delightful in the 60s when I read it.

323O: Boy grows a big garden, starting from just one strawberry plant

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My grandmother had this book; it looked older but I'm not sure when it was published. I don't remember any part of the title, unfortunately. I remember that it had lots of pretty illustrations. In the story a little boy either finds, or plants, a small strawberry plant. He clears a nice little patch for it so that it can grow. As the story goes on, he slowly expands his little garden with more veggies and fruits, because he figures it's not that much more work to add a little more, and then a little more, etc. By the end he has a huge, beautiful garden that he is very proud of, but he realizes he forgot about his strawberry plant! In a happy ending, he finds it back and gives it a nice spot of its own.

323N: Magical Teen Elizabeth

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When I was a teenager in the 80’s I read a book called “Elizabeth”.  The book was about a teenage girl who either had magical powers or magic was somehow insinuated.  The cover was black and I believe it had a broken mirror on the cover.  In the story she had a red mark on her upper thigh that she received from a spider bite maybe but it was identical to another character in the book, like an aunt or something.  She would remark in the book how older men were attracted to her and she enjoyed it.  I have looked everywhere online for the book and even called my local library.  I guarantee the book is not about Queen Elizabeth or Elizabeth Taylor because that is all that I find out there.  Please help!!

323M: Sisters split shared room down middle, realize mistake

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I had a very favorite book which was either from the 60’s or early 70’s.  I was born in 1962, so I’m leaning towards the 60’s but I could be wrong.

I could have sworn the title was “It’s My Room”.  I have no idea who the author was, illustrator etc.  I might even be off on the title, but for some reason it sure rings a bell with me.

The book was about two sisters who shared a bedroom.  They were best friends until they weren’t.  Then they decided the only way to fix the problem was to split the room in two.

They did this right down the middle with tape or something like that.  One sister got to have the window to look out to see what was going on outside.  She thought she had the best deal, until the other sister left the room through the door…which the other sister would have to cross the line in order to leave the room.  She stayed in the room but realized her mistake.  Pretty soon, they become friends again and she could leave the room with her sister and all is well with the world.

I particularly loved this book because I grew up with many siblings and always shared a room and only dreamed of having my own room.  (Probably why my Mom bought this for me.)

I hope you can locate this book/title for me.  I would so appreciate it!  I have tried on my own and have not come up with anything, however I remember it vividly.

323L: Mermaid short story/book of ironic stories

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I believe there was a YA book of ironic stories that I read between 1979-1983. Story I’m looking for: A teenage boy discovers a mermaid living in a pond at the bottom of a quarry. She never breaks the surface of the water, but looks beautiful underneath it. The quarry will soon be dynamited and caved in, so he decides to save her and move her to another pond. When he does capture her, with much difficulty, she is a hideous monster (the water had distorted her features) that nearly kills him. He lets her stay in the pond. The next day the quarry is dynamited and she is buried under the rubble. Have asked for years on every search site I could find. Please help! Thank you!

323J: Children search for Victorian explorer father

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Looking for a YA book published 2008-2015-ish.  It is a kind of steampunk-y story about some children whose father has disappeared. He’s a Victorian-ish explorer and there are still vast expanses to be explored. The kids follow some clues and find a hidden world…maybe in a cave? I think the father was part of some sort of explorer’s society, too.

323I: Anthology for girls featuring Jane Austen and others

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I am trying to trace an anthology that was in UK libraries in the 60’s/early 70’s, but may have been American in origin. I can’t remember the title or editor but it was aimed I think at girls and was well illustrated. One of the early stories in it was an extract from Northanger Abbey – the scene where Catherine and Isabella talk about gothic novels they are reading; a later extract has the Riding in Trains section from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s On the Shores of Silver Lake. Don’t think it was part of a set and don’t think it was a Clifton Fadiman or Louis Untermeyer anthology, as I have others of theirs, but I may be wrong. It was my first introduction to Austen and hence was significant to me. Wish there was a directory one could consult that would cross reference anthologized extracts so one could look up the Austen for instance and find all the collections in which it appears..
Hope you can help.

323H: Tree On A Hill

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Children’s Chapter Book, 4-Book Series, 1 for Each Season (Around late 80’s). These books may have also had a boy and a dog. There were frequent pictures along with the words. My guess is that the length of the books were around 30-40 pages. I can’t recall anything else. Thanks for your help!