Category Archives: 1970s

260F: Girl raised by witches is really a fairy (Solved)

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There was a book that I always took out of my elementary school library between 1975 and 1978.  Although I do not have the title, what I recall is as follows:

The book is about witches and fairies.  The little witch in the story never felt right with the other witches, they were mean. I think she used to see the fairies and wish she was one of them.  The middle gets fuzzy but towards the end she discovers that when she was a baby she was caught in the witches web and that’s how she came to be with them.  But she was really a fairy and was returned to them.

I know this is not much but at 47 years old I cannot put this story out of my mind.  I have always been an avid reader and hope to find this book.  It will haunt me otherwise.

260C: Older Teen Romance Book

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I want to say this book was set in the 1950s – I read it as a child in the 1970s – part of the collection of young adult books at the Jonesboro Library in Jonesboro, AR.

It was about a young teen girl who was plump and had some skin problems. She had an older sister who was slender.  I remember one specific scene – the younger girl was eating a tuna salad sandwich for lunch and her sister told her she shouldn’t eat that because it was bad for her skin. She was going to do her usual sneering retort, but instead she asked her sister what she should eat instead – what she was having? The younger sister started paying more attention to her appearance. She met a boy who was new in town – her parents invited his parents over for dinner (I think they worked together). She put on too much of her sister’s makeup and borrowed heels and made a grand entrance to the dinner. Her parents were horrified and sent her back upstairs to change, so she was humiliated. The boy actually did like her already, but she didn’t have any self-confidence. Over the summer she started eating better and slimmed up. She eventually ended up with the boy who said he’d liked her all along.

259F: Girl Plants Magic Trees (Solved)

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A picture book that I checked out repeatedly from my elementary school library. No idea of title. I was checking it out 1986-1988ish, and I remember it being newer, so I’d guess printing would be late ’70s-early ’80s. The girl plants different things on one page, and then when you flip the page, the tree has grown from those “seeds.” I specifically remember her planting diamonds/gems and getting a tree covered in necklaces (I remember that tree as a shimmery blue-white). I feel like there was also a hat tree that grew. There were definitely several different ones. I also feel like there was an old man/grandfather character. I think the ending was some moral about planting love and getting a family, but I’m least certain about that.

 

Would love to get this book for my daughters. Many thanks for your help!

 

259B: Blind girl and a horse

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I am looking for the title of a book I read over and over when I was in primary school. I am 50 this year so around 40 years ago. I got the book from the school library and borrowed it over and over again. The book is about a Blind girl who befriends a wild horse, I don’t remember many other details but the girl has a operation to restore her site, the horse goes wild while she is away and I feel the horse was shot just before she returned, not the happiest story line but this book had a huge impact on me when I was young. Any help would be appreciated.

258F: The Servant’s Quarters

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I’m looking for a book that I read about 15 years ago that was already well aged at the time I read it, probably from the 70s or 80s. It was on a classroom bookshelf in my elementary school. It’s about a girl who I think moves… from the city to the country with her mother for sure, possibly her father has died. She isn’t too pleased about the move but eventually while exploring their new large country house she discovers the servants passage and a room where it appears an old lady used to live, I think. She also likes to play in the apple cellar, befriends someone at school, and there is a not well-liked older fellow who lives in a dark small house who I think may have lived in their house at one point? I may totally wrong on some of these things because I was young when I read it, but I think I’m right.

 

Thanks!

257D: Adventure at sea (Solved)

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Read this book in the late 1970s, but think it was written maybe in the 50s.  It was set after WWII, about an ex Navy LTJG who was salvage diving, came across a young stowaway and put the boy to work for him on his boat.  It was an adventure story, with a run-in with an octopus, storms and bad guys, but in the end they found the treasure.  Ring any bells?

 

Many thanks!

257B: Children’s bedtime story about a man called Harum Scarum

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The book was either published in the 1970-1980’s I believe, since late 1970’s was when I read it. It was a children’s story about Harum Scarum, an old man that was known by the children to be mean. Harum Scarum became nice and gave the children his candy. It was a beautiful short story about how the man was a good person, but just because the kids thought he was mean, they didn’t interact with him. They found out he was a nice person when he gifted them candy. If I’m not mistaken, the setting was a farm or the outskirts of town. The story was in a book that had several bedtime stories in it. I can’t find the title of the book or the name of the story. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

256F: Kids move away, create secret clues (Solved)

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This is a kids book I read in the 1970’s – paperback. It is about two families and one family with two children move away. The second family’s children are very sad. Suddenly, mysterious clues start appearing around and the old family has to decipher the clues. It leads them somewhere, like through the woods, to where the new family had moved to.