Category Archives: Fantasy

241C: A Boy and a Witch Named Gherkin

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The book in question is an older British book, I remember finding it around the mid-to-late 90s, about a young boy being raised by his “aunt” (I clearly remember that she loved taking baths with the Purple People Eater fragrance, which was used later in the book by a sewer-comber who knew where her house was because of the smell) who is approached by a young witch who thinks she’s an outcast because she isn’t ugly, whose name is Gherkin, along with a few other strange characters – including an animal from the island each of them is from that looks like a soft white seal, loves music more than anything, and emits a thick fog when happy. The boy is the lost son of the king and queen of the island, and is the only one who can help save them from some calamity.

241A: Chinese Dragons and Witches With Flying Hair

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A fantasy middle-grade novel I read in the mid-80s, with a green Chinese dragon on the cover. The dragon belonged to a Chinese girl who rode it in a circus and put on a thick Chinese accent for the punters, but could actually speak English perfectly.
She was one of the magical characters helping the two child protagonists on their adventure: another was a witch who had long hair which flew about when she was casting spells. She made an illusory double of one of the children (called a Semblance) so they wouldn’t be missed.
At one point the protagonists and their flying carpet were swallowed by some kind of evil spirit that had a dark stormy space inside it. They started calling the spirit the Glutton to make fun of it, and the witch put her head in her hands as if she was despairing so nobody could see her hair flying about when she used her magic to get them out.

239A: A boy with wings

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I’m looking for a trilogy the second book hardcover has a skeleton metal android on it and has a yellow background its at least a trilogy. It is about a winged boy, named Del, living in what sounds like a castle or a temple. He dies at one point and becomes a room but escapes the room. In another part his body is possessed by some spirit, I think it was a god, the God in Del’s body tore off his wings. I also remember that his eyes could change color. Right after the possession he, Del with the god in him, was in a room being tortured by someone. The girl that Del had been traveling with commented on his eyes being white with rage. After the god in Del’s body and the girl escape the god rips off the now damaged wings. After he dies he was in a room that was his soul it was painful for him to become a room. After he rips himself free he grounds up and devours some pictures which represent the souls. He did that because someone with him told him to. They said that it wouldn’t be as effective but should still help. There’s people riding something that the android is carrying someone sets the android free.

Thank you for at least trying to help,
Jessee

237A: Book of Fairy Tales Containing This Unusual Story

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Physically, it was dark blue or dark green (dust jacket was long lost). I read the book in the 70s, but it was much older. I would guess it was published in the 30s or 40s. It had simple black and white illustrations.
There was one story (whose name I can’t remember) about two children — a brother and sister who are in the woods. They come to a tree stump with a strange knot on it. When they sit on the stump and touch the knot, they fall into an underground world. There, they are tormented by scary monsters. They … do … something (sing a song about being brave, maybe) and the monsters turn into fairies. It turns out that they were fairies all along, and had been cursed to be monsters until someone did that thing. One of the monsters looked like a giant carrot.

236I: A steampunkish picture book

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Early 90s, I was 8-10 years old, I had this favorite book. It was wider than it was tall (maybe 12” x8”?) paper back and maybe 20 pages or something thin like that. I don’t remember there being a main character, but all the pictures where lots of shades of brown and copper. I would even say steampunkish. The plot had something to do with the machine having an assembly line of all these different gadgets. I vaguely remember gears or oil…I’m pretty sure it was very fantasy and even some anthropomorphism with the machines. Any ideas?

236E: Boy with special power

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Book I can’t remember details of:
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy (Most likely young adult/teen fiction)
Time Read: 5-7 years ago
May have been a paperback
Plot points: Main character is a boy, found/kidnapped after some tragedy (burning village?).
Kidnappers include a pair of twins? that have some sort of snake/venom/acid power.
They are encountered and defeated by another group of twins, who can control lightning or something like that.
(big time gap missing in memory)
Boy is taken to some sort of fortress/academy/institution and trained to fight, and ride large raptors?/bulls? which he enjoys a lot as he understands/knows a lot about them
He makes a rival out of his roommate or a rival is picked for him from one of the boys at the academy, not sure which. They get in fights (I think?).
There is a spot out in the training field of the academy with two buildings, one of them being a black isolation sort of box where people go in and experience things that terrify them and come out determined not to mess up again.
There is a test at some point where the boy has to travel through a very foggy area with a bunch of dangerous creatures to an old abandoned tower.
To graduate the academy there is a crucible/gauntlet/arena where he has to kill/defeat his teacher.
There is a love interest? who is the princess?(maybe) of a nation of people with beast powers.
In this book world there are people with powers that come from bloodlines and/or animals and/or eye colours and the powers generally stay within the kingdoms they originated from.
There is a character in some part of the book from a royal family that pushed their sibling/infant sibling/ or the heir to some throne from a window causing a severe injury which can be healed by the main character or something like that.
The main character has a power that allows them to view things from long distances, invade people’s minds, see spirits?(maybe), and other things like that.
Main character is maybe/likely an orphan, some part of the book involves a revealing of who exactly his parents (Father specifically) were.

233D: Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy – Nan Explores Mountain World

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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!

229D: Two children and a castle in the clouds

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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!

229C: Kid rides across uncrossable desert on back of huge crab. 80s YA fantasy.

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Hi!
I hope you guys can help find this book. I read it in the mid-late 80s, somewhere between about 4th and 8th grade. I don’t recall any illustrations. It was set in a mythological land and was about a kid who rode across the desert on the back of a large crab. I think there was a procession of crabs, migrating maybe. I think the kid’s people had never been across the desert and didn’t know what existed on the other side. And maybe he had to eat the crab (or one of them) to survive. He makes it across and there’s another civilization across the desert, I think.

Thanks!

227K: Lavishly illustrated fairies

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I am looking for a childhood book my mother read to me around 1954 when we lived in Virginia.  It was about fairies and lavishly illustrated.  My favorite was the center fold illustration of fairies in the forest dancing under a moon that had a gauzy ring around it.  It was not Golder Books Treasury of Elves and Fairies by Garth Williams.  Any ideas?

Thanks.