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310F: The Rolling Wheels (Solved)

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It’s the story of a family who joins a wagon train to travel to California.  In one of the episodes, they meet up with another wagon train before they cross the Sierra Mountains and it turns out that other group was the Donner Party.  They went their separate ways.  (It didn’t mention what happened to the Donners.)  Another vivid part of the book had them crossing the desert, they’re almost collapsing from thirst and tormenting mirages of water appear on the horizon.  Also, I seem to remember them carving on rocks, joining the marks of others who had traveled that way.



310E: Field Trip To A Fort

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I remember reading an epistolary YA book when I was a pre-teen (so in the late 80s/early 90s). It was about a group of kids who go on a field trip to a fort. While there (overnight trip) the adults all get shellfish poisoning from bad clams they have foraged. The kids then take over, and end up defending the fort from a biker gang.

310D: Coming of age on another planet

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I read a science fiction novel from my junior high library, so sometime between 1974-1976 but I don’t know how old it was at the time. It was a coming-of-age story. The point of view character was a boy/young man. He and his group crashed(?)/were stranded on an alien, rocky planet. There are adults with him, but somehow he has to take charge. He encounters another human castaway/refugee, whom he takes to be another boy and who is wary of him. Turns out the other boy is a girl in disguise. They decide to cooperate. Any ideas what book this was?

310B: The Sitting Down Disease

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I have searched for an odd book I remember from childhood, with no luck.

I think it was called The Sitting Down Disease, but I am not sure. It was probably for 4 – 8 year olds, kind of silly. I recall a renter living in the attic of the family home and the kid or kids in the family got the sitting down disease, where one can only move about as if sitting in an invisible chair.
Has anyone heard of this? I don’t think I dreamt it…I would love to see it again.

310A: YA book about an orphan girl

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I read it 20 years ago, or so and I think it was new-ish then. It took place in NYC and a girl lost her parents. Maybe she was living somewhere else and lost them and then had to move to the city to live with another relative? There was this odd group that was like a gang that lived on the streets and I forgot what they were called, but they were like the worst of the worst. They were nocturnal and seemed to not care about anybody or anything. She was warned to stay as far away from them as possible. Anyhow, through a series of events that I can’t remember, the girl, at the end of the book, ends up one of these gang members who live on the streets. The copy I had was hardcover and light blue with no paper jacket. I think that the title was a quote of some sort? At the time I was into gritty urban books and this one was given to me. Thanks for any help!

309Z: A priest and a prostitute (Solved)

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This book is from the 1970's I believe. A priest lets an ill prostitute move in with him so he can care for her. Her name is Ursula Vaclav. One day the priest returns home soaking wet during a thunderstorm, and the prostitute runs and clings to him because she is terrified of thunderstorms. She then goes about making dinner while he goes to change into dry clothes, selecting a work shirt and pants rather than his priest outfit. He can't stop thinking about her as they drink wine with dinner, and he helps her with washing the dishes. As she puts the last dish away in the cupboard she turns toward him and he takes her in his arms and kisses her. He had never kissed a woman before, and then carries her up the stairs for more. I recall the title of the book as something like "the time and the hour", and I think the author was a man.

309Y: The Dutch Inspector and Czech Gymnast

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There is a series of mystery books that have a Dutch inspector solving them. He is married to a former Czech gymnast who has a bum leg. They have a daughter together. He smokes a lot, as does she and their marriage is not very good. He is an excellent inspector, however, who sometimes gets emotionally involved with his cases. In the final book, he is killed, unfortunately.

I would like to know the name of the author or at least the name of one of the books. I read these about ten years ago.

309X: Cereal Box Mansion

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Mom sends young boy to buy cereal. Instead of the supermarket, he goes to run-down neighborhood store. The cereal is not good, but the back of the cereal box is part of a set that combines to build a model of a Victorian mansion. Boy returns to store to buy more of the cereal, builds mansion. Ghost of sad young woman appears. She was the daughter of the cereal manufacturer. The mansion had been torn down, the rest of the cereal boxes had been discarded, and this is the last model of the house existing. She had been in love, forbidden to marry, and died in grief. Meanwhile, the boy befriends a sad old man. Eventually, he realizes that the man and ghost had been in love, many years earlier. He races home to get the house, and finds that his mother has cleaned his room, and burned the house in the incinerator. Pre-1970s.