Looking for a book w/ very little info. It was a novel my 5th grade teacher read to the class in 1984 or 1985. All I know is the title was “Alee” (or contained that word) and the cover was a drawing of a girl walking in strong wind. I remember it was about a young girl making it on her own and there was a storm and tumbleweeds. It would have been a children’s or young adults book. Sorry – I know that’s not much to go on.
I’m looking for a children’s teaching/therapy type book. It is a paperback with a blue cover. I’m guessing that it was printed in the 2000s, but I’m not sure.
The book is about a small cloud who is happy with his cloud mom until one day he wants to go exploring on his own. (I feel like the cloud was a boy but I’m not sure.)
His mom says it’s okay so he goes off and soon runs into a group of cloud children. There’s a ringleader and the other clouds follow him/her and do what s/he says. He thinks they’re fun at first until they go higher and higher in the sky. He gets a funny/bad feeling in his tummy that tells him that this is wrong. He tries to break free from the group of clouds, who are being sucked together by the ringleader into one big dark cloud, but he finds that it’s difficult to get free. The other clouds are laughing at him. Then he draws on all of his strength, shouts “no!” (or something similar) at the clouds and he’s free.
He returns to his mom and tells her all about what happened. She responds by saying that she knew he was strong enough to do what was right (or something like that).
I’ve spent several hours entering different phrases into Google to try to find the book. I hope you have better luck that I’ve had.
So there were many books in this series
-one was an animal stealing ribbons and the turtles wax for their bike without asking
-one was all the animals calling a little crow a monster because they thought he looked scary and they found out he was nice in the end
-one where two of the animals were trying to find treasure but get lost and stumble onto the old dogs fishing spot ( I think his name might have been old red or old blue) and he shows them that it’s under the plank because it was his old treasure
-one with a broken wagon
-one where they are playing baseball in the rain
-one where an animal thinks their birthday is forgotten but all the animals are throwing a surprise party
-and one where one of the animals is painting and their pet lady bug is stepping in the paint and making tracks
if i remember correctly each book also had a dvd.
Children’s book from 70s/80s. Santa’s sleigh is stuck and Russian farmer helps him with his tractor. Story is told in song and the book has a vinyl album of music to accompany the story. Likely had a red cover.
I read a book sometime in the late 70s/early 80s that was purchased from my school through a flyer or book fair. It was a chapter book that may have had an illustration or two. Best I can remember, a girl is spending her summer break maybe in a new home or at a relative’s home. It seems like the summer may have been rainy and she was exploring the house. She found something in a basement or cellar that was either magical or had to do with witchcraft. She experimented with the magic but it seemed to turn out badly and there was an explosion or climactic event in the basement. In the end, all was resolved with a pleasant ending. I don’t remember the book centering on any other characters so only one main female child. I don’t remember the title or the cover but I have a vague recollection of orange and purple on it. Here’s hoping someone remembers.
I have posted this query on Reddit and on Stack Exchange previously.
This would have been after 1996 – 2005 ish, and I’m pretty sure it was a newly published book.
It starts with a woman who has hallucinations, and runs into an alleyway where she finds a body that looks just like hers that has been murdered. Later on, she finds a beautiful man who says he’s from another parallel universe and seems to think he’s connected with Arthurian legends, i.e. he talks about Merlin, wizards, and so on.
It starts off looking very magical and predictable, with the woman and the handsome man trying to hunt down the murderer. Then it goes somewhere else entirely.
There were seven murders in total at various points around London — they thought that it might be Jack the Ripper based, but it turns out the murders occurred at ritually significant distances around the city, and that Jack the Ripper was actually the last time they tried this, to open a portal between the worlds.
They think that the slimy enemies from another dimension are responsible, and the handsome man calls to Merlyn, his boss, to help out and ensure the slimy enemies don’t get a foothold.
They succeed, but then the woman finds that the slimy enemies are not responsible for the murders. The handsome stranger turns out to have murdered her clone himself as part of the ritual that would allow his reality to enter hers — she is actually the clone, and the original was murdered. Her confused memories and hallucinations are because she ran off before the stranger could finish creating a convincing replacement and so she still retains some memories of the original.
The handsome stranger is actually a useful idiot that is handsome and dumb precisely because he’s a facade that covers what the traders actually look like (they’re distinctly non-human and not nearly as affable). He’s a construct.
And there’s the Handsome Stranger’s manager… who appears as a kindly wizard based on Merlin? Again, he turns out to have been orchestrating the entire thing, and the whole “help us save your reality against evil slimy things” turns out to have been a dispute over trading rights to Earth between two equally slimy organizations.
The book ends with humanity establishing trade and goods with the unbound reality and becoming less and less human — strange buildings, humans with gecko like arms and legs living on walls, etc. Very creepy, and very hard to forget.
I am hoping you can help me find a picture book. I may have had a copy as a child (or borrowed it from the library), so it was available in the 1960s/70s.
The story was about a lost doll. A little girl loses her doll and her father goes out into the night in a storm/snowstorm to find it. The story is emotional and there is a sense of danger to his quest. The setting seemed to be an older time, turn of the century maybe. Russia or Eastern Europe?
The illustrations were beautiful, dark, and very impressionistic. When I see art by Edvard Munch, it reminds me of the book and I wish I remembered the title or author. My mother was a bookseller, so it bothers me even more that I can’t find it.
Here’s hoping someone remembers.
I’m certain I read this book in late 1999-early 2000. It’s about an erudite middle-aged woman who never had much romance in her life and never received much attention from men. I remember her explaining the one thing she has going for her is that she has stayed fit while other women her age gained weight. She never had a husband or kids. On the plane ride over she meets a man who is kind of bumbling and she doesn’t think would be a good fit for her. The book was probably set in the 90s. I think the man was a handyman. They fall in love when they’re both in London. If my memory serves, I believe the man dies.
My wife and my mother in law remember a children’s book that they read together in the late 80s or early 90s, long since lost–and they have been searching for it for years to hopefully share with grandkids.
The book has illustrations only, no words, and has a similar illustration style to a “Frog and Toad” book.
The book features a little boy with a pet frog. The boy takes the pet frog out on a boat, and while out on the water to somehow another little frog joins the ride.
The first pet frog is secretly jealous of the newcomer and when the boy is not looking, the first frog kicks the other one off into the water, but then plays innocent.
These covert aggressions continue, and are apparently very funny. But the boy eventually figures it out and scolds the naughty frog.
I look forward to any help that you can give!
I’m not even sure why this particular picture book continues to stick with me. Was it the thrill of exploring a secret passage that sparked my love of exploration? Was it my first surprise ending? Was it my love of bakeries? I’m really not sure, but I’d love to find a copy. I borrowed this book from the children’s section of the Elmhurst branch of the Queens (NY) Public Library many times from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. There were either one or two children–boys I think–who were exploring a secret passageway they had found in an old mansion or castle. I think he or they had just moved there but my memory is unclear. One of the illustrations I remember best showed an interior view slice of the whole house, including the secret passageway winding its way through the multi-leveled dwelling, with the two boys visible with their flashlight somewhere on a lower level. The boys follow the passageway a long way underground to a door. The door opens out into a bakery in the town or village. There’s another illustration of a surprised baker at his oven as the small door opens out from mid-wall and the equally surprised boys tumble into his bakery. For some reason I think the baker is French, but again details remain elusive. At the end the baker serves them cream puffs or eclairs. Another post I saw (on another book search site) seemed to be a query about this same book and mentions the boys perhaps finding some old casks of wine (?) that had been missing for some time. I also think the town was celebrating some kind of anniversary and the townspeople hoped to celebrate with the casks of wine. It’s also possible I am confusing two books. If anyone can help, I’d really appreciate it!