Category Archives: 1990s-

340S: Boy meets crows on a chessboard

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Seeking a children's/teen book I read in the 90's, the central character is a boy who went to a pond/lake when he was told not to and developed warts on his hands as a result. These are cured by a magician? in an early scene, a friend of his father maybe? I only remember two more scenes, one in which he remembers trying to pull a wart from his skin, and another in which he dreams? of a giant chessboard. The white pieces are standard king, queen, knights etc, but all of the black pieces are crows. Crows and chess pieces were a recurring image in the book, but I don't remember what purpose they served. Thanks to anyone who helps with this, it's stumped me for years!

340N: Fairy Tale Anthology, Blue Cloth Cover, 12 Dancing Princesses

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I had a collection of fairytales in 1990-1995, though it may have been published prior to that (c. 1980-90).  It had a royal/dark blue cloth cover with a small, embossed-gold pegasus in the center of the cover (possibly with children riding the pegasus).

The collection was rather thick (perhaps a half inch) and contained at least 20 stories.  Each story was illustrated with at least one color illustration on each page (some small alongside the text and some full page). There were different illustrators throughout.  The text was regular-sized font.

I specifically remember these stories, though there were more (I’ve listed the more rare first):

  • The Twelve Dancing Princesses (I specifically remember the exquisite illustrations of the prince breaking off a branch of the silver tree)
  • The Snow Queen (illustrations of Kay and Gerta with the penny on the window, the snow queen in her carriage driving away, the garden of flowers Gerta visits, and her red shoes)
  • The Water Babies
  • The Little Match Girl
  • Cinderella
  • Rapunzel (an incredible full-page illustration of the witch’s garden)
  • The Sleeping Beauty (illustrations of thickets of thorns, sleeping kitchen maids)
  • Rumpelstiltskin
  • The Frog Prince
  • Hansel and Gretel
  • Jack and the Beanstalk
  • There may have been some Aesop’s fables as well, but there my memory gets hazy.
Thank you for your assistance in finding this book!

340J: Young Man from South Africa Travels to Botswana to Escape Apartheid

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A few years ago I read a book about a young man from South Africa during apartheid who would risk his life to travel back and forth over the northern border to Botswana.

He travels to Botswana and becomes a gardener for a woman who lives alone.  He is black and she is white.

I read the book within the last 10 years and it has stayed with me.  I don’t remember the name or the author, but I think this would be a good book for my book group to read.

340I: Girl Wakes Up Inside Dollhouse (Solved!)

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I read this book in 1995 from a middle school book fair. It was a children’s/young adult book. The cover had an evil doll with brown hair and looked like the doll was bursting through the cover. I remember the main character was a girl probably 10-12 years old. There was something about a dollhouse and waking up inside the dollhouse. Maybe she and her family had just moved to a new house? There was a part where the main character begins to realize she is inside the dollhouse because she finds a wide tooth comb and describes it as very large like someone would use if they had dreadlocks. Why I specifically remember that, no idea. I managed to lose the book over the years but it was a nostalgic favorite of mine. Hopefully you can help.

340E: Girl moves to beach town (Solved!)

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It's a book about a teenage girl who meets an anonymous boy online. They become close and she happens to move to where he lives without telling him. She moves to the beach town with her dad (I think her mom died and was a surfer). She starts working at a museum with a boy she doesn't like but things start to click and she begins to wonder if he's the mystery online boy. She had never told him that she moved to his hometown. She wanted to figure out who he was before revealing herself.

340B: Younger Brother Acts Possessed, Acts Like An Alien, Returns To Normal

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Looking for a YA horror book (?), possibly British or Australian, 2000s or earlier, about a girl whose younger brother starts acting strangely. It's split into three sections: in the first he is acting similar to a person possessed by a demon (and a priest is called to exorcise him). In the second section he calms down and starts to become obsessed with the stars, implying that he is an alien. In the third section he calms down a little more, and the novel ends with some sort of climax/sacrifice? after which he returns to normal. The cover had a very pale ghostly looking boy on it, and I think the title was a one-word, strange sounding (making starting with a?) name that the boy called himself (I think based off a constellation). I read this book in the early 2010s as a child and was very disturbed but fascinated with it.

339Z: Man v. Nature, Cartoon City, and other Facts

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I have a book I cannot remember the title of that I would hope you may be able to find. It is a book maybe for young adult readers, so sort of a children’s book, but maybe not your typical fare.
I was born in 2001, and there was a book I remember from when I was a child that was a bunch of different discrete sections, all vaguely educational. Each page was different and had a different theme, be it statistics about the usage of power (I think that was a page?) or different conflicts in literature (i.e. Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society). I remember the latter clearly. That page maybe may have also alluded to the fact that Shakespeare stole many of the plots of his plays from stories people already knew? Something like that. I also remember the cover having lenticular printing on it, perhaps depicting a city and also a dinosaur in a cartoonish fashion. It was a relatively large book (thick and large surface area). I may be mixing it up with another book, but I also vaguely remember the book also having a section on the similarities between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations? But I’m not sure about that.

339V: Sentient Virus

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Archaeologists discover the body of a prehistoric man sealed in a cave. The man’s body contains a virus which is released when the cave is unsealed. When the viral level in an infected human’s blood becomes a certain level, they are able to communicate with the virus. The virus says that it created all our childhood diseases to strengthen our bodies to make us carriers for the virus.

I believe I read it in the 90’s.