Author Archives: admin

308W: Time travel is a wheel within a wheel

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I think the title was “Ghosts” or at least had that word in the title. I read it in the late 70s from my junior high school library.

The story was about a brother & sister who managed to travel back in time to know the children who lived in the same house. (I think they turned out to be related.)  Their Uncle was involved, and he explained time travel as some sort of wheel within a wheel (I never grasped the concept).  The selfish immature girl who lived in the house couldn’t see them, but could hear them when they spoke. When she proudly modeled a new dress and asked her mother for an opinion, she only heard the voice of one of the children say “I think she looks like a stuffed sausage!”  When they accidentally broke a vase, I believe it altered their time, and disappeared.

It was made into a movie at some point, because I found it on TV once, but I believe it had a different name.

I wish I knew more, but it is all I can remember. I’d love to read it again and share it with my children.

Thanks so much for trying to help!

308V: Haunted Houses in New England

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These were several books by the same author, but not a series.  My 7th grade school librarian introduced me to the author.  This would have been around 1985-86.  The books all dealt with old, haunted houses in New England.  One had a creepy basement with a dirt floor, and bodies buried under it.  Another had a person look out a third story window to see a face looking back, and knew it was a ghost.  These books felt very grown up to me at the time, but were definitely Young Adult.  They were eerie and moody, but not Stephen King scary.  It was a woman author, and the covers usually had an old house in silhouette. I’d love to revisit this author, as I read all of the books in our school library over and over.  Some faint memory says the authors name might have been Barbara something……

308U: Boys who would sail

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Series or collection of books about boys who would sail on boats from 1700s or 1800s.  The boys were lower level people on boats.  Remember one part told about learning to use stars to navigate by.  Several books think by same author. Targeted junior high or high school readers.  Read them in 1970’s.  Loved them.  Would love to read again.

Thanks.

308T: A boy and a whale (Solved)

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Here is the book I am looking for from my childhood. I was born in 1981 for reference.

Book is about a whale and boy. They travel down a river and as they go the whale changes colors from the surrounding areas. I know one page is a jungle with monkeys.  The last page of the book is the whale with the boy on top of him swimming out to sea. All the colors have been washed off of him and the water behind him is colored like a rainbow but the whale is white/gray.

308S: Caught stealing 10 cents

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I’m a reference librarian who is answering a patron’s request to find a book about a young boy who is caught stealing ten cents and that is all I know about it.

The books would have been out by the early 80’s, the patron read it in 1983.

Thanks for your help.

308Q: Escaping the storm

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I’m looking for a book I read while in elementary school in Canada between 1972-1978.

It was a book about pilots (2?) who are trapped in the Florida keys (or Caribbean?) with a big storm (hurricane?) coming and who decide to escape flying a damaged airplane (DC3?) with limited elevator control. They have to fly using trim mostly. If it was in high school this would have been from 1978 – 1983.  Really hope to find this again for my son to read.

308P: Animal father and son search for a home in the woods

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Illustrated book about a father and son mouse (might be a different animal, might be grandfather mouse) looking for a home in the woods. I think they try a bunch of different homes and find them occupied. As they visit each home, the residents give them something to take with them. In the end, they put those gifts in their home. In one scene, they visit a bird’s nest with a gold roof full of shiny things, and the birds give them gold beads. In another they visit dragonflies? playing tennis using nets strung between blades of grass, or possibly hammocks strung between blades of grass. They visit a lizard family and the mother is making sandwiches using fly/gnat jam on bread. The lizards have long fingers. They get marshmallows from one house, and in the final scene they roast them over their stove in their new home.

The little boy mouse has a bedroom up high that he reaches using a ladder. I must have read it in the early 2000s, and the book I read was a fairly large, maybe half inch thick book with soft covers. It seemed fairly new, not a vintage book. I know it isn’t Brambly Hedge. The illustrations were more whimsical than realistic, and the animals wore clothes. The illustrations vaguely remind me of those in Need A House, Call Ms. Mouse, but only slightly.

308O: A shy lighthouse keeper

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I have a library customer searching for a children’s book, but she doesn’t remember the title or plot. She thinks the author’s last name was Harper. It was a hardback picture book about a lighthouse keeper who was a shy man. The cover illustration was of a man in a long yellow rain slicker with a yellow rain hat over his face. It was published around 1948 or so. She said that her grandfather, Alonzo Washington, worked for a family called Harper who ran a publishing business in the Greater Philadelphia (Chester County) area, and one of the family members wrote this book for her when she was a child. She’s positive it was actually published, not a one-off. Her name is Marcilene Brown, if that will help at all. I haven’t been able to find any ties between her “Harper family” and the NYC Harper publishers. I hope you can help solve this mystery! Thank you very much for your help.

 

 

308N: Surrounded by junk

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I have been trying to find this one for my Mom for years.

I am sorry to say I have no title or author or publishers to help out. You can see how tough that makes it.

Here is what I know and what she recalls.

She bought it as a paperback in the mid to late 80s

She thinks she remembers it was set in either the great depression or late 40s-ish, I am not sure about if that is exact because the character in the story is very poor and lives in the mid west or mid south west.

A woman lives on a run down section or property, maybe a farm.  It is surrounded by junk,  junk cars and trucks etc.  She is afraid of the dark and always has to leave a light on.  She lives there with her son and one day a strange man shows up and he helps clean up her land, gets an old vehicle or tractor running and hooks up the electric power for her. My Mom says she thinks she vaguely recalls the man may have been an escaped prisoner or on the run from the law or from something or some reason.

She read the book long ago and loved it, but the years do what the years do and she has long lost it in moving and life in general.  Being in her late 60s doesn’t help the memory much either I’m afraid.

If you could help It would be amazing