Category Archives: 1950s

377E: Main character Terrie

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I don’t have a lot to work with but it is a unique story so fingers crossed. I recall it was an English author – the main character was a brave, strong and resourceful young girl called Terrie. She so impressed me I decided at 13 years old I wanted to be a person like her, I knew would even change my name legally one day (and I did). I read it in 1967 from a country Australian library so it would unlikely be a new book so am guessing it was written in the fifties or very early sixties. It’s not much to go on, but there are very few books with a main character called Terrie. So I am just hoping someone may have also read it and knows the title or author. I don’t think it was a biography I recall it was fiction. As I am now 70 the chance to re read this book would be truly wonderful, and yes I did mould my character on her and had a very adventurous life- so am eternally grateful to the author. 

377D: Older Children’s Book Set in Charleston, SC

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I know this is a long shot- but i don’t know where else to turn. There was a children’s book written about a brother and sister who found arrowheads on either the wappoo bridge or the bridge going to folly. As you can tell it was written in the Charleston area. I had checked the book out from the old Charleston Library when visiting with my grandmother one summer- it had to have been in the early 80’s, but I feel like the story took place in the 50’s (not sure), but I loved the book. I just wish i could remember its name. If anyone can help i would be extremely thankful.

377B: Cory in Northern Europe

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I am looking for a children’s storybook read in 1965 and published 1965 or before.  It was not a picture book per se. The only thing i remembered was that a character was named Cory. I believe the spelling is correct.  It may have been slated for 12 year olds to read. I think but i am not sure it was related to a setting in northern Europe. I took it out of the library back in 1965 and my mom named my sister after the character. I don’t know whether or not ice skating was a part of it.

376O: The Friendly Wolf (Short Story)

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The children’s short story The Dissatisfied Little Lamb by Catherine Jones, perhaps under her maiden name Catherine Hallman, published in a magazine sometime between 1940-80, about a lamb who leaves the farm to go exploring and finds a dog or wolf who is actually friendly and brings him home and he then protects the flock from a predatory wolf or other animal. Probably a magazine published in Georgia or SC.

376G: Old Book

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Probably published in the 1950s or even the late ’40s.  Maybe in Britain or Canada.
Children’s fantasy/detective story

Plot: A single (gasp!) mother (probably a war widow) with 2 kids, a boy and a girl.  She is being courted by the neighbourhood beat cop.  The kids want to buy her something special for her birthday and they have saved their allowance so they have enough to buy her a small second-hand radio.  The kids know she loves music and dancing.  Kids find out later that radio is magic and broadcasts crimes in progress, which they , of course, try to stop/solve, and get their bacon saved by the cop character. I know this is a faint, faint hope. But it was such a change from Dick and Jane, which I refused to read aloud, thus grade one ended with me being labelled as mentally deficient. It was astoundingly different from anything else I ever saw until I was in my teens.Best of Luck to you – and for me!

376B: Book about a Southern family

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The book I am searching for may be from late nineteen forties through early sixties. The mother of two (a high-school boy and a married daughter) is the main character. The daughter, named Tilghman, has her first baby near the end of the story. Then the main character, now a grandmother, finds out she is expecting!

375O: Children’s anthology of magical stories

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The book had maybe a dozen short stories, all with some magic involved. One of the stories, I think the first, had a father bringing home an ornamental Chinese horn (rhino?) that was rumored to have magical properties. The father’s son took the horn to bed with him, holding it tight, and just before going to sleep wished for a series of things to happen to people he know around him. The next day everything that he wished came true, including people hearing silver bells tinkling when a lady he liked started talking. Another story in the book involved a professor/researcher, maybe named Dexter, researching Roman history, and late one night he falls asleep and dreams he becomes a goose, and has a fight with another goose over a lady goose, and it turns out that all the squawklng ends up being the very thing that warns the Romans of an impending barbarian attack on one of their cities. So the researcher actually became part of Roman history in the dream. The book was probably published in the 50s or 60s, certainly no later than the early 1980’s. I remember reading it after my mom checked it out of the Mayfield Regional Library, near Mayfield High School.

354T: War Orphan Adopted by GI

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I’m looking for a book I read as a boy in the mid 1970s . It probably was written in the 1950s or 1960s.  My memory says it was titled the journey home or long journey home but having searched for that for years with no luck I’m prepared to believe my memory is incorrect.  It was about a war orphan making his away to America to be adopted or having been adopted by a GI.