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313I: Seven Soviet Sisters

This book was a little over my head when I was around 7 (ironically). It was not a Little Golden Book nor a Disney book!

It was a story book or what seemed to be a collection of related stories. An elementary epic?  May be Scandinavian stories rather than Soviet.

The early 1970s edition I had was bright blue and the cover was at least 8 ½ x 11.

There were seven (or only six) sisters. In the picture book version each sister was wearing an ornate but monochromatic dress. I’m thinking they were different examples of the regional dresses worn, or maybe clan-type styles. But with a hippie-vibe art style.

I think each sister was sent out on some kind of unusual coming-of-age search. Or maybe they were kidnapped by seven (or six) different people and each had a story about how they got home.

I was a natural reader, but either the words were a bit too big for me or I was too interested in what they were wearing to remember much of the plot. (That, and home wasn’t peaceful so I was sleep-deprived…so it was a big, wordy, beautiful blur of a book.)

I’d still have the book, but since I didn’t seem to be reading it, Mom gave it away to charity. I still have books that I was given when I was even younger…

 

313H: Monkey Brain Time Travel (Solved)

I’m haunted by a (probably YA) time travel book I read in the mid 70s. I believe it takes place in England, where relatives are visiting (maybe from America?) their professor/scientist Uncle (?) who has produced a time travel potion. I think one of its main ingredients is monkey brains, but I’m not 100% sure. The serum allows the imbiber to travel back to Middle Age Britain, not sure if it’s as an active participant or as a fly-on-the-wall. Whichever character it is that starts taking trips, soon gets caught up in the people and events of that past. He becomes addicted to it. The danger is that his body stays more-or-less in present day geographically, so when he comes out of the trip he may be standing in the middle of a super highway or some such that wasn’t there hundreds of years ago. I don’t remember the resolution. I just remember loving the imagery and concept. Anybody?

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.