Author Archives: admin

296J: A bad guy decides to kill a good guy

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A short story published in one of the well known Sci-Fi magazines- I believe in the 1950’s. The bad guy is able to control people’s minds. He decides to kill a good guy and announces to the victim that he will, at a later time, force the victim to shoot himself. The victim rigs up a gun that shoots backwards at the holder. As the bad guy forces the good guy, through mind control, to point the gun at himself, the good guy struggles to keep his mind clear and not give away his plan. He points the gun at himself, pulls the trigger, and the bad guy is killed as the gun fires backwards. Super cool story!

296G: Gypsy lady animal healer cottage forest

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Children’s Book: for ages 6-12

Beautifully illustrated with heaps of flowers and animals Cloth cover, possibly purple or brown in colour.

1cm thick

Roughly 25cm by 18cm

Written Before 1994

Story is about an old lady who lives in the middle of a forest in a cottage, she is like a gypsy who heals the animals with different herbs and concoctions.

2 children visit her to find out she is not as crazy as the village people say she is.

The pictures show her in front of her cottage.

In front of a fire healing the animals.

Putting a herbal Pulse on an animal

296F: Teen Overeats on Holiday Vacation Due to Parents’ Divorce

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I read this young adult novel in the early 1990s at my local library. It seemed like it was relatively recently published at the time. I believe that it was a first person story, about a teenage girl who is either on Thanksgiving or Christmas break from school. Her parents tell her they are getting divorced, and she starts secretly overeating all of the leftovers from either the Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. She is writing in her journal, feeling isolated, and having some weighty conversations with her parents–particularly her dad, if I remember correctly–all while developing an unhealthy relationship to food. The book ends with her swearing off of the overeating, and taking walks in the snow to lose all of the weight she gained over the holiday vacation.

296E: Littlest Joe (Solved)

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About a mutt dog, a many-paged book and the longest I’d read at age 11 in 1957, who goes through many awful experiences through his lifetime and dies at the end. I think the dog was part pit bull and maybe bulldog, definitely a short, squatty and solid guy. I had checked it out as many times as possible, then finished it all through the night so I could drop it off at the library the next day. Intending to reread it, I found that it had been withdrawn for repairs and never returned to the shelves.

296D: The Great Dane…

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Looking to obtain/locate a copy of a children’s book which MAY have been titled “The Great Dane, the Koala, and the Guri Guri Bird.” Likely Australian in origin; child borrowed it from a library in Kentucky in the 1980’s; has watercolor illustrations.

 

296C: An English village and an American cousin

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Sometime around 1956 when I was in the Millville School District 2nd or 3rd grade, maybe the 4th we had a hard-bound reading book with a dark blue cover that was page by page beautifully, color illustrated with 1930s era style artwork not unlike the covers of Jacqueline Winspear books.

The story lines, at least one, involved an English boy about 3rd or 4th grade age living in an English village and his having an American cousin, similar aged, visiting and he showing him around his village.

I do not recollect a title nor publisher, but have been searching for such a book for the last three or so decades. That book and old geography books still in use in our school, circa 1926, contributed to my Anglophilia.

296B: A secret note or message or clue

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I have no idea what the title is but the book would appeal to a 8-10 year old girl. It was in my grade school library. I remember that the girl was orphaned or sent to live with a relative, possibly a grandmother or aunt. I’m leaning toward aunt. The place is mysterious and there is a mystery of sorts. The key part I remember is the young girl protagonist finds a secret note or message or clue on paper under a loose brick, I believe around the pool or on the patio, but I’m 99% sure it was around the pool. This would have been around 1978-80, although the book may have been slightly older.

295Z: Grand Old House in nondescript new neighborhood

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Children’s picture book I read before 1995 (not sure when it was published though) about an old mansion. The mansion stood alone in a field until a suburban neighborhood packed with little nearly-identical houses sprang up. The mansion may or may not have been sentient. The house felt more and more out of place and eventually it/the owner decided to replace the old house with a new one just like all the others. All the neighbors couldn’t find their own houses anymore because they used to use the old mansion as a reference point. Eventually they convinced the old house/owner that its uniqueness was important to the neighborhood and somehow restored it.