Category Archives: 1970s

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.

350Y: Salami Racing cars!

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Large watercolor book about a girl whose family owns a salami or sausage factory? They have a parade or race where they build things from the salami. They may be inventing machines? Can’t remember exactly. Would have been in English. Amazing illustrations of contraptions made from salami and shoes and all sorts of items.
Protagonist was a small girl. I read it late 80s but the illustrations were quite psychedelic so could be 60s or 70s.

350T: Red Dot Escape (Solved!)

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This book would have been read to me in the late 70’s as a child. A man is locked in a stone tower or room (maybe in a castle) with only a small window at the very top. He must find a way out without opening the door. He ends up covering himself in red dots so the guards think he’s ill and take him out, he has found a way out without having opened the door. It was like a puzzle or riddle of sorts. I believe the man had red hair or a red beard.

350S: Out of Print Witchcraft Book

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The details of what I’m looking for are as follows:
– I’m looking for a book on witchcraft that is almost certainly now out of print, having been published between the 1960s and the 1980s.
– The cover is solid pale pink with some black illustrations. I believe that there is a clothed pre-Raphaelite woman on the cover, and an image of her nude appears a few pages in.
– The title did *not* explicitly mention witchcraft, Wicca, magic, or spells. It may have used the word “potions” but I believe the title only referenced the making of natural cosmetics and/or other natural goods.
– I borrowed this book from the Hillsborough County (FL) library system in the late 90s or very early 2000s, but after searching their catalog I do not believe it to still be in circulation.
– I specifically remember one spell from the book, that prescribed eating an apple with your back to a mirror to discern your future lover. Unfortunately this is a commonly published spell so it may not narrow it down.
I think that is all I have to go off of, but would be more than happy to answer any further questions.

350E: Supposedly Heroic Girl Dies in Apartment House Fire (Solved!)

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Looking for a 1970s ya fiction book about a girl who died in an apartment house fire. Everyone thought that she was a hero because she alerted the other tenants to the fire so they could get out. Actually, it was her brother who had done the alerting while she went back to her apartment to get her shoe box of paper doll families. This was a much darker sequel to a book about a brother, a sister and another girl. Think the title may have been something like “The truth about (girl’s name)”, but not positive. Don’t remember author but know I read it right after it came out somewhere between 1969 and 1980.

349Z: Shadow people in the backyard of a big house

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Around 1975 my teacher read the class a story about a family that moved into a huge house.  Their children discovered a family of shadow people living in the backyard.  The living children can see the shadow people because of their size – the shadow people can only be seen by living people whose size is smaller than their own.  I couldn’t get the concept of the book and my teacher, whom I adored, was a large woman so she used herself as an example of why the living adults in the big house could not see the shadow people.  I have fond memories of the feeling the book imposed but that is all I can remember of the book.