Author Archives: admin

313F & 313G: Ghosts and Time Travel

I work at a high school library and am trying to find titles of two books I had read as a young person back in the 70s. Both were probably titles that I had ordered off of the book order form/flyer that the school handed out back in the day where the kids could order really cheap books, like maybe Scholastic or Troll or something similar.

  1. This was a ghost story. Something about a young person (a girl, I think) walking down a lane (I think “Lane” might be in the title) and seeing an old cottage type house that sometimes had an old ghost lady (or couple) living there and I think the girl would visit her/them. I don’t think other people saw the ghosts and it appeared to be an abandoned cottage to other people. The girl might not have known that the old lady/couple were ghosts until later on.
  2. This was a time travel story about young people and something to do with a big wheel. I don’t know if it was a wagon wheel of a water wheel but the wheel was important and “Wheel” may be in the title. It’s not “Wheel of Time” by Robert Jordan.

313D: Visit to the Weatherman

I’m looking for a book about a little girl who forms a friendship with a grumpy weatherman. Her class is due to go on a school trip, to the beach I think, but the teacher tells them they can’t go if it rains.The girl decides to go and see the weatherman to request nice weather.The weatherman is in his weather factory and can see that she is on her way to find him. He sends wind, rain, snow, and all sorts of bad weather so she can’t make it. For some reason, I think there is a picture of her in a snow storm on Inkerman Street. The street name might be mis-remembered though. When she finally gets there, the weatherman is cross because people only come to see him when they want something. The girl realizes he’s lonely and they make friends. He shows her round his weather factory and makes her cloud ice cream with rainbows. He gives them good weather and the trip goes ahead. It was probably published in the 70s or 80s. The illustrations in Anthony Browne’s books really remind me of the illustrations. I loved it so much but my mum was a teacher and took all our childhood books to her school when we out grew them, and no one can remember what this one was called.

313C: I SPY/ Where’s Waldo Style Book

I’m looking for an I SPY / Where’s Waldo style book that my mom had as a kid. She was born in 1966, but it may be from the1950s. Instead of Waldo, you searched for a spy. I remember the cover was white and searching the pictures for the blue spy, then a green spy, and lastly a red spy.

313B: Children’s Halloween – Tour of a House with Monsters

I’m trying to find a book my mom used to read to me. I was born in 1992 so I’m assuming it was published in the late 80s/early 90s. It was a children’s Halloween book with a sound panel. The book was large with a dark purple cover with a haunted house. I’m pretty sure there was a character named Frank who was a Frankenstein monster and the plot was a tour of the folks/monsters that lived in the house. It was for kids but I remember it being less cartoony than other books we had.

313A: Christmas Cat (Solved)

The book was older, around in the 80’s/90’s, maybe older than that. It was a children’s Christmas Story of an old man who lived alone. He was known as a grumpy old man. A strange cat came to visit him everyday before Christmas and everyday he would angrily make the cat leave. On the final day (Christmas maybe?) something happened  (a memory of a loved one or something?) he was overjoyed with the cat for some reason and he let him stay. The story ended with him loving the cat and it being the best gift he had ever received. The title seems like it was “Mr. Mcdoogal’s Best Christmas Ever” or something similar. I feel strongly that the old man went by Mr. Something that starts with an “m”. The central theme was how angry/grumpy the lonely old man was and how his anger grew everyday the cat showed up until something changed and he loved the cat suddenly. Maybe the cat stopped coming for a while and it made him realize how he had grown fond of the cats visits and he was overjoyed when he returned?

312Z: Vintage Gothic Romance about Dancer

The girl is accepted to study under a master dancer. While at his house she meets the local doctor. The house is on top of the cliff. There are stairs leading up the cliff to the house. At the end of the book, the teacher makes her dance near the stairs and she cuts her leap short to keep from falling down the stairs. She looks up to see the doctor there and realizes that he has come to save her. The dancing master was trying to kill her. I think the word stairs or steps is in the title. I first read the book in the early 1970s.

312Y: Teens Runaway into the Woods

This is a dark teen novel. I read it in about 2007 and I think it was recently published. I believe the cover of the book was white (kind of a woodsy / snowy feel) with the title in black text.

The story was a very sad one.Three teens (the older two were a couple and there was a younger boy, who was the narrator) ran away and were homeless, living for at least part of the book in the woods (in some makeshift space — I believe an old van). They were cold and hungry and the girl got sick first. I believe she had sores or something on her body. In one tragic scene in particular, she’s asking the older boy (her boyfriend) to have sex with her and the narrator says the older boy did it because he really loved her. Eventually, of course, the girl died and I believe the older boy died as well a little later on.

As I said the younger boy was the narrator and there was a lot of dialect used. Apostrophes and such (“you want somethin’?”) which added a lot of character to the narration.

I believe it got good reviews / accolades, but was very sad and dark. You really saw how kids could fall through the cracks in the system and how terrible it was for kids trying to make their own way without assets or support.

312V: Series on Playing, Gardening, etc.

My sister and I have been looking for this book series from our childhood for close to 10 years now…ever since they were lost in a flood at our mother’s house.

These were hardcover books on various subjects titled things such as Playing, Gardening, Collecting, and Cooking. Each book was a different solid color with a circular picture on the front. The artwork in the books was by various artists and the writing was instructional in nature. For instance, the Playing book would have various games divided into chapters for things such as group games, team games, games for rainy days, etc

I say they are from the 70’s but I’m really not sure. From what I remember some of the artwork was very reminiscent of the style in Per Holm Knudsen’s How Baby is Made while others remind me of the artwork of Mad Magazine’s Mort Drucker. This, of course, is coming from my memories as a young child…so I could be way off on those comparisons.

One additional thing is that while watching a video yesterday, I spotted this in the background which appears to be one of the books. I’m not 100% on that, but I figured it was worth including here.

312U: Red Ring, Right hand

This book was read to me in the mid/late 1990s, in Ohio. I believe it had a yellow cover. The girl was struggling with learning her right and left hand. She was in a parade (or maybe marching band?) and turned the wrong way from the rest of the group, and I think marched alone for a while. In order to remember it for the next time, someone gave her a red ring to wear on her right hand. Then she marched with the group the next time without issue.