Author Archives: admin

299S: Mystery du Lac (Solved!)

5 Replies

For the life of me I cannot remember the title of the book or the author. It was from the late 80’s or early 90s and was a mystery with teenaged characters. There was a girl sent to spend the summer with her aunt and a selfish cousin. I think a few years pass after the cousin’s death and there is a reunion and all of these odd things start happening. It was on a lake and had a French name like Fond du Lac or Chance du Lac. It might have been on the Wisconsin/Canada border. There was a romance element to it and the heroine was meant to feel like she could trust no one.

299R: Witches and a Glass Mountain (Solved)

5 Replies

I remember almost nothing about this book except the cover and the fact that I loved it. The cover was blue, with a picture of a glass mountain on it, and a couple of little witches on broomsticks flying around it. I read it in the early 1970’s when I took it out of the library and it was probably aimed at 10 – 12 year olds. I realize this is not a lot to go on! But thank you for any help anyone can offer.

299Q: Chased by geese trying to get gooseberries

4 Replies

Kids book from 1970s/1980s. Kids solve a mystery based on hidden clues they find – at their grandparents house maybe? I forget where the first clue was or how it started. The second clue (maybe?) is found in a loose stone of a stone fence. Then there’s something about kids being chased by geese trying to get gooseberries. The last clue is found tucked in an Indian Headdress socket where feather would fit in. Thank you! Been searching for years.

299O: The (first) Cold War

Leave a reply

I read this when I was in Middle School in the late 1960s/ early 1970s and I had a brother in active duty in Vietnam trying to stop the “Domino Effect” of Communism from overtaking the free world.  I believe it was written by an author who specialized in this genre.  The plot was that the United States was being drawn into a war between the then Red China and Soviet Union by both sides that was threatening to become nuclear.  The US President was keeping the nation neutral, until warheads were pointed at the opponent’s shores, MAD was close, and the leaders of both governments were imploring that the United States side with them to turn the tide.  The end of the book never said which country the US supports, but the Soviet leader says something like, “you need to fight on our side – at least we both are of the white race” near the cliffhanger of the novel.

I would love to quote this book in a text book I am writing these many years later, but cannot identify it.  Please help!

299M: Like brightly colored Hummel characters

1 Reply

I’m looking for a children’s book that was a collection of fairy tales or stories.  My father brought it home to me around the mid 1980’s from one of his trips abroad.  The book was written in English, largish font, and beautifully illustrated.  The pictures stand out the most in my memory, reminding me of brightly colored Hummel characters.  I believe the front cover had a boy and girl on a wagon.  The stories were unique, I’ve never read them anywhere else.  The only bits I can recall is that one story was about a princess or young girl who was picking peaches and either in the same story or a completely different one there were elves or fairies picking leaves of gold and they had to wear special sunglasses to do so.  It was either leaves or apples of gold.

I hope what little information I was able to provide will help you in figuring out what book this was!

 

299L: A girl is given the power to swim underwater

1 Reply

I cannot remember the title. All I can remember is it was a fantasy book involving a girl who was given the power to swim underwater where she befriended a whale, a dolphin, and it involved rescuing her friends at the bottom of the ocean who were trapped there underneath a bubble. One key character that I remember was a “dimity bird” that was enchanted to move about. Presumably published in the ’60s, early ’70s.

299K: Naughty Boy Who Runs Away in a Tote Bag (Solved)

3 Replies

I read this book in the mid-80s; It’s either a picture book or a young reader book.

I think it may have been from a Scholastic/other company book order from submitted through school. I think (I don’t know why I think this) it may have been translated into English, possibly from a Scandinavian language.

I  believe it was about a kind of naughty little boy; his mother was always exasperated with him, but she made it clear to him she loved him no matter what.

He got into all sorts of trouble, including, I think cutting a wolf’s fur with scissors. As drawn, the little boy had bright yellow hair.

The most vivid thing about the book from my memory is a single  scene and an illustration of that scene: the little boy was running away from home, and he did so by taking a bag– a sort of tote bag– of his mother’s, cutting some holes in the bottom, and climbing in. His legs and feet stuck out of the holes, but none of the rest of his body is visible. In the picture, you see the bag with legs running down a little path or road.

I’ve been searching for this book for a while. I remember my mother and i finding it very entertaining and sweet, and would love to know what it is.

299J: An Illustrated Cinderella

1 Reply

I’m searching for information on an illustrated version of Cinderella that I had when I was growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s.  It was a small book, maybe 3 or 4 inches in height, hardcover.  Here are the details I can remember:

-I think the cover’s background was black.

-The scene at the ball is illustrated with the two stepsisters wearing black beauty marks on their faces, I think in the shape of a heart and a star.

-Some of the pages had borders around them, maybe vines and glass slippers?

-It was a colored line drawing style– fanciful, but not cartoon-ish.