Author Archives: admin

129A: Kitten wins contest when washed in bluing

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This book was probably printed in the late 1960s or early ’70s and probably took place at the same time. I remember it as one of those very inexpensive quarter of a normal sized books, with a dark olive background and a fluffy white bluish cat with a pink ribbon and candy behind it.

A little girl has just started a new school or just generally goes unnoticed. I think she is extremely shy and lacks self-confidence, and her family may also have less money that the other children. I’m not sure about that. Her school is having a cat show which seems unlikely, but that’s what I remember. The owner of a nearby candy store has a litter of kittens and all of the other children rush in and claim the beautiful and lively kittens. Our main character hangs back, but the kindly store owner gives her what is obviously the runt, a bedraggled white kitten to take home. I think the girl may have named it Peppermint.

Her mother comforts her and gives it bath and adds bluing to the water. The cat turns out to be a beautiful long-haired kitten and wins first prize.

I loved the picture of the light blue cat with the pink bow around it’s neck, especially since my grandmother told me about doing the same thing to her white poodle during the Depression. You took your fun wherever you could get it back then. I’ve despaired of ever finding a copy of this book because it was in such a “throw-away” format. Thanks in advance if you can help!

 

128B: Girl alone for Summer

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From the ‘70s or early ‘80s. A girl goes by herself to live with a relative (grandma or aunt) but when she arrives, the relative isn’t there for some reason, and nothing was communicated to the girl’s mother, so she decides to stay in the relative’s house and do things on her own. She cooks, cleans, does grocery shopping, etc., and tells the people of the town that her relative is at home and the girl is just doing all the errands. It’s NOT Charley or The Girl Who Ran Away.

 

128A: short story read about 40 years ago

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I’m trying to figure out the title and author of a short story I read about 40 years ago in a collection of short stories.  It was about an old woman who lives alone in Japan? China?  I think the old woman is from America.  She has a lovely garden but is very upset because some kind of animal is sleeping in her flower beds and ruining her flowers.  She hires a night watchman who’s supposed to go around at night making noise to keep the animal away from her garden.  She is very demanding and critical of the watchman; she wants things done just so.  The old woman feels the night watchman is lazy, etc…She continues to get more and more frustrated and near the end of the story she goes out to see what he’s doing and finds that he is the one who has been sleeping in her flower beds and ruining everything. She runs away screaming and jumps off a cliff (this now sounds very over dramatic, but it seemed to work in the story.)  The night watchman later reports that he saw an angel running toward the cliff…

 

I have a vague memory that the story might have been called “The Angel,” and an even vaguer recollection that the story’s author might have been Pearl Buck — BUT, it was definitely a short story and it WASN’T The Fighting Angel, the novel Buck wrote that was loosely based on her father’s life as a missionary.

 

127H: 70’s Young Adult Novel – Parents send teens to Camp not to come home

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A group of teenage outcasts believe they are being sent by their parents to an OutWard Bound type boarding school. They come to realize that their parents have decided they would rather have them dead and the “teachers” are out to get them. Coming together, they attempt to cope with this fact and escape their fate.

127E: Boy builds plane from vacuum cleaner

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A boy builds an airplane from a vacuum cleaner and flies off to rescue his dad. I think it’s to get him home for Christmas. On the way back home they stop off to buy presents for each other, and they buy the boy’s mom some perfume from Paris.

Addition: It’s a picture book – a fairly short story on large, colourful pages. I read it in the 1970s and it seemed of its time. Borrowed from my (then) local library, in fact. Would it help to mention I’m in the UK?

 

127C: YA illustrated by Gorey or similar artist?

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Do not know title or author or even exactly what it was about.  I read this book sometime between 1979 and 1982 when I was a preteen, but it may have been published before that.  Here’s what I remember: Very dark feel to it.  The main character was a boy.  It had the feel of Edgar Allan Poe, and there may have been poetry or rhymes but maybe not.  It was a mystery perhaps?  There may have been a mansion or an iron gate?  It took place mostly at nighttime?  Most vivid are the drawings — black and white, very similar to Edward Gorey, but I feel perhaps he is not the actual illustrator.  I’ve looked through his books and nothing is ringing a bell but it could be him.  This may also have just been a short story but I’m not sure.  Desperate to find!