Author Archives: admin

336F: Children Find Fine Art

2 Replies

This was a 90’s children’s mystery novel that I read as a 3rd or 4th grader in 1996 or so. It was an un-illustrated chapter book. I can’t remember much else about the plot other than the characters were sorting out someone’s estate and found a very fine piece of stained glass art (lamp, vase or pitcher perhaps). The author did an excellent job describing the art – that’s what all my friends and I loved about the book. I also remember at the end of the book they are able to see all of the other pieces of the art collection that belonged with it.

336E: Creepy Girl Holding Up Egg (Solved!)

4 Replies

I read a book as a school aged kid in the 70’s and I think it was probably published in the 70’s.
The most memorable thing about it was the illustrations.  I found them so creepy, I could barely look at them.  Kind of like the illustration of Alice in Wonderland when her neck gets stretched by Tenniel.
The picture I remember most clearly was one that was a black and white drawing and the girl is holding a single egg in the kitchen.  The perspective is as if she’s holding the egg up to a camera on the ceiling.  She has large eyes and looks creepy.  Imagine Wednesday from the Addams Family holding the egg.
The plot was about a strange girl who moved next door to the main character – a girl of the same age I think.  Probably about my age at the time, 10 or 11.  I think the new girl holding the egg had some kind of magical powers.  I don’t remember liking the girl, so she wasn’t like a fun Pippi Longstocking character.  I think the setting was in the country.  Definitely not in the city.  The kitchen seems like a farm kitchen in a farm house.
I don’t think this was popular book at all.  I think I tried to make my friends read it to see if they found it as creepy as I did, and they declined.
I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got.  Thanks in advance!

336C: Girl Plays In Orchard

6 Replies

I’m looking for a children’s book from the 1950’s about a girl, probably 8 or 9 years old. The memorable thing for me is the picture of her outside playing in a yard or orchard and the trees have benches built around them. It’s all I can remember but somehow important to me to learn the name of the book. It was a favorite of mine as a child.

336B: Lion Has Feathers

7 Replies

I’m looking for a children’s book from the 1960’s or possibly very early ’70s.  It is NOT “Lion” by William Pene Du Bois.  The story was a lion who wanted to look different, and there was one particular illustration where he had feathers all over. The illustrations had very limited colors. I think in the end the lion decided that feathers were not for him, and went back to his original fur.

Thanks for any assistance you can give!

336A: Romance Doesn’t End Well For Hero’s Mother

1 Reply

This is a historical romance book that I read before the year 2012.

It starts off with the hero and heroine in love, young and engaged. They are already having sexual encounters. They have a place where they meet up at on his estate.

The heroine goes there waiting for him, but then a worker from the estate comes on to her and tries kissing her. She starts laughing and giggling because the whole situation seems absurd to her...but when the  Hero arrives he doesn’t find it funny and just automatically assumes that she has been cheating on him. He walks out and refuses to listen to her. He then leaves. And his mom calls a coach to take her home and the engagement is ended....

Then years later they see each other at a weekend house party, where all the guests are staying there. He’s extremely cold to her but still attracted to her. There’s a closet scene. I vaguely remember it.

Then his mom conspires with another man at the house party to compromise the heroine forever, as she sees that her son is falling back in love with her.

When the hero’s mom tries to expose the heroine with the other man, she opens a door and yells dramatically...it ends up being the hero and heroine in bed. So it back fired.

I don’t remember the rest. But I’d love to find and read this book again. Please help!! Thank you

335Z: Charlie’s Uncle’s “New Invention”

1 Reply

I am looking for a young adult novel that I read in the late 70's. The setting was an urban/city background called “Dogtown", a place in which the main character, Charlie, was doing everything he could to earn money to join his uncle to go off and use his uncle’s “new invention” to make a fortune. His uncle lived out of a VW bus that he also drove, and would come to town from time to time. Charlie’s friend Henry Etienne would help him and his efforts (they would salvage scrap; they farmed ladybugs in, I believe, the Sierra Molina canyons; at one point in the book, Charlie and Henry have a fake fight at a men’s club to earn tips). Charlie had a teacher, an Asian American man who rode a motor scooter, who encouraged Charlie to write down all of his ideas. At the climax of the story, we come to find out that the “new invention“ the uncle has is actually a fighting cock. Charlie and his uncle go to their first fight at which the rooster is killed, and the police bust up the illegal fight.

PLEASE help me find this book!

335Y: Girl Finds The Buried Bodies In The Backyard Of New House

1 Reply

Children's book--probably read in the mid-80's. Girl moves into a new house with her parents and triplet siblings. She is suspicious of the previous owner (deceased elderly woman) and investigates, eventually finding buried bodies in the backyard beside a fence. The book had a few sketch-like illustration of the sort a child would have drawn.

335X: Lassie-Like Story, Dimly Recalled

3 Replies

It’s a book I read in the 1970s (but it may have been published much earlier).  The central character is a family’s pet–a cat I think, but I’m unsure.  Maybe a dog.  The family lives on a river, maybe the Mississippi.  (My family was living on the river at the time, and the story may have been presented as a “local” tale.)  By accident one day the pet floats away on a raft.  Far downstream it comes ashore.  The heart of the story is akin to Lassie-Come-Home:  the pet struggles to return to the family.  In the closing pages I believe it does return to the house–but the family is just leaving and somehow there is no reunion.  Possibly the pet is even in the yard as the family packs out, and it hears the son’s voice as he laments that the pet never got back.  I could be imagining that last bit, but I’m pretty sure there’s no reunion.  I recall weeping at the near-miss, but all the other details are fuzzy.

335W: Luton Cabbie Mystery (Solved!)

2 Replies

Mid-1990s to mid-2000’s publication date, more likely 1998-2003. Mystery novel set in Luton, England. Protagonist is black cabdriver of West Indian/Caribbean origin. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the mystery he gets involved in. I liked the author’s portrayal of an overlooked airport town, the character and the look into his culture. Although I read a lot of British mysteries, this one’s setting was unusual and the mood of it has stayed with me. I have wondered if it was part of a series or a one-off.