Category Archives: 1990s-

377I: A Book From the 90’s

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I am looking for a book that I read in the 90’s.. with or 11th grade English.  It’s about an adolescent male who looses the friend. The friend may have died as a result of falling out of a tree OR…. The main character goes to the tree while processing his grief.  OR. There is a picture of a boy on the cover… sitting at the base of the tree. There is also a sort of soliloquy… where he talk about the death. 
I’ve been wondering about this book for years and the name isn’t even remotely close to the tip of my tongue.  

377G: Young boy makes maps

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This fiction book set in Butte Montana. A young boy makes amazing maps and illustrations and a teacher, I think, submits them to a national magazine and for years he makes these amazing illustrations and they don’t know it’s a kid. Eventually they give him an award and he doesn’t know how to get there (I think the teacher doesn’t want the secret revealed) so he hides on a train (this turns into kind of a magical time warp train ride) and goes to Washington DC. 
I think it must have been published prior to 2010? Around there or before.

377C: Extra Tall Child

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I do not remember much of this book unfortunately –  I read it when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade (2001-ish).  It was a picture book about a little girl that grew extremely tall. Her family or community had to make her clothes to try to keep up with how fat she was growing. The character girl had blonde hair that also got longer as she got taller. Her clothes looked like a patch work quilt because they were using whatever they had to make clothes big enough for her.  I think at one point one of the illustrations is her hiding behind a tree because she outgrew her clothes and had nothing on? 

376Y: The whodunit on the estate

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I have been trying to remember the name of a book I likely read in the early 1990s but could have been published much earlier than that. Every time I describe it to someone they guess it’s The Westing Game, but it is not.
A girl is invited to her aunt’s house for a visit. The aunt is married to a prominent and rich man (possibly a journalist? He is someone the girl is aware of and admires) who is throwing a party at his estate for a large number of famous friends. Once the guests are assembled it’s revealed via clues that the man has knowledge of something unsavory from each of their pasts (including his wife’s) and is blackmailing them.
That night the man is murdered and the book becomes an Agatha Christie style whodunit, knowing that the murderer must be one of the people in the house. The girl is able to learn about all of the guests and eventually solves the murder – the killer is a loyal housekeeper who doesn’t want the aunt’s secret to get out.
My son is now approaching the age I was when I read the book (probably 10 or 11?) and I’d love to find it for him since he enjoys mysteries but I cannot for the life of me remember the title, nor track it down with any kind of “books similar to the Westing Game” style searches.

376T: 12 Days of Christmas parody (Solved!)

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I came across this website while trying to search for this book from my childhood. I do not know the title of this book. All I can remember is that it is a 12 days of Christmas parody. That there were monsters in this book. It had to been published before 1996. It was a colored illustration book.

The world works in mysterious ways. A line from the book came to me today and when I searched it, an article from The New York Times archive popped up. Published in 1977, Joel Schicks The Present was there. This was the book I’ve been searching 10 years for.

376S: Pilot hidden in attic (Solved!)

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So I read this book in 2020 or 2021 and I believe it was written roughly around that time. The author is a woman with a unique name (which for the love of cheese, I cannot recall) and her bio said she lives on an island off the coast of England (could be Channel Islands) or possibly coast of Australia! Oh man, I’ve really forgotten!

The story is written first person from the perspective of a girl as she grows up, and then also as she is an adult. I forget how her father died, but I think he was on a boat at sea and never returned. The girl is sent to live in a house on the coast with a woman guardian, who is not her mom or stepmom, and their relationship is curt. There is a creepy male family friend who drives up every other week or so to check in on them and I think gives them money.
At some point, a German pilot crashes his plane into the ocean, swims to shore, and comes to their house. They help him and hide him in their attic. As I recall, he speaks little English. The little girl develops a loving sweet relationship with him, and he teaches her to draw. The girl’s guardian woman falls for him, and the little girl feels jealous of their relationship.  At some point later in the book, the creepy man is coming over and the girl is upset with her guardian, and intentionally leaves the door to the attic open where the creepy man will hear them talking. The creepy man discovers them and basically tells the man to walk into the ocean, knowing he will not survive the freezing water.
In the meantime, in the present, the now  adult little girl is planning the day she will die and leaving a note for her neighbor letting him know. She is visited by a teen girl who is sitting on her fence (and I think she is the daughter of the creepy man and her guardian). I know it’s complicated!
The grown little girl does end her life as she planned, but it’s not graphic or violent.
I cannot remember any names, but I think the time is WW2 because of the German pilot.
Thank you so much for any ideas! I’ve searched so many searches and authors and come up empty.

376P: Potion makes you beautiful outside, ugly inside

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I would like to find a children’s picture book checked out from library in the early 90’s (most likely published then but possibly in 80’s), about a woman who was ugly/plain and wanted to be beautiful so the prince would marry her.  A little old man with a raisin looking face peddled her a potion but told her only to take it sparingly and it would make her pretty.  She did and then got vain and took it all, and became beautiful but ugly on the inside.  She was mean to the raisin face man and I think he turned out to be the prince under a curse and she didn’t end up with him after all.   Was a colorful picture book. 
Not the book titled Sleeping Ugly.  

376L: Spooky 90s picture book w/ Ichabod Crane vibes

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My younger brother and I used to regularly borrow this spooky picture book in early-mid 90s (could also be from the 80s). I remember rich illustrations and a main character with an Ichabod Crane nervousness about him. Can’t remember any of the plot except that at the climax of the book he is in a dark church and he believes there are ghosts all around. My brother’s memory is that the main character was an organist/pianist and that another character dresses up as a ghost and chases him off. I don’t *think* this is a version of Sleepy Hollow. But given how vague my memory is, anything is possible. Even if it is, I would love to figure out which version it is specifically. My brother and I have been trying to figure this out for years.

376K: Teens with Powers

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If I had to classify it, Young Adult fiction would be the genre, but it may just be broader fiction with a mostly teenage main cast.
I don’t remember much about the main character but he has some sort of power that I believe awakens, and he ends up on the run. He eventually comes across a mysterious girl and her relative (grandfather, I think) who rescues him and comes along with him. This girl seems to be able to see the future, and knows about him and that they will eventually be married.  I also believe that she can talk to animals, though this may not be the case. Her grandfather has trained her to fight and specifically talks about fortifying the house they were staying at with steel embedded in the door, before the government( or some evil corporation potentially) comes to get them.
I believe neat the end they find yet another youth who has powers, and end up infiltrating some sort of cult compound.
I’m pretty sure that it’s a relatively recent book, maybe 5 years old at most, because the sequel hadn’t been released yet, or it may have been a one off, I’m not sure.

376D: Farm Book

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The book is about a family living on a ranch/farm in the American West, sometime between 1970 and 2000. I remember three key details about the book: 

A. The families father was killed by a bull during a rodeo. He was gored to death.

B. At one point in the book, a member of the family is in the hospital with a boy who lost his leg to a lawnmower accident. His siblings visit in the hospital and say they are not allowed anywhere near the lawnmower. The boy is in the hospital to get a larger prosthetic leg attached. 

C. The children live on a ranch/farm and often play in a pasture near the house. They go there to hide at one point, but I do not remember why.