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371H: Girl Loses Doll on Bus Trip (Solved!)

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I’m hoping someone can help me find the name, and maybe the author, of a children’s book. It wasn’t very thick, had illustrations, I believe it was published in the 1960s and was aimed at readers ages 6-10. I read it between 1969-1971. 
A young girl was allowed to take a bus trip by herself once school was done for the summer. She may have been visiting her grandmother. She took her doll along. I seem to remember the doll was made of cloth and wore a dress and pinafore. The bus stopped for a rest break, and the girl took the doll with her. She had a chocolate bar at one point and may have bought it during the stop. She got back on the bus but didn’t notice until after it left the rest stop that she left the doll behind. I don’t recall if she got the doll back.
I would appreciate any help finding this book as the memory of it has always stayed with me.

371G: Alien takes a nature walk

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An illustrated paperback children’s book that I read circa 1990 in California, a small alien-looking character walks in a lush green forest and maybe sees a quiet deer, a waterfall, and rainbow? The illustrations may be watercolor, jewel tones, and the main/ only character was dressed like a vintage teletubby. The title may have been “Nature Walk.”

371E: African American Orphan Stands Up For Herself (Solved!)

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I am looking for a book that I cannot remember the title of, that I read in sixth grade, 1979/80 school year, in Macon, Georgia. I would like to purchase a copy. 


Subject: Middle Grades or YA- African American Female – Fiction – Coming of Age – African American Female empowerment- Mystery


Published: 1970-1980, but I believe closer to 1979


Synopsis:In the 1970s, an African American girl of about ten years old, from a close knit, education supporting, financially struggling family, is left an orphan, along with her teen brother, after their parents die when their Northern city apartment complex burns. I believe that she is burned. She is uprooted from a Northern progressive city when she goes to live with a wealthy middle class aunt and uncle who live in the deep south, in the country, in a house that is disappointing on the outside, but fantastically remodeled on the inside. For the first time she has her own room, beautiful clothes, amusements, books and plenty of delicious food. She is painfully shy and has PTSD from the death of her parents and the fire. She attends a school that is racist and newly desegregated, yet segregated in the classroom by putting all African American students in a low learning group. She has to learn to be assertive to her very racist and patronizing vapid young teacher in order to be placed in a gifted learning group.  The aunt is very wise, loving and encourages her niece to grow in confidence, independence, love and learning. The uncle is sullen, intimidating,  quiet and grieving over his own private matter. There is a mystery about a pregnant teen girl runaway, who is hiding out in an abandoned church in the woods, somehow related to the uncle, whom she finds when playing in the woods. 
This booked moved me and was written in a way that allowed me to grow with the character. It was bold in its description of racism and sexism and the need for individual female power through self confidence and self acceptance and assertiveness. It was a book that sought to enlighten and build a bridge between the racial and gender divides of the 70s post desegregated South. 
This book was recommended by my middle school librarian, who was very progressive and excellent at ordering and promoting to every student multicultural African American books. She placed it in a book grouping display, so it may have been a book award nominee or showcased as African American fiction.  I believe that the author was an African American female. 
Let me know if I need to amend or refine this description.  I’ve exhausted Google and the library librarian.

371D: French Fantasy Book

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I’m looking for a French kid’s or adolescent’s book. I read it in French class in middle school. It had watercolor illustrations and had to do with color. Maybe color leaving the world or being stolen? I think the main character was a boy with colorful wisps for hair. He was on a journey? I remember a villain, but I might be mixing up another book. It had a wide, white face and big eyes. Sorry, I know this might just not be enough!

371B: Girl Trapped By Apocalyptic Sorceress

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The book was a large full-color graphic novel. It probably would’ve been published between 1990 and 2010. It was about this girl who lived in a huge palace with a very strict and secretive ‘mom’. This parental figure is rarely around and the girl is often taken care of by random people the lady employs. She gives the girl run of the place but tells her never to venture over the wall outside the palace. One day she gets mad and does it anyway. To her horror, she sees a desolate almost apocalyptic world and hundreds of slaves her ‘mom’ keeps. At first one of them was going to take her back to the palace but she persisted and found out her ‘mother’ is a very powerful sorceress who keeps the whole world under her control. A woman shows up and sees the girl standing by a man from the palace. She asks him point blank if this girl is her daughter that the sorceress took away from her. He basically says he can’t tell her then says something that strongly implies the answer is yes. The sorceress comes and finds out and drags her to the forest. She encases the girl in a small pod-like home grown into a tree where she lives trapped for years until her late teens when she escapes. She gets help from a boy about her age and goes back to the palace and defeats the sorceress. There was some part where they got help from a man a few years older than her who the sorceress had raised under similar circumstances and kept in the palace. He’d tried to defy her but it hadn’t worked. I don’t remember much else but it was long and had big pages.

Please help.

371A: The Girl Attends All Boy Calligraphy School (Solved!)

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I’d read this in the 8th grade which I’d loaned from my schools library but it’s about this young white girl who attends an all boy’s calligraphy school at the calligraphy teacher’s farm home. I don’t remember how she got the chance to attend the school but I remember she’s not well off and her youngest brother is sick. Before she leaves on the train to the school her older brother buys her a grey wool bonnet and writes to her while she is away. 
There was a page of the book that had shown one of her brother’s letters written in the crosshatching/ cross writing technique. While at the school the girl has an assignment that a boy in her class sabotages by spilling ink on it. Little details i remember are her needing a stack of bricks for her to place her feet on because she cannot reach the floor white sitting on her desk, the girl helping a woman remove garden peas from the pod, and her getting ready for a fourth of July festival in the town her school is in. There’s also a mention that her teacher has written his calligraphy in his own blood. 
I believe this was set within the late 1800’s – early 1900’s in the United states. 
I’ve been looking for this book for years so any help whatsoever is appreciated! Thank you so much! 

370Z: Boy solves small-town summer mystery

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In 1975 I read a young adult novel about a city boy sent to stay the summer at his grandmother’s house in a small town. He doesn’t want to be there and expects to have a boring time, but stumbles across a mystery that he decides to solve. None of the adults in town believe him, but he eventually solves the mystery with the help of an older, wisecracking boy from the town. I don’t remember any details other than that the town was very small and along a small river or large creek and his grandmother’s house was at the edge of town near the river. I think the story was set in the generic “midwest” or “northeast”. The book was probably written in the mid- to late 1960s or early 1970s. I don’t think it was part of a series.