Category Archives: 1990s-

335Q: The Return Trip (Short Story)

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I’m looking for a short story from about 10-15 years ago, title was something like “The Return Trip”.  The flight of a famous M.D. is grounded in Boston for weather.  In the airport, he receives a call from a young woman, the daughter of an old girlfriend who is dying of cancer.  Story ends with his burning the unopened DNA lab results of the (his?) daughter, ordered years ago by the mom.  Published in the July issue of an airline magazine (USAir?) about 10-15 years ago.

I realize it’s not a book, just a short story.  I recall Googling the author when I knew his name, he had several collections of short stories, but none included this particular story.  Not sure if it was ever published anywhere other than the airline magazine.  I don’t recall the airline, but United and USAir were the most likely.  I do know that it was a July edition of the magazine.

335M: Children’s Fable Anthology

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I’m looking for a hardback collection of children’s stories/fables from the late 80's or early 90's. The illustrations for each story were very round-faced, cartoony characters, and the cover was blue. I remember there being around 10-15 stories and the ones I most clearly remember are a version of “Stone Soup”, a version of “The House with the Golden Windows”, and a story very like “The Giving Tree”.

The most unique story I remember that I can’t find anywhere online is a story of a King challenging his 3 children (two sons and one daughter) to prove who should inherit the throne. He gives them each a gold coin and sends them to buy something that will fill every room of the castle. The oldest son buys feathers and tries to spread them out but there aren’t enough. The second son hires a flute player to fill the castle with music but it can’t be heard in the tallest tower. Finally the daughter buys candles for every room and fills the castle with light and therefore wins her father’s challenge. I have been thinking about this book for so long it would be amazing if anyone could point me in the right direction!

335I: Fantastical Christmas sound effect book

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I am looking for the title of a children’s Christmas book which had sound effect buttons down one side which you could press. This book was a Christmas favourite of ours as children in the 1990’s, and was likely either an English or possibly American book, sent over by relatives living there at the time (posting from the UK).
The book listed various fantastical Christmas themed items, possibly describing a Christmas wish list, or remembering things from an (imaginary) Christmas walk or dream? The bits we can remember are:
  • Magic shoes for walking on a beam of light
  • A magic ride on Santa’s sleigh
  • Pirates treasure and a gold doubloon

I think the items repeated on each page with one being added each time. The last line of each section was “white snow, bright snow, icy cold starlit snow”.

Can anyone else remember this book, or shed any light on the title?

335B: Christmas Mice Named After Spices (Solved!)

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This is a Christmas book and it follows three mice who are brothers. They're named after spices (if my memory serves me correctly, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and Ginger). They're trying to find a Christmas present for their mother and she sings them a lullaby. This is all of the information that I can remember, but I am a senior in high school and I read it roughly 10 years ago.

334X: Man Who Runs A General Store

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I’m looking for a kids book about a man who runs a general store.

Early 90's kids book about a man who ran a store. When a customer would come in he always knew what they needed, until one day a woman came in and he couldn’t help her. Turns out in the end she wants him and they get married. I think it was called Joe’s place, or Joe's general store, or maybe it was Sam? Any help is appreciated.

334J: The Girl Who Couldn’t Clap

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I’m looking for a children’s story about a princess who couldn’t clap, which embarrassed her family when they went to the opera. At the end of the story, she’s given a pair of gloves that button together at the wrists, so she can enjoy the opera with everyone else. I think there was a mention of something called “jumble mints” or “jumble sweets". It was probably part of a children’s anthology I had in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I’ve been searching for years; nobody in my family remembers this story and I’d be so thrilled to find it!

333Z: Australian Teenager on the Road, Searching for Biological Mother (Solved!)

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In the first half of 2002, I got most of the way through a self-contained YA mystery series. I think there were ten books in total, each about 100-120 pages, probably published recently. I was attending a Canadian high school at the time and discovered the series while volunteering at another school’s library. I read all but the last one (I suspect the school year ended before I had a chance to borrow that one). I’d like to know how the series concluded, but every attempt I’ve made at finding these books online has hit a dead end. I either find nothing, or I find an earlier online description of the series that I wrote in 2015.
The protagonist is a young woman from Australia (as I recall), about sixteen, named something like Blake or Blaine. The series has her name in the title along the lines of ‘The Blake Journals’ or ‘The Blaine Files’ or the like. The first volume opens with her leaving home in a carefully thought-out plan to run away. She disappears in the middle of the night, grabs her possessions, and takes to the road on some kind of motor scooter or moped. We eventually learn that her goal is to locate her biological mother, who vanished years ago. As I recall, there’s very little in terms of action-adventure: this is more about a quiet and painstaking solo quest.
The books’ cover images were nearly identical. They all had the series title in large yellow-and-black typography, staggered a bit for a vintage-typewriter look to convey mystery/edginess. If I had to guess, a publishing house cranked these out in a short period of time as a one-off, but clearly the series intrigued me enough that I read about 90% of it, and now I’m finding it tantalizing.

 

333Y: SciFi Plot Fragment – The Harmony and The Melody (Solved!)

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I read this book at the Boulder Library, it was written in this century (I think).
Earth humans are subjugated by a technologically superior species.  At first the foolish Earthlings (are there any other kind?) think the superior species is a bunch of evil meanies.   They come to find out that the meanies are actually helpful in protecting humans from far more pitiless and powerful adversaries, who have factions called Harmony and Melody, and when a defector from the adversary conveys information to the meanies, it is compelled to destroy itself because it’s contaminated by inferiors.