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311Z:Octopus For Dinner

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I read a book when I was a kid 1993, the book felt modern) that was about a girl who was invited to sleepover at her friends house for the first time. Main girl is white and the friend is black. She’s very anxious, one thing she worries about is they will serve something weird for dinner like an octopus. She goes and they have a good time, in one part they run through cornfields at the friends house. It’s definitely geared towards 7-12 age group, some illustrations. I’ve been searching for years!!

311Y:Narcolepsy

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Novel about hillbilly-type farm family talked into turning farm into guest farm. Grandpa has apparent narcolepsy and ends up passes out anywhere and everywhere. A visiting couple finds watching cows being butchered erotic. I remember describing wallpaper of old magazines and newspapers because so poor. Read around late 1980s to mid 1990s?

311X:Flood From A Nearby Reservoir’s Dam

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If I remember correctly, the children’s story is a short-story which was part of a larger book which contained many different stories. It may even be true, or based on a true story. It was read to me in the 1970s. It is the story of a flood from a nearby reservoir’s dam breaking, and a smart, resourceful mother who protects and saves her little children by climbing onto tables, then top of bookcase/cabinet, then eventually sawing through ceiling and placing them in attic, (or maybe outside)?. The story had at least once hand drawn black & white

311W: The Adventures They Shared And The Companionship

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When I was in elementary school I checked a book, perhaps a series, from the school library. I have no memory of the title at all nor the author, but it gave me a love for Kerry Blue Terriers.

The story was about a girl and her beloved Kerry and the trips they took, I think in her bed at night…but oh, the adventures they shared and the companionship

311V:Prominent Tubular

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Pre 1970, fairly large format, color illustrated (vintage style) children’s book of fairy tales/nursery rhymes contains a story with an old woman baking a cake for a young male. Cake has prominent tubular peaks covering the surface. I think the illustration was on a left-hand page.

311U:Working Class Unmarried Couple

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The opening chapters depict a working class unmarried couple who are struggling. The woman really likes the man but he already has his mind set to move on from the woman (and her young son), and to find better work elsewhere. I want to say they are squatting in a small house in rural CA somewhere.

 

The man decides he wants to take the woman’s son climbing before he abandons them. He wakes the boy up early and they drive to (I believe) Yosemite National Park together in the man’s truck. The man takes him on a long, multi-pitch roped climb, which I remember really enjoying reading about.

 

When the two get back, the man does indeed leave. He goes on to find a job working as a carpenter or cleaner or some laborer type position on roofs and gables and other high places, which I assume he can do because of his experience climbing. He makes a coworker friend and one of the last things I can recall is he teaches the coworker how to not be so afraid of heights.

 

 

311S:Awake All Night

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[Private Role=”author”]Judith Storteboom,judithstorteboom@gmail.com[/private]

A children’s book from 1900-1950 about little girl who is told by doctor she needs to go to bed an hour earlier each night. So every night she goes to bed one hour earlier and soon is going to bed during the day and awake all night.

311R:Teenage Magic Device (Solved)

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Teenage girl accidentally turns herself invisible with a magic device.

Longer: This was a children’s/YA book I read in the early ’90s at the absolute latest. I’m pretty sure it was a hardcover, and the title was some common phrase like “Vanishing Act” which also referred to magic or invisibility, and the letters on the cover were gradually vanishing, from white into the black of the cover.

The main character was a girl, at least young teenage, who was a stage magician. She was described as having large, quick hands, which made it easier for her to do card tricks. She frequented a magic shop in her town and one day found a boxed magic trick which the owner didn’t want her to buy; she might have either stolen it or left the money and slipped out when the owner wasn’t looking.

The trick was a box with a row of buttons down the exact middle of it, six or seven in rainbow order, with the last one being either white or black. There was a sheet of directions and a piece of cloth included in the box, and when she put the cloth on something and pressed the buttons in the order specified in the directions, the something turned invisible (really, truly invisible; not a trick). She then followed the directions and made the thing visible again.

She used the box as her grand finale in a magic show she did, and the store owner was really angry at her, partly because it was cheating and partly because maybe there was something wrong with the magic box itself.

The accident happened when she tried it again, and it turned out her knee was touching the corner of the fabric, and the directions were folded up in her pocket and were also turned invisible, and so was the magic box itself.

She finally figured out/half remembered the right order to press the buttons in, and then it didn’t work, but she turned the box around (since it was perfectly symmetrical) and it worked.

There was a bit of scariness when the magic store owner (cranky old guy?) was trying to get the box away from her–maybe he fell in the water? Something about a warehouse? This bit is all very fuzzy.

311Q:Deployments And People Of Power

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In 1954 I read a book about POWER. The thrust of the book was observed methods or deployments people of power use. I.e., In a meeting the attendees will sit automatically by their importance to the chair. The most important will sit to the right of the chair while the least important will sit left of the chair. The author states, Power is so important in society it should be taught in schools.