Author Archives: admin

345R: They were not like us

Science fiction "They were not like us." Spaceship investigates a post-Nova star, passes a world whose civilization was destroyed with the Nova, then makes first contact with an alien ship. They aliens appear "horse like" on video. When asked about the dead world, why they did not warn the world, they reply: "Why should we care? They were not like us." The human ship captain decides not to warn the ship about the event horizon of the collapsed star, though some crew members object. He replies: "Why should we care? They were not like us."

345Q: An old picture book starring two cats in love

I was born in ‘93, and I remember my parents had this book well in advance of me reading actively on my own. The book was beautifully illustrated, and I remember that the lady cat in the book was beautiful, fluffy, and… gentle? I also remember a thin, scruffy and beat-up looking Siamese pirate cat, though I can’t remember if he was the romantic lead, or if he kidnaps our leading lady. I do remember the tall, ribbed, triangular sails of the Chinese-style pirate ships, and lots of rich warm colors.

345P: YA book where kids get gills cut in their necks and go underwater

A group of kids, maybe a girl and her younger siblings, are surviving on their own. They meet a boy on the beach, who cuts gills into their necks somehow, and they go swim in the ocean and visit a deep and dangerous chasm at one point. Mermaids may or may not be involved. They leave the water in the end. The cover is blue with a picture of them swimming; the art wraps around the front and back, though it was probably a paperback. YA Pre-2000. Eerie feel.

345L: Children’s Book – Little Girl Trying to Hide a Giant (Cyclops?!)


This was a book my father used to read to me at bedtime in the early/mid-90s. There was a little girl (perhaps with a pageboy haircut, pretty sure she had brown hair and bangs!) who, for reasons I cannot remember, comes upon a giant (who if memory serves had one giant eye) whom she has to hide. I feel like there may be a scene in a library and/or one involving a fence or hedge. I’ve been searching for this book for YEARS!
Thank you so much!

345K: In Search Of a Children’s book called “The Bus Riding Book”

I’m looking for a children’s primer, a first reader series, and one of the books is called “The Bus Riding Book.” In the book, all of the animals get on the bus, one by one, and then a bee flies in and everyone runs out of the bus. I learned to read using it in 1976 in catholic school in Queens, NY. I believe the publisher was McGraw Hill, colorful drawings inside the book with animals getting on the bus, and the cover may have been soft.

345J: Young Girl Decries Dangers of Reading When Chased by a Bull

Read this book when I was around 8, which puts it at 1960.  I am sure it was not new at that time.

Written by someone like Thurber or Ogden Nash, it was a collection of children’s short stories.  The only one that I can remember clearly was about a little girl who couldn’t read. At the end, when she is being chased by a bull, she comes to the conclusion that reading (words?) are dangerous.  The sign she couldn’t read said something  like, ‘beware of  bull.’

Hoping you can help me.