In the early to mid-60s, I read a hardcover library book that I guess was published either late 50s or early 60s.  It was about a boy, I think his name was Charlie. He lived in a town where an old streetcar had been turned into a restaurant, so you could eat your meal while riding around the town.  And somehow he got mixed up with some incompetent burglars, who couldn’t get the slang term for “gun” right; instead of saying “gat,” they would mangle it somehow. I’m pretty sure Charlie had a large dog.

I read this in the late 1950s or early 60s. Two or three children are sent to stay at a relative’s or ancestor’s house. The plot involves solving a code in which vowels are rearranged or relocated so that “Underground Station” encodes as something like NDRGRND STTN. The message and the plot involve a tunnel, the ends of which are called underground stations.

Here is the only remembrance I have. Misses Fluff tells her friend “Don’t eat so fast or you’ll lose half the taste”. In the early 60’s, I would read this same storybook to my daughter over and over. The memory lingers on.

I found this in a public library around 1971 and it was a contemporary book. I think it was set in a small New England or Eastern college town. The main character is a student there and becomes friends with students from the Middle East. In one scene she accompanies her friends as they look for apartments to rent and sees the discrimination they face. She falls in love with one of the students, who gives her a gold ring with a sapphire stone. She wears the ring on a gold chain around her neck. The book ends as he breaks her heart by telling her he plans to marry a girl in a marriage arranged by his and the girl’s family. She doesn’t understand why he would marry someone he doesn’t love and he can’t explain to her why he feels he must.