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313Z: Boy Experiencing Adolescence

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The novel is fictional. I’m pretty sure it was written by a male. It’s roughly around 120-170 pages. It may have been released during the late 80-90s. From what I remember the background cover art was light blue and on the foreground, a face of a boy (pre-teens-young teenager) looking away to the left into the distance. There is also a bird (possibly a robin?) superimposed above him. The novel starts with a boy at a swim meet however I’m not sure if he wins or loses. After this, he is driving home with his mom and sister and they get into a fatal car accident (I’m not sure what becomes of the mother, but I do remember the sister having dialogue later in the book) which leaves the boy confined to a bed stuck in his thoughts for the most part. He is dealing with his changing body, his shifting views of sexuality and the death of his father during the Vietnam War (remembering scattered memories, the fact he doesn’t have father during all the puberty shift). I wish I could remember more but from what I do, it’s a fairly simple novel about a boy essentially dealing with existential burden from his growing body and lack of a fatherly figure.

313W: An Old Easter Story

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This book has an Easter theme or at least involved rabbits who produced these really ornate Easter eggs; some, or at least one of them, had another world inside it. I recall something about a Grand bunny or master rabbit or similar; but, there also seemed to be some kind of theme where a child escapes their current world into one of the eggs (like a pied piper kind of story).

 

313U: Mer-folk and a Stormy Dance Night

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The short story I am looking for was from a compilation of stories, probably a compilation of spooky stories. Not sure whether it was set in the United States or the United Kingdom. I think it was the UK.  I read it a few years ago; it was about an island that belongs to the mer-folk/ sea beings. The island lies off a coastal town which connect to the mainland via jetty/pier and build a dancehall on it. The mer-folk throw up a huge storm on a dance night and separate the island from the mainland once again. They claim back their island. There was good description of the storm and its effect on the dancers I think. I would love to read it again.

313U: Visit to Aunt Rachel (Solved)

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The book I’m trying to find is from the 70s. The protagonist is a teenage girl visiting her elderly Aunt Rachel for the summer, I think. There’s a handsome man who’s a caretaker, I think, named Ewain? Ewan? In any case, it turns out that he’s hundreds of years old, and he’s really Merlin, and the aunt has some sort of charm that keeps him under her power. He has to do her bidding, and that keeps her young. I think they kidnap a young girl every 20 years or so and all of Aunt Rachel’s physical problems and aging gets transferred to the girl. And the protagonist is next in line. But I think Merlin saves her. Jeez, I read this about 35 years ago, over and over again! I’d love to find out what book it was!

313T: Vehicles of the Future

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Early 1980s book I checked out of my local grade school library.  I left that school in 1986/1987 so it would have been published prior to that and it didn’t appear to be brand new when I checked it out.  What I recall:

1980s children’s picture book about future vehicles (in a similar style of Syd Mead). My primary focus of the book was the submarine image as I was obsessed with the ocean at the time.  The submarine appeared to have solar panels on the top of the hull and a raised platform (similar to the control portion of an aircraft carrier) that had the shape of a fin (like sports cars have on the rear) with two risers and a flattened, wing like top.  I believe (but could be mistaken) that there was a helicopter landing pad on the raised platform.

The submarine itself was massive and the front swept back like a manta ray or a shark’s pectoral fins.  The front “fins” had two, large engines (appeared to be similar to jet-intake engines like on a large plane) but obviously for aquatic propulsion.

I have attached a couple images: one is of a sports car tail-fin for reference and the other is a crude drawing of the submarine as I remember it.  Emphasis on the “crude”.

I have been trying in vain to find the book, or at least the image in the book of the submarine.  Hopefully, this will bring an end to my search!  Thank you!

313S: Missing Clock Tower Automatons (Solved)

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A girl goes on dangerous magical quest to find missing clock tower automatons. I read this book sometime in the mid-1970s. It may have been published from the 1950s-1970s. Statues or automatons have disappeared from the town cathedral or clock tower (I lean toward the clock) and if they are not restored by midnight (?) on a certain day, chaos will ensue. There is a European city feel to the magical yet current-day setting. Toward the very end, some adults are talking, “I’m letting her sleep. ” There is a sense that she has done things which were not quite lawful but she is excused because of her accomplishment. The adults may be a mother and aunt, or maybe aunts only.

313R: The Boat Shrinks to be Carried

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I am looking for a fantasy book in a series of books about young people of Celtic descent who live in the southern American states who encounter and fight beings of Celtic mythology. They travel on a boat which resembles a metallic dragon which shrinks to be carried. One of the young people is an Native American Indian who gets help from beings of the Native American Indian mythology. The books, I think, were published in the 1980s.