Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

374E: Puritan Fog Friend

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I read in grade school (early 70s), but I can’t remember the name of it.
Little girl had just moved to house on outskirts of small town New England coast of US. She likes to play in fog. One day meets another little girl. She speaks oddly, old-fashioned. Is dressed old too. But they have good time berry picking. Go to strange girl’s house. Also very old fashioned, more like a cabin. But girl thinks kinda cool. 
The odd girl’s mom fixes a couple of berry pies. Wraps one up for her to take to her mom. When she gets home, fog is lifting and pie is gone. The two girls meet often, always in fog. They become fast friends. 
Finally mom wants to meet this family. Daughter takes her to spot she KNOWS the village is standing. Nothing there. Just bright sunshine on the empty field. Few blocks away is a replica of a Puritan village but isn’t the same. She keeps saying things were in the wrong place. Never saw little girl again, foggy or not. 

Wish I could remember the name but was in like 4th maybe 5th grade at the most.”

373T: Zen Koans for Young Adults

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This was a book I purchased for my elementary school library in the mid 90’s through early 2000’s.  I think it was published in 94 or 95.  It was a slender black hardcover book with white lettering (I think) about 21.6 cm x 16.5 cm.  I don’t remember a cover image but if there was one it was a simple line drawing.

I think one or more of the keywords Japan, Japanese, stories, koans, or zen were in the title or prologue.  It had brief stories (one page or less).

Here are two I remember:
*The master pours tea in a student’s cup, but the cup is full so what the master poured spills over the sides.
*The master and student are walking down a muddy road.  They encounter a woman standing before a muddy muddle.  The master carries the woman to the other side of the puddle, puts her down, and he and the student trudged on.  After many minutes the student blurts (something like) “Master why did you carry that woman?  You know (avoiding women?) is part of our practice. The master replied that he carried the woman but a few steps but the student was still carrying her.
I’ve scrolled through what seems like millions of hits for Zen and koans with no luck. It was written for young people (5th-adult?) according to my search tools.  It was not in a picture book format like the Muth books. And it pre-dates them by many years.

373K: Supernatural spinning top

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I am trying to locate a favorite childhood book, probably published sometime in the mid sixties. I do not recall the title of the book, but it is in the “supernatural” category, geared for pre-teen or early teenage years. The main character is called Dorcas and she has a spinning top that allows her to access her supernatural power. I believe she is an orphan. There is also a young man that is her advocate. She acquires damaging information through her “gift” that implicates stalwart pillars of the community; they come after her as the book comes to a climax, with her being trapped in a cave by one of these perpetrators. She is rescued at the end of the book by her young protagonist who, at one point, had given her a red scarf. I always thought this book was called “The Spinning Top”, but any and all efforts to locate it by that title have been completely futile! I have been searching for this book for nearly 50 years and hope that, with your help, it can be found.

373F: Horse and Sugar Bowl

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I am so thrilled to hear of your service!!   For the last day of school of my second grade, the teacher let us read books from the small classroom library. This was in 1962.  (Yes, I’ve been hunting for this book for over sixty years.). After lunch she made us pass up the books. She would not let me finish it. I watched as she packed all the books in cardboard boxes. The box with my book was likely shipped to the school district warehouse since it was so old.  And it wasn’t on the shelves when I snuck into the second grade classroom the beginning of my third grade.
What I remember, which is hardly anything, is that it was a larger format cloth cover.  The corners were worn and soft. (Maybe ten x fifteen? It was a thin book, perhaps green.) It looked “old fashioned” and I would guess it was published in the 1940’s.  The images were a type of collage with cut outs of real objects (like the sugar bowl) and a drawing of a horse cut and posed.  Then the scene was photographed in color.  That’s it :   a horse romping on a kitchen table and a sugar bowl.
It vaguely had the feel of a “Gumby” cartoon.   Hmmm….I never thought to hunt down the creater of Gumby.
I realize this is a long shot, but it would enable me to strike off one of the few items on my bucket list.

372P: Petey and Friends

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As a child I would periodically visit my grandparents, in the mid 1960’s. They had a children’s book at their house that I still remember (as does my cousin). If I could find the name, I’d love to get us each a copy for the holidays. 

Children’s chapter book, green cover, we think, but aren’t 100% on that.

Published definitely prior to 1970, more likely in the 1950’s.   The story line was pretty didactic, and that would fit the era. Also, while folks had cars, the vegetable man had a cart.

Generally simple plot: family with several kids move to a new location. The youngest child is named Petey, and he is the main character.  Each chapter basically follows one event in Petey’s life. Chapters I can remember:

** Petey makes friends with the vegetable man who comes into town to sell his veggies. Petey and family are invited to go out into the country to visit the veggie man’s family.  There was some cross-cultural awareness, but I can’t remember what. 

**Christmas is approaching and all the townspeople ask Petey what he wants for Christmas. “Oh, just one of those little cars” (referring to Matchbox cars). Everyone is astounded he wants so little. In the end, everyone in town gets him a little car.

** Bad snowstorm keeps Petey and his siblings indoors. After complaint about nothing to do they all sit and start to create a quilt from leftover fabric. They work all day and succeed in creating quilt.

It wasn’t great literature, but it has sentimental value for us. ☺️

Thank you for any help you can provide! I have been searching for this book for over a decade! 

372M: Alliterated Named- Animals

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Hi, I’m searching for the name of a series of children’s books I read in the 1960s and 1970s. I don’t remember much about them except that all the characters were animals
and they had alliterated names.  There was a firefly in the books. The coverwas very cute. These books gave me a lifelong love of reading. I was in grade 5 at the time, going to school in Hull, Quebec, Canada. The books were in English. Unfortunately that’s all I remember.

372L: Boy Beaver

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The book I’m looking for I read in 1970 – 71.  A fourth grade teacher selected it from the school library for me.  It was a children’s chapter book about a boy who either dreamed or had a vision that he was was a beaver.  It had Native American motifs and all the other characters were also animals. I really don’t remember much more than that.

372H: A boy named Junior tries to fly (Solved!)

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The book was found on the shelf of my grade school library near the Boxcar Children and my best guess of pub date is 1960s to 1990s-early reader chapter book/ middle school reading level. In the first book of the series a young boy jumps from the roof of the family barn with homemade (airplane?) wings and breaks both legs; I think the boy’s name is Junior- the story follows a sibling set who i remember being cared for by an older (non parent) male relative – there is a pet companion involved, a dog? At one point, Junior knocks on the front door to the home from the inside to ask permission to come sit outside with the older male relative in one of the series’ culminating scenes
This book has haunted my dreams for almost fifteen years and I badly want to find an old copy to read. please let me know if it sounds familiar and thank you for providing this essential service to society- that sounds facetious, but I promise I am serious as a heart attack, thank you. 

371V: Dark illustrated ghost book

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I remember this illustrated book from when I was a kid. It had dark drawings somewhat similar to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark but not quite. Some of the elements I remember are that there’s a ship or boat?
There’s at least two men. One man is possibly stabbed. I remember a ghost maybe. Blood as well.The men’s bodies are shown from various strange perspectives to look stretched out and ghostly or long.

Fiction.

Plot: Not sure.

I read this between 1997-2005 roughly.

Book’s intended audience: Seems too scary to be a kids book but there wasn’t much text. It was definitely heavily based in illustration. 

I read it in Ohio, USA.

That’s about it !

I know it exists.
Thanks for your time.