Category Archives: 1970s

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

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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!

335U: Children’s Collection, Help Solve The Mystery

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I would like to find a children’s book from the 1970’s, I presume. It was a smaller hardcover (I swear a red cover).
It was a collection of a few “help solve the mystery” stories in which every time you turned a page, it followed with a super intricate, detailed black & white drawing in which you looked for a clue…usually from the previous pages’ words.
A sort of “Where’s Waldo” style art – black and white.
I wish I had more to go on. It was in my elementary school library in NY 1977-1980-ish.
Please help!

335N: Gates of Fire (by Indira?)

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I am looking for Gates of Fire. I think the author is Indira. It has 3 volumes. The author is from India. This book was written between 1970 & 1983.
It’s about mysticism and nuclear materials stored at the bottom of the ocean in different places around the world by National Governments.
Supposedly taken off the market around 1983 or 1984. I am looking to buy all 3 volumes.

335K: A Time Traveling Soldier

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I’m on a mission to find a book that I read years ago. Sci-Fi. It takes place in the future with a genetically modified soldier that gets injected with a drug that lets him occupy the bodies of his ancestors. Then, the 2 doctors who injected him also inject themselves to chase the dangerous solder thru time. One of the doctors is an alcoholic man and the other is a woman in a wheelchair.

The man doctor drinks a lot every night and then leaves the host with the hangovers! LOL One of the hosts was a Roman soldier. They argue every morning, inside “their” head, about the hangover.
The woman doctor doesn’t want to go back to modern times, because in the past her hosts are not in wheelchairs!
The soldier seems to be related to every bad guy ever known – Hitler, Napoleon, etc. Or related to someone near them.
I think I read this book in the late 70s or early 80s.

335G: The little boy who wouldn’t take a bath so he went to live with the dirties

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Back in the 1970’s we read a book about a little boy who wouldn’t take a bath. He got so dirty he went to live in what I remember to be a cave with dirty “people.” They may have been more like ogres or something. I remember that he at first loved being filthy, but I think he then missed his family.
I don’t remember much else. Something about rotten eggs comes to mind, but I’m not sure why. This book was read over 40 years ago, so my recollection isn’t so great.
Thank you! I can’t wait to see if anyone can figure this one out!

334Z: Two Boys Fight Over Go-Kart

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This is a query about a book published in probably the 60's or early 70's, about two boys who want to build a go-kart from a soapbox derby car. They get in a fight and take their things and go home. I know one builds a scooter instead. One boy is African American and one is white. I believe the illustrations are either sketched with pencil or maybe watercolor. Thank you.

334W: Boy Learns the Importance of Sharing

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I used to have a children’s book in the 1970’s about a boy who gets a wooden box with a trick to open it and candy inside. He walks home with it and refuses to share the candy with another child, a dog and a person (Rule of three). He gets home and has forgotten how to open the box. He has to walk back to where he got the box, and this time he shares the candy on his way home and knows how to open the box to get the last piece himself when he gets home.

334V: Mystery series probably published 1940-1970 (Solved!)

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I do not know the name of any of the books in the series, but I can describe at least one of the covers. Our library had 4 books but there may have been more. All of the books had a deep purple cover. One had a mansion or haunted house on top of a hill or cliff. For some reason murder mansion, Whispering Hill, sticks in my head. I believe there were 2 or 3 kids and one had an odd name. Definitely not the more prolific series, Three Investigators, Hardy Boys, etc. The books were hardcover and not very thick, 70-80 pages and meant for grades 3-6. I hope you can find the series I am looking for.