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364B: Big and Little Mother and Daughter Pair

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I am looking for a children’s picture book which I read in the mid 1980s (not sure if it was new at the time) at a public library in Columbus OH.  The story has a mother and daughter that plays on the theme of big and little.
The title is something like ‘When you were little and I was big’ or ‘When I was big and you were little’  – I did find a book with a similar title, but it wasn’t the right one.

Some memorable lines include  – ‘When you were little and I was big I gave you a bath in a teaspoon, and one piece of spaghetti was your whole dinner, and I carried you to school in my pocket’

364A: The bird who got a job

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I am looking for a children’s book about a bird/vulture/hornbill that is different than other birds and gets a job. Wears hat and briefcase in the book. I remember hornbill specifically but could be another type of bird. Pictures from the book are abstract kind of, moody/dark different from normal books. May be set in Africa? I think he’s also reading a book on another page.

363Z: Being creates world/people, comes to Earth to visit and forgets he created it all

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I am looking for an illustrated children’s book about a being/person/creator/god/maybe child who creates the Earth and people (the people are each unique but also a part of him), he watches them and thinks it looks like fun so decides to come to Earth and join them but then he forgets he created it all. Purchased in the late 1980s, at a metaphysical book store, I believe it was considered a used children’s book. I loaned it out, it never got returned.

363Y: Mystery about disappeared businessman found in a circus (Solved!)

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This is a mystery I read in the past several years, set in London, about a tall man who worked in the City, left for work, seen by a tradesman in the block by his house, never reached the end of the block. Years later, the ?main character, a younger man or maybe a detective, found him in a circus in Europe. The younger man may have been a relative. It turned out the tall man was very athletic and had bounded over a high brick wall around an estate in his block to live with a woman who collected snakes. They left for France and owned the circus, I think. I thought it might have been a Sayers or Allingham mystery, but the descriptions of each of their books doesn’t sound like it could have been.

363X: Harris the Owl

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This is an older book. I believe it was published by Bear & Company. It is about a woman that has cancer. She drives to her grandfather’s cabin to die, but on the way up the mountain, she hits an owl that she later names Harris. She takes care of him, nursing him back to health. She meets a guy who happens to be Native American and he gives her an amulet. I believe on the cover was a cabin and Harris the owl flying.

363V: Historic Fiction Starts with Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

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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.

363U: China Doll Buried in Earth Years Ago (Solved!)

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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.

363T: Undercover Officer Wants to Bust College Drug Ring, Poses as Student

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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?

363S: YA novel with a young woman and a portrait

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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?