Category Archives: 1990s-

226H: Short story collection

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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.

219A:Treasure hunting goes wrong.

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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.

217B: Girl Coping with Parents’ Divorce and Father’s Second Marriage (Solved)

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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.

212F: Boy with ability to copy other’s skills. (SOLVED)

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I read the book in 6th grade (1990-1991.) The book most likely printed mid to late 1980s or early 1990s. Set in modern times in North America/USA. Male lead age 13-15. Junior high or high school student. He finds out one day he can some how summon abilities. Example in the only scene I remember he’s being followed. He confronts his stalker and summons the abilities of a boxer and fights off his stalker. Through out the book he summons skills. Sometimes he can do it other times the power fails. Doesn’t understand how he can do it.

Can anyone help?

197B: Cat runs away about being dressed up like a baby

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Cat is owned by a brother and sister. They constantly dress him up like baby, even putting him in a stroller. He decides that he’s had enough and he runs away. He goes somewhere cold (maybe Alaska, or somewhere similar). He then goes ice fishing and catches a fish. He has no one to be with. He realizes he misses the kids and goes home to them. At the end up the book he is all dressed up and says something about this not being so bad. It was made around the 90’s. The cat was either a tabby or grey.

194A: Boy falls into magical world, solves puzzles to escape

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My younger brother ordered this book through the Scholastic Book Club or similar program in the late ’90s. He would have been between kindergarten and 2nd grade. The book followed a young boy who, I think, was visiting his uncle or grandfather and fell through, I think, a grandfather clock into another world. The reader had to solve puzzles to help him escape. The puzzles were answered on the next page and you weren’t supposed to turn the page until you solved the puzzle. They would be something like, if 12 o’clock is green and 6 o’clock is red, what color is 3? Some of the puzzles were quite hard and took us a while to solve. What I remember the most is the illustrations. They were vivid, almost life-like. They were dark and the world the boy had fallen into was frightening but the scenery was detailed and stunning, even to me as a young child.

184C: The musician and the horrendously ugly giant (solved)

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I can’t remember its name. I’ll title it “The musician and the horrendously ugly giant” for now.

This was a book about a small town terrorized by a giant. A mother tells her son to not go outside, but he runs outside with his musical instrument (banjo? fiddle?) and somehow drives away the giant. The book’s description of the giant with ugly nails and teeth was chilling. It had an accompanying book on tape. I listened every day, terrified, when I was in first grade circa 1996.