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351M: Family Relocates to Alaska

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The book I am searching for is a young adult novel I read in the 1980's about a family relocating to Alaska.  They lived in an isolated cabin, walked to a lone general store to get supplies and place an order for clothing and household items through a Sears Catalog.  They ordered in summer for a delivery of winter items, items didn't arrive until Spring.  A teenage girl with at least one sibling, mom gets depressed, and either dad or brother or both get lost and possibly killed. One chapter talks about them laying in supplies for winter and the girl sleeps on pallets of canned food.  It was a paperback book, white cover, the title had something to do with Alaska without saying Alaska, referencing the 24 hours of sun / dark I think.

351L: Art Book about the Wind

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This was a beautiful hardcover book that I owned in the mid-1980’s. It was probably published sometime between the mid-70s and mid-80s. It may have been a small printer, or art book type thing. The size was probably 9x12 or a little larger, maybe 1/2” thick. If I remember correctly, it had a tan canvas-type cover, and a slide-in box that the book came in.

The artwork in the book was beautiful. It may have been acrylics or oils, or some type of print work. On each page was a description of wind force. If I remember correctly, the first page talked about when there is no wind, the next page when there is a light breeze, and so on. In the end there is a full hurricane. The book is nonfiction (and I found it very boring as a young child). Each page shows the same location — with some grass, people, trees, sky, and the ocean — as the wind increases. I believe there was even a description of wind speed on each page.  The language was simple and descriptive. It said things like “Now there is a light breeze. The leaves on the trees move a little bit. When the wind is like this...” etc. One page mentioned that this is a good wind speed to fly a kite, another mentioned that the waves start to have small white tips. There are no characters, no plot/story, just information about wind.

351J: Large Red and Yellow Kid’s Storybooks

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Looking for info on 2 books from my childhood. All I can remember is one was red and one was yellow. They were both large, like 12×16 maybe. The content was mostly stories and nursery rhymes accompanied by artwork and maybe some general science for kids. The covers may have been embossed. Mid to late 60’s is when i was reading them. They may have accompanied the My Book House series but don’t count on that. I just remember those at the same time perhaps. Any help would be appreciated. fiosco@bell. net. Thanks, Scott

351I: Dollhouse view of building with bakery in it throughout the day

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This book was probably from the 70s or 80s. I read it from the library in the 90s. Every page was the same dollhouse view of one building at different times throughout the day with different things going on in each room. There was a french bakery on the ground floor with baguettes, the baker came in early to bake. There maybe was a clock saying what time it was on each page? It could have been a learning to tell time book. Either wordless, or minimal words. Illustrations were small in scale, I think done in pen and ink and watercolor or gouache. Similar to Roser Capdevila or Ljiljana Rylands. My mom thinks it was French-Canadian or French or from somewhere else in Europe. It was large in scale— maybe 11×13”.

351H: Goose and Gorilla kid’s book? (Solved!)

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We’ve got a memory of a kids book about a goose and a gorilla.
It was published before 1990 for sure, but it could be quite a bit older.


It had a similar feel to the recent hit “Boy Mole Fox Horse” book in which a child is taught various lessons by different animals.


Anyway, that’s what I’ve got to go on, basic google searches got mired down in ‘mother goose’ and ‘good night gorilla’ type books.


Thanks for the help,

351G: Seizure Takes Girl Back in Time to Relive Ancestor’s Life

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I’m trying to find a book that I read in the late 70’s. It was a paperback book, probably a teen novel about a girl whose name was Katherine (I think). She goes into an antique store or an attic and sees a picture of herself which turns out to be a picture of her great great great Grandmother. She has a dream and goes back in time and lives her grandmother’s life in great detail, for years. It seems to be a life in the Middle Ages.
She suddenly wakes up from her dream and is told that she has only been asleep for about 15 minutes and that in fact, she had a seizure. During this very short seizure, she lives her ancestor's life.

I believe the cover of the book had a portrait of the girl from the Middle Ages in it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I loved this book and would be so happy to find it.

351F: Disfigured Man Brought Out of the Dark by Lover

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The book is a historical romance. The two characters had met before but separated for whatever reason. Later in the story (midway ish?) the man’s older brother is thought to be dead and his face is now terribly scarred. He is now left with his brother’s title and 2 daughters. He keeps to the dark, won’t come out in the daylight or shave and neglects the girls as a result. She comes back and he tells her that she will have to marry him to stay and take care of the girls and she agrees because she loves him. He basically drags her to an old alter that’s cracking and falling apart and then makes off with her for their wedding night. He likes the dark so she can’t see him so he tries to keep it dark but she’s terrified of the dark.
Eventually she tells him to get over himself that it’s just a scar and he’s being a big baby and not treating his nieces the way he should. He shaves and goes to see them in bed and one of the girls wakes up screaming (neither had seen his face with or without the beard since before the incident that caused him to be scarred). I think that’s when she tells him off and leaves him to his own devices. He sacks up and starts rejoining the world he had cut himself off of, only for his brother to come back, turns out he was alive and well (ish) and eager to be home with his brother and children. This is the climax area, something makes them both rush off, I think she gets trapped somewhere dark and he and his brother have to find and help her and she’s in such a state she doesn’t even realize that her husband is clean shaven and in broad daylight.
That’s it that’s all I remember, I’ve been trying periodically for years to find the book title but I’m at a loss. I think I read it between 2004-2011? But would have been from my library so it could be older by a decade or more, I come from a really small town in Michigan.

351E: Chest tattoo rite of passage women

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The book I’m looking for I read sometime in the late 90’s early 00’s, I got it from a local bookseller, possibly a rummage sale in Utah. It was about a teenager who was older than most in her tribe(?) and hadn’t yet gone through the rite of passage all women in the tribe go through, and so still wore the high collars of a child. Most women wore lower cut dresses to display the spiral stick-and-poke tattoos that showed they were considered women in the tribe. (I think the cover showed this?) She was scared of the rite, which involved a bear, and she’d had a failed try at it. Eventually she went to the woods to find her own bear and came back changed, she’d found something there but not a bear I think, more like a god? And something to do with her mother or lineage maybe.

351D: Two Black Girls Grow Apart at Summer Camp (Solved!)

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Two black girls from NYC (I believe) have an opportunity to go to summer camp, maybe upstate? Catskills? Adirondacks?  One loves it, the other misses the city. They are best friends. Book describes city life well: hydrants on to cool the girls off, the cool of the apartment, waiting for mom to get home, making lunch, very detailed as I recall, which makes sense given how much I love richly described characters. Then off to camp where I believe the girls drift apart a bit.  I loved it and would love to know the title.