Author Archives: admin

367B: Animal Shelter Book

Looking for 70’s Scholastic (?)? paperback. A dad is forced to take a job at a kill shelter, needs the money. The kids find homes for animals, and they shut down the cremation building where smoke billows out In a country type place. They are happy. Maybe 2-3 grade level book. Approx year read ‘76 but could be classroom book and older.

367A: “Meddlers”

I seek a book about a young boy who wakes up in a cave, has night vision and can see “Strings” of fate. Race is called Meddlers, and he’s being hunted due to their laws: “It is law that no meddler may create another meddler.” There’s magic, and the man who’s found him lives in a manor, with a butler named Balfour. He came from Earth, and has an “archive” of knowledge (which is really just a computer) since the Earth was dying. The boy goes and tries to save Earth, starting in the past and eventually succeeding.

366Z: Unknown name of a Science Fiction title of a family that uses mirrors

I read part of this book 25? years ago. It was a stand alone book or maybe the first in a series. The book was “normal” sized, not hugely big.

I only read a half to 2/3rd of this Sci-Fi book, do not remember even how it ends.

The female protagonist ( late 20’s, early 30’s ) is coming back home after years away. Maybe hilly, maybe country like area. But the family lives in a large large home that has mirrors on many surfaces. Somehow they help Earth by using the mirrors. Going thru the mirrors?

Her family helps Earth along with some other families that have mirrors.
There’s an attractive Sheriff new to town who sparks her interest. He has friends from his military days who send him beers. He was special forces and likes the different beers his old buddies send him.

He tells her that he knows there is something going on with the family / maybe the small town? / but he trusts the folks and hopes they would tell him what was going on.

366Y: Ricky the Rooster (we think)

In the 1960’s, my mom used to read the book about Ricky the Rooster who was very proud of his brightly colored feathers and pushed the other animals out of the way to eat their food. He grew so fat that all his beautiful plumage fell out and he was disgraced. He learned to let the other animals eat first before he did. His tail feathers grew back without the extra colorful splendor.

My mom is 91 and remembers the story well. She is about to get her first great grandchild and would like to find a copy of the book. I haven’t found one but any leads would be great.

366X: Knocking over petrified Soviet soldiers

I’m looking for a British book written probably between 1946 and 1953. About a group of teenagers and a professor who escape world apocalypse by petrification in a balloon. They travel all over the petrified world and visit the USSR where they topple Stalin’s petrified soldiers like dominoes. I remember thinking the book to be very gory for a children’s book. My Mom read this book when she was a teenager and said the author was fairly well known in Britain at the time.

366W: Man and Fae Woman Have Special Child

I read this book about 20+ years ago when I was Junior High in the US. It was about this guy who fell in love with a woman from a fae race I believe? I honestly don’t remember that much about it except I think the cover had some art but was green in binding. They had some sort of huge struggle with a type of villain and they ended up together and pregnant. He thought it would be a normal 9 month pregnancy like for humans and her race actually had a 3 year gestation. Their baby was a girl who was very different and inquisitive and wasn’t a normal human child. That’s essentially all I remember.

366V: Picnic with coworkers

My stumper is a British book which I listened to. It has a female narrator. The main character is a woman whom I believe was unattractive in some way and disliked by her coworkers. The scene that I recall is a picnic, in which some young guys are playing football (or some such) near the main character, and the ball accidentally gets kicked to her. A guy, whose name I think is Beau, comes over to retrieve it, and starts paying the main character attention, much to the scorn of her female coworker.

366U: Fantasy / Swords and Sorcery novel I partially read last year and just can’t remember!

I never finished it but wanted to but the name has completely slipped my mind. Here’s what I remember:
– A tribe of people, warriors and hunters, living in a frozen North. The main character was mixed race, being partially from a race further up north who were blonde and very Viking like, they were at war I think?
– Main character is exiled on some quest after a previous chief dies and leaves, but his tribe is attacked and scattered. He unites a number of his clan and they fight their way to a settlement.
– Whilst traveling the main character meets a wolf, and shares a Kill with it. The wolf follows him around from then on it saves his life a few times.
– There’s a subplot of one of the clan youngsters making his first kill and escaping after a fight gone wrong.
– The settlement is being attacked by those other northerners and those Northerners have a Sorcerer who has summoned a big monster who’s attacking the settlement but the main character and his crew kill it.
It was very swords and sorcery and its really bugging me that I can’t find it. Any suggestions about what it might be would be terrific!
It’s not Wolf Brother, the main character was an adult. For most of the book the Wolf actually didn’t show up a huge amount. 

366T: Picture book where kid finds clues hidden in a desk that lead to a treasure/inheritance

The kid in the book receives a desk from his grandpa (uncle?) and a note stating there is a clue hidden in the desk. The note also imposes a time limit that the kid has to meet in order to get the treasure. The kid finds a secret compartment that contains a key and that key takes him to a bus/train station where he uses the key to unlock a locker. There is a duffel bag in the locker that is full of chopsticks. I believe the chopsticks lead the kid to a Chinese restaurant. I can’t remember specifically where it goes from there but I think it ends up leading him back to the desk and the treasure is hidden inside.

Other details:

  • There is a man at a bank that will take control of the treasure if the kid can’t solve it in time
  • The pictures in the book were shades of yellows, browns, whites, and grays
  • There is a secret panel in the desk that reveals a combination style lock face
  • I read this in the 90s but it could be older
  • I think the kid had an animal companion but not 100% sure on that
  • Not Terry’s (Tony’s) Treasure Hunt

366S: “No time, only duration” (Solved!)

 Forgotten author name, likely American or British – collection of short stories with sci-fi/horror-type themes. I read the book `eons ago’ – so probably 60s or 70s.

The story of interest describes where 3 characters wind up inside a room where there is “no time, only duration,” so they’ll supposedly live forever if they never leave the room. An epilogue then tells us “a building was torn down and 3 skeletons were found in it…..”

The cover had some odd-looking creature on it, reminiscent of the YELLOW SUBMARINE animation style.