I’m looking for a book I read in the mid-80s about a boy who helps fake seances during the Spiritualist movement and has a moral dilemma about whether or not it’s right to do so.
364E: YA Book about Faking Seances
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Category Archives: 1980s
363Z: Being creates world/people, comes to Earth to visit and forgets he created it all
I am looking for an illustrated children’s book about a being/person/creator/god/maybe child who creates the Earth and people (the people are each unique but also a part of him), he watches them and thinks it looks like fun so decides to come to Earth and join them but then he forgets he created it all. Purchased in the late 1980s, at a metaphysical book store, I believe it was considered a used children’s book. I loaned it out, it never got returned.
363V: Historic Fiction Starts with Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Here’s the thing: this novel is not listed on ANY LIST of books about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
The book would have been published in the seventies or eighties. I read it in the nineties, and it was old then. The paperback cover was one of those 70s/80s style hand-drawn character montage covers with the main character in the middle. It was my mother’s book. She bought lots of family sagas and Doubleday Book of the Month selections.
The main character’s name was either Jake or Jacob. He’s a poor immigrant. I’m 99% certain he’s Jewish. His wife works at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and is killed when the fire breaks out. They have a young son. After her death, he gets involved in the burgeoning labor movement. I remember clearly this book is when I learned about strike busting, and what can happen to scabs.
There’s also a young, wealthy woman whose family (either her father or husband, I can’t remember) owns one of the factories where strikes are occurring. She starts sneaking food to the strikers because she learns the conditions they work and live in are atrocious (I forget how). She ends up involved with Jake.
I seem to remember we even see the next generation grow up, and Jake gets involved with the Jewish mob. These things I’m less clear about, though. Everything I listed above I’m really, really certain about.
The author was similar to Howard Fast. It’s not The Immigrants, which I ALSO stole from my mother’s shelf and read. That book is set in California.
It’s also not East River.
I’ve searched and searched for this book forever. Because of this novel, I became deeply interested in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, labor issues, and early 20th-century history. Most of my reading life has been so strongly influenced by it, and I can’t believe I can neither remember the name nor find it via google or booklists about the fire, labor movements, or the Jewish Mafia.
363U: China Doll Buried in Earth Years Ago (Solved!)
I am not sure where to start. First of all, I think it was one of those books where a little girl is sent to a relative for the summer. This book would be from the 1980’s at the earliest. Not sure on that. But during the time she is wherever she is – and it IS in the country – she finds out about a doll that’s been lost for a long time. It’s a china doll and I am pretty sure there’s a silver or pewter tea set. Again, not positive, but I think the doll was buried to protect her from something real or imaginary. Somewhere in the story there was a bunny salad bowl with a hole in one of the bunny legs. A map or directions of some kind were wadded up in that hole. I am nearly sure it was a Scholastic book.
I think it was something about the British coming and the little girl was worried about her doll. Then years later this little girl comes along and hears the story and tries to find the doll. It could be as much difference as 80+ years later. The mystery was solved a great many years after the doll was buried. Her cloth body was gone, it was just her china parts. And the bowl with the bunnies decorating it was important to the mystery. It might have been a bunny platter or big plate instead of bowl, but there was a hole in a rabbit’s leg and the map was wadded up in it.
There is no magic or otherworldly parts to this book. I THINK the little girl learns about the doll through either an old letter or a diary she reads. I THINK the doll doesn’t get found for a long time because the girl that buried her years ago moved. I really wish I could remember more. Its a chapter book and was probably for tweens, so we are looking for a paperback. Although it could have come in a hardback. But its not a picture book.
363N: Girl Witch and the Ferris Wheel (Solved!)
The book I am looking for must have been published before 1994 at the very latest, and I would think after 1975 although it could be earlier. It’s a children’s chapter book. The main character is a girl child with magic who is learning to be a witch: she lives in a cave with I think her grandmother/s and/or aunts who are old witches, and who are pretty grumpy and uncomfortable. She sneaks out one night and discovers a fairground nearby, and rides on the ferris wheel. (She might make a human friend, which isn’t allowed, and there might be a cat, but I’m not sure about those.) She decides to show her older female relatives that humans can have nice things, and I think she steals some of the ferris wheel cars and puts cushions and warming spells in them so her older female relatives will have nice warm places to sit? I think the cover was illustrated, but not super cartoon-y. I have googled and googled and found nothing.
363K: Tree Competition
I am looking for a children’s book, possibly from the 80’s, with beautiful illustrations of trees. The trees are in competition to be king of the trees (?), with each tree arguing why it would be best. May have an orange tree and an olive tree. My adult son remembers liking this book and wants to find it now that he has a son.
363D: Medieval Kitchen
I am hoping you can help me find a book I read probably between ’78-82. I am not sure how reliable my memory is, but what I remember is this: it was a paperback with stories about a kingdom, or maybe a medieval fiefdom. At least one of the stories, or maybe all of them centered on the kitchen having to make a certain dish. There was a big penalty (death? that seems like a lot for what I think I read as an 8 year old) if they didn’t get the recipe right. I think the story was told through a boy getting introduced to the kitchen There was definitely a recipe for a pound cake, possibly a bundt cake. I know that because I made it many many times as a kid. I hope you can help me find it!
362X: Children’s David Lee Roth Short Story (Solved!)
I’m looking for a children’s book of short stories I received as a gift in the 80s. I think the front cover had a photo of an eagle with people standing on it. It may have been a blue cover.
I do remember one of the short stories was about two sisters in a fight. The younger sister accidentally drew a pen mark on her older sister’s David Lee Roth poster and when she tried to erase it she rubbed a hole through.
362S: Animals scared of snowman until he melts
I read a picture book back in the early to mid 1980s that dealt with a bunch of animals who notice that someone built a snowman in a field. The rabbits and other animals are all terrified of the snowman until he begins to melt. Once he begins to melt they all relax and the rabbits eat his nose I think.
362M: Female Psychic Goes After Serial Killer
The book was an adult book that was suspenseful/thriller/mystery. The main character is a female psychic that is working with a police detective to solve a series of murders. It’s a serial killer that leaves behind little plastic swords. Definitely an 80’s book.