Category Archives: 1990s-

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.

180E: Children (Fairies?) positive thoughts pocket-size book: late 1980s/early 1990s

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Smallish, pocket-sized hardcover book with, I believe, fairies (or just children? – can’t remember if they had wings or not), showing fanciful ways things came to be(showed them pinning clouds in the sky, and painting wings on butterflies). There was a sweet positive saying on each page spread. Not a lot of pages in the book, maybe 14-20 pages max. This was a specialty book like the kind you’d get on a rack in the middle of a bookstore – with other books with sayings/aphorisms. I remember at least one fairy (girl?) with black hair.

I believe there were also greeting cards that had these same characters and artistic style for a period of time, with, again, a sweet saying or aphorism.

178F: 90s ChickLit with carreer change plot: From working at bank (or offfice) to working at a zoo. (solved)

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Female lead character gets the sack and turns to an agency to help her find a new job; ends up at zoo. Has to take care of vicious donkey (I think at petting zoo) and subsequently falls for oddball and fellow warden, caretaker for the penguins. There is a ‘Princess Leia Doll’ subplot, in which protagonist realizes she only ever started her job at office-setting to stick it to fellow graduate who mutilated her doll when they were children. Happily the oddball zookeeper is also a collector of star wars dolls.
Probably british author, was baught in ireland in 1999 or 1998 and, of course, lost.

It is not a book by sophie kinsella, m. keyes, c. ahern, fforde, j. mansell, r. sisman. I have been searching for the last couple of days without any luck and hope you can help me (because this is driving me crazy). Thank you very much in advance!