A children’s book about a witch (probably with red hair) that befriends a young girl next door. The book has illustrations that are very bright. The witch dresses like a gypsy and flies on a vacuum. Only the girl knows she’s a witch. It’s not The Wednesday Witch, The Witch Next Door or The Witch Down the Hall. The witch is friendly. The book is 15-20 years old. It was a large book probably 10cm wide and 30cm tall.
The female main character, Nan, lives in an apartment in a big city in what I recall as the late 1970s or 1980s, although it could certainly have been as late as 1990. In my memory, she finds a doorway to a mountain world at the end of an alley. I remember the vast majority of the book is spent with her alone, exploring the mountain.
I seem to recall that near the last 1/3 of the book, she encounters a village. I believe she also travels back and forth and at some point, decides to leave her boyfriend in the city life. However, I am fairly sure that the bulk of the book takes place on the mountain. I recall grassland vividly, so description of the environment must have been a big component of the book.
Near the end of the book, there is, of course, conflict. I can’t remember if something gets in to the mountain world and upsets the balance or if there is some sort of struggle on the mountain. I vaguely recall a fire.
I checked out this book from the library in 1993 or 1994, and because of the female protagonist, I believe it was written after 1970.
Thank you so much for your help!
Hi,
I read this book in 1997(?). Little Red riding hood meets the wolf and becomes friends. His name is 2:15/ Two Fifteen, and his wife is called 3:45/Three Forty Five. I have tried googling it but no luck. It’s a kids book an I’m in Australia.
Thanks.
No idea about the title. I first found this book in the early 2000’s, but it is probably older–90’s or 80’s or even earlier? There’s no narrative, contains (mostly?) black and white sketches of many silly and imaginative designs for ordinary items and new inventions. Just one example of many: a contraption that completely encloses a desk to allow a nap in the office. I also remember a page full of funny-looking footwear; a memorably risque one was modeled after the nude female figure. Sadly, these are all the sketches that I can clearly remember.
Hi there,
In my elementary school library we had a shelf of thin, hardback picture books. The had a dreamy-look (a la Lisa Frank,) which makes me think 80s/90s.
I loved many of the collection (which I’m not sure how was grouped together, if an author did all the adaptations/books?), but there was certainly a version of The Nutcracker, too.
The book I’m after had two children and a castle built in/on clouds. They might have been elfin, and we’re trouble makers or up to no good, and we’re following a red ribbon through the clouds down to earth. It was in the style of Salvador Dali sort of?
I can’t help much with content: if there was any, I didn’t read when I poured over it. This book was a big deal to me as a kid. Reading was hard, and this one let me imagine the story myself. Eventually I became an avid, able reader and this one got lost. I’d love to find it for my own daughter now to share it with her.
Thank you!
A young girl seems to live by herself without parents in a small house/cabin. It is winter and her cabin is snowed in so she digs herself out in order to do her chores, which consist of taking care of a variety of animals. At the end of the day I think she makes herself a cup of cocoa and goes to sleep surrounded by her animal friends.
I read this children’s book when I was young in the 90’s although it may have come from the 80’s as I have two older siblings. The illustrations are in color and I might remember the girl wearing a red scarf or hat.
Thank you!
I am looking for a book for a friend. She describes it as a young boy (possibly a “monster”) goes home for from boarding school for Christmas on a train and discovers the house a secret passage in the back of a closet. There is a map in the back of the book with the secret passageways. She think it came out in the early 90s and was a scholastic title. The family was wealthy. The book was intended for children 9-12. Help!?
It was definitely published before 1994, possibly published in the 70s/80s.
It was a collection of short stories printed in paperback, my copy was missing the from and back and the first page that normally lists the title and publishing info.
Each story was like 5-10 pages with some detailed black and white drawings on occasional pages.
There were 5 or 6 short stories in it but it’s possible there were some from the front or back missing since I received the book used.
There’s two stories I remember.
One was about a girl who became obsessed with bubble gum trying to blow the biggest bubble ever and she blew one as big as herself and it popped and she got covered in gum.
The other one was about a boy who wished he was invisible so he could sneak out of the house and join the circus.
Young man is swindled out of his salvaged shipwrecked rubies (or sapphires or emeralds) by a beautiful girl with irregularly-cut hair and a love of diving inspired by reading Red Rackhams Treasure as a child. She is afraid of one thing, dying alone. They have a passionate affair, but she swindles him. He eventually retrieves his treasure from her, but finds her dying, he closes the door and leaves her to her worst nightmare:dying alone.
This book was written about the early 1990s by a chap writing for his PhD in geology in the university of Copenhagen. A debut novel. A bloke.
I can’t remember his name, name of the book. He stole my line about the Tintin thing. I must have met him at a conference and was asked about diving. I did lots of diving for geological samples and I was indeed inspired by Tintin books.
please help me re-find it. My copy was pinched off a ship I was working on.
The book I’m trying to remember is a YA novel about a girl in middle or high school. Her parents were recently divorced, and her father remarried not long after. I think his new wife was a teacher, or maybe a substitute, at the girl’s school. The girl has a new babysitter or nanny or au pair, possibly an older high school or college student. I think they might have held a seance or used a Ouija board together, but I’m not positive. There was a scene with the girl and her mother driving in the rain, and the girl was thinking about her father’s second marriage, with the words “Divorced in (a month, maybe December), married in (another month, possibly May)” running through her head like a chant in time with the windshield wipers. I think the girl’s last name is Beckwith, or something similar, but that’s the only name I remember. I think it was probably published between 1985 and 1991, or sometime close to that.