Category Archives: 1980s

357Y: 1980’s young reader fiction set in Boston

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I am trying to find the name of a book I read in 5th grade in 1983-84. It was a chapter book about a young girl whose family (just her and her parents) had to move, I think, because of one parent’s job change. She tries to prevent the move by demanding her parents find her a bedroom in a tower, and to her chagrin, they succeed. I don’t know that the book actually names Boston as the move destination, but looking back the girl clearly moved to the Back Bay area in Boston. There she befriended a group of loners, oddballs and outcasts. One of them is called Gertrudestein (one word) in the book. She is an older divorced woman who left her husband Lloyd because she could not bear his insistence that his name be pronounced “yoyd.” The young girl and a friend (maybe a similar-aged boy) decide to steal a swan boat in the middle of the night to take their menagerie of friends, who for various reasons are socially unacceptable as riders during the daytime, on a ride. A decent portion of the story is spent planning the heist.
I have a daughter in 5th grade myself now and am so desperate to find and share this book with her!

357X: Cat Gets Lost, Travels World

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The book I remember is a children’s book.  I think the cover showed the cat sitting in front of the Taj Mahal.

The cat eventually found its owners.

The book is not “Pooni at the Taj Mahal,” “Lost Cat,” Lost and Found Cat,” or “The Cat Who Found his Way Home.”

The cat may have been white or yellow.  I read it in between 1983 and 1993.

357T: Three Interwoven Rings

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Would you please help me find this book?

The main character (could have been a girl) and a father who traveled to far off places or jungles a lot brought home a wooden crate and inside was a seraph. And it was in the attic or the main character played in the attic. Maybe someone was sick or dying in the hospital throughout the book. At the end something about three interconnected or interwoven rings.

I checked it out from a middle school library in the 1980s. It would’ve been a newer looking book at the time. That’s all I can remember.

357P: Schizophrenic Lady M.D.

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Book written in 1950’s, 60’s I think. But remotely possible published as late as 70’s, 80’s.  Autobiography (?) by woman (maybe named “Diane”, not sure…?) who suffered schizophrenia (I think, or some sort of mental illness) and became an M.D. despite this.

Probably a U.S. book, but not sure.  English language, anyway.

357G: The Little Old Lady (Solved!)

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This might actually be in the title of the book. It may have been published in the 70s or before but definitely not later than the early 80s. I believe it was a book of children's poems about an old lady and one of them was "There was an old lady who wanted to ski, she wouldn't take lessons - it's easy said she! She tried and she tried but she just couldn't go. Nobody told her she had to have snow."