A young boy becomes a roach- literally all I remember. However, the side story I do remember. His sister is some kind of super genius who didn’t speak until she was five and when she did finally speak she created a board game. She spends her day in front of the tv counting the number of times the commercial for the board game plays and how much money she is making.
Category Archives: 1990s-
285B: 90s children book, cooking with bugs (Solved)
Read this in January 1995. It is a Judy Blume or Louis Sachar-esque children’s chapter book. Some kids are doing some kind of report and/or competition to create outlandish dishes by new and inventive means.
The protagonist, a boy, decides to experiment by putting insects in the food. In one scene, he brings brownies to school that he’s put roaches in. (Particularly memorable because it just so happened I brought brownies to class for my birthday that day when we got to that chapter and everyone got a big laugh about the coincidence). He finds out that his chief rival is using the car to cook food; they come out of church or a PTA meeting to the smell of hamburgers because he put the patties on the hot engine. Thanks!
282A: A dollhouse with a little witch living inside
This is a book that was in the library when I was in grade school so early 90’s. It was already vintage then, probably 70’s-80’s, but I actually have no idea as to the publishing date. It is about a young girl who acquires/has a dollhouse with a little witch living inside who is alive and rides around on her broom. If I remember correctly the house is in the room where she is staying with an old relative. I think someone’s name started with an S, possibly Samantha, but I could be mistaken.
281C: A girl is lured into the forest
Dark fantasy middle school/ya novel from late 90s about girl who goes into forest to find brother who was lured in there by mysterious/sinister teenage boy. Other creepy children also live in the forest and heroine encounters many supernatural things on her journey to find her brother. Book cover had screaming face stuck in a wall.
280G: Learn to tell the time
The book I am interested in is one I had as a child, I think around 1988-1993 ish. It was a small white hardback cover and came with a watch which you could see in the cover (I’ll attach a picture of what I think it was or was like).
I remember that it was an illustrated book based in castle or palace or similar, the characters were either king, queen, prince, princess, and I remember one page was about them using a sundial to tell the time.
That’s all the information I have on it I’m afraid. I’m from the UK, so I’m not sure if this was also a U.S. issue book or not.
280F: Lost Cat in Rome found in Mouth of Truth Statue
Hi there, hoping you can help find a book. I remember reading it in the late 80s/early 90s. It was about a child in Rome who lost his or her cat. They go all over the city looking for it and eventually find the cat in the “mouth of truth” (La Bocca della Verità ) statue. I remember it was a blue cover and fairly larger than a regular sized book. It was in English. Hoping you can help track it down!
280C: Little girl moves from crib to “big bed”
Little girl moves from crib to “big bed” It as a large sized book with colourful illustrations, and just one or two sentences per page. It talked about all the worries the little girl has about the move, and then how much she liked her new bed. I remember she said It was great because now there was room for daddy to sit with her at bedtime and give her “nose-nuzzles”. We used It 18 years ago to ease our daughter’s transition to a bed from her crib.
279C: A wacky picture book about discrimination
I am looking for a children’s picture book that I bought in the 1990’s. I think published in Canada. It was about colorful wacky people who move into a town that doesn’t like them because they are different. The townspeople are snarky and grumpy. In the end the wacky colorful people win them over. It’s about discrimination.
278E: Young Chinese monk loses way while transporting books (Solved)
This is a picture book probably published between 1988 and 1995 set in the distant past about a young Chinese monk who lives at a library in rural China. He’s always sleeping in, and one day the monastery needs to relocate because of a disaster (flood? war?). He sleeps in that day, too, and he and his donkey of books set out late in the day to try to catch up.
That night, he takes shelter in a cave where there are two old men playing chess with white and red pieces. They feed him and the monk stays up to watch their game. He falls asleep, and when he wakes up he’s been transported many years in the future.
He leaves the cave and soon comes across a huge battlefield with soldiers in white and red. Somehow, his arrival and the books he carries stops the battle. At the conclusion, he’s grown up to head a monastery-library of his own… and he always wakes up early.
275A: Using Thinking Cap to get to Imaginary Lands (Solved)
Three? children are gifted (by a scientist /older man?) magical thinking caps, which increase their capacity to imagine. They use these hats to create/connect to and explore a magical world. I remember the antagonist wanting these hats so that they can free themselves and enter the other world. The children are careful to only go to the land together for safety. The antagonist has an agent that can move in between the worlds, a Slinky/Shadow/Sneaky Cat. This cat convinces the girl to come back alone with him to it’s yarn house. The other two? children go on a rescue mission with the scientist? who has his own hat, but because he is an adult is not able to use is as well as the children.
I read this book with my elementary school class around the time when we transitioned off of picture books to shorter novels, so I would expect this book to either be the latter, or one of those children’s novels with some pictures. It would have been published no later that 1998.
I appreciate any and all help! I will mail a check to you all tomorrow.