Looking for the title/author of a short story about a groundskeeper at a university and a female student who has an affair with a professor. At the end of the story, the groundskeeper picks the girl up while he is plowing snow. Read in an undergraduate creative writing class circa 2002.
Here’s the thing: this novel is not listed on ANY LIST of books about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
The book would have been published in the seventies or eighties. I read it in the nineties, and it was old then. The paperback cover was one of those 70s/80s style hand-drawn character montage covers with the main character in the middle. It was my mother’s book. She bought lots of family sagas and Doubleday Book of the Month selections.
The main character’s name was either Jake or Jacob. He’s a poor immigrant. I’m 99% certain he’s Jewish. His wife works at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and is killed when the fire breaks out. They have a young son. After her death, he gets involved in the burgeoning labor movement. I remember clearly this book is when I learned about strike busting, and what can happen to scabs.
There’s also a young, wealthy woman whose family (either her father or husband, I can’t remember) owns one of the factories where strikes are occurring. She starts sneaking food to the strikers because she learns the conditions they work and live in are atrocious (I forget how). She ends up involved with Jake.
I seem to remember we even see the next generation grow up, and Jake gets involved with the Jewish mob. These things I’m less clear about, though. Everything I listed above I’m really, really certain about.
The author was similar to Howard Fast. It’s not The Immigrants, which I ALSO stole from my mother’s shelf and read. That book is set in California.
It’s also not East River.
I’ve searched and searched for this book forever. Because of this novel, I became deeply interested in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, labor issues, and early 20th-century history. Most of my reading life has been so strongly influenced by it, and I can’t believe I can neither remember the name nor find it via google or booklists about the fire, labor movements, or the Jewish Mafia.
I am not sure where to start. First of all, I think it was one of those books where a little girl is sent to a relative for the summer. This book would be from the 1980’s at the earliest. Not sure on that. But during the time she is wherever she is – and it IS in the country – she finds out about a doll that’s been lost for a long time. It’s a china doll and I am pretty sure there’s a silver or pewter tea set. Again, not positive, but I think the doll was buried to protect her from something real or imaginary. Somewhere in the story there was a bunny salad bowl with a hole in one of the bunny legs. A map or directions of some kind were wadded up in that hole. I am nearly sure it was a Scholastic book.
I think it was something about the British coming and the little girl was worried about her doll. Then years later this little girl comes along and hears the story and tries to find the doll. It could be as much difference as 80+ years later. The mystery was solved a great many years after the doll was buried. Her cloth body was gone, it was just her china parts. And the bowl with the bunnies decorating it was important to the mystery. It might have been a bunny platter or big plate instead of bowl, but there was a hole in a rabbit’s leg and the map was wadded up in it.
There is no magic or otherworldly parts to this book. I THINK the little girl learns about the doll through either an old letter or a diary she reads. I THINK the doll doesn’t get found for a long time because the girl that buried her years ago moved. I really wish I could remember more. Its a chapter book and was probably for tweens, so we are looking for a paperback. Although it could have come in a hardback. But its not a picture book.
I read the book I’m looking for as a young teen or pre-teen. 15-20 years ago. I believe it was YA because it was in my school library but the subject matter was more adult. There was a girl in her teens, attending a pre-college program or a school program of some kind but I believe it took place at a college. There was an undercover officer in it posing as a student and became close/friends with the main character. There was some kind of drug ring happening at the school that was being investigated. The cover of the book or back cover of the book had a window on it I think?
Thank you for doing these. You helped me find another young adult book years ago, and I was so grateful. Unfortunately I can remember almost nothing about this one. It probably was set in the 18th century, and I believe it was in America. It might have been told from the point of view of a daughter or niece of the young woman in the portrait. All I remember is that the artist had captured her glowing and happy as she came in from out of doors. I think she was wearing a cape! There was a man beside her and it turned out the man who had made her so happy had been painted over with the likeness of her current husband. The other man’s portrait was underneath. Does that ring a bell?
I remember this book from my childhood in the 70s. I believe the cover had psychedelic kids art — a magic carpet, with maybe two kids on it, very colorful. It was about two kids (I think) who (ride? are captured? somehow are on a) magic carpet that takes them to (other worlds? Other dimensions?). It was a very weird book and I completely loved it, but have no idea about the title. It definitely had some kind of interdimensional aspect (although I could be confusing this with A Wrinkle In Time, but I think not). Probably published early 70s.
I hope that you can help me find a book that one of my former students is looking for! I taught her in 6th-8th grade in 2015-17 I believe. She messaged me on Instagram asking if I could help her figure out the title of a book she had borrowed from my bookshelf back then but I am coming up with no leads. Here is what she remembers: The main character is a girl who wakes up every morning at 3:17 am then goes back to sleep. (Not a time loop). She realizes at the end that it has to do with St. Patrick’s Day, between the time, and there are also St. Patrick’s Day treats and a party. My student thinks there is a paranormal mystery vibe and that the book ends on a cliffhanger. I’m going batty trying to figure this out.
In 1958, I used a bookmobile for the first time. I was unfamiliar with the terms of borrowing a book. I was in the middle of reading a book when I learned I had to return it. I had not yet finished it. I tried in vain to re-borrow it. The story was about a young girl who had a doll in her attic. It was not a picture book. The book did not have illustrations. It was a chaptered book. It seemed like it was an “old” book at the time. I’m guessing it was written on a 4th or 5th grade reading level. I do not remember any dollhouses. I think the protagonist, a young girl, was hiding the doll from some danger. The character seemed to be a loner. It was not scary.
I would guess the book was from the 40’s. Any help?
I am searching for a picture book I really loved as a child, but neither my mother nor I remember the title. It was published, we think, around 1996 (it was given to me as a gift around then). It was about a house with so many books, they piled up to the ceiling, they used books as furniture, and so on. It is a little like the 1980s book TOO MANY BOOKS, but with a very different aesthetic. More pastel or oil painting style art, full color full page paintings, no white space. There were cats and, we think, two ladies (maybe librarians?) who live in the house. I remember being enchanted and a little creeped out, in terms of vibe. We think it was either 8×8″ or 8×10″. We hope you can find it, because we want to give it to a friend who is expecting a baby!
The book I am looking for must have been published before 1994 at the very latest, and I would think after 1975 although it could be earlier. It’s a children’s chapter book. The main character is a girl child with magic who is learning to be a witch: she lives in a cave with I think her grandmother/s and/or aunts who are old witches, and who are pretty grumpy and uncomfortable. She sneaks out one night and discovers a fairground nearby, and rides on the ferris wheel. (She might make a human friend, which isn’t allowed, and there might be a cat, but I’m not sure about those.) She decides to show her older female relatives that humans can have nice things, and I think she steals some of the ferris wheel cars and puts cushions and warming spells in them so her older female relatives will have nice warm places to sit? I think the cover was illustrated, but not super cartoon-y. I have googled and googled and found nothing.