Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

308E: Girl Slides Amber Necklace Beads for Time Travel

A young girl slides amber (or precious stone) beads along a necklace (possibly belonging to her grandmother or found in an old house or bestowed upon her?) to travel to different periods in her own life and maybe throughout history, with a specific goal. She sees herself as a young woman, a grandmother. Her siblings are involved somehow, particularly a younger brother. At some point a knife or bloody knife portends something about how her younger brother is doing back in the present day (much like in many fairy tales). Her name was simple and classic like Jane or Anna or Annie. This book must have been published pre-1987, when my school librarian suggested it to me. It seemed already old at the time (which may just have been kid perception) so could possibly have a publish date anywhere from 1940s through early 80s.

It was a chapter book. Though it may have had a few line drawing illustrations throughout the text, it was not a picture book.

309Y: Jasmine One and Jasmine Two

A children’s book that I read in approximately 1982 when I was perhaps 9ish.
It was about a girl who was two children (an imaginary friend perhaps). One of the lines I remember is ‘people thought when they were talking to Jasmine (name may be different) they were talking to one little girl but really they were talking to two’.
They were called, Jasmine One and Jasmine Two.  Jasmine One was a good little girl and Jasmine Two liked to climb trees and ride bicycles with her skirt hitched up.  Jasmine Two would take over Jasmines One and get up to mischief.
It ends with Jasmine Two climbing on the roof of the family home to rescue a cat.  When she is up there people become concerned and I think she gets stuck and fire brigade comes to rescue her.
While she is on the roof Jasmine Two becomes as light as the wind and leaves forever.
Jasmine One grows up and becomes a pilot and flies through the sky just like Jasmine Two.
I loved this book so much as a kid, I would love to find it again.

307S: A kiss on the the elbow

I remember a library book about a group of children who discovered they had magic powers. I don’t believe it was any of Edward Eager’s books, and I also don’t think it was Mrs. Coverlet’s Magicians.

The tell-tale sign of magical ability was being able to kiss one’s own elbow. (Spoiler: I can’t.)

Can you help? I would have read it in the early 1970s, but I have no idea when it was published. I’m guessing the 1950s.

307P: She falls in love with horses

 

It’s a YA Book. I read it in the 1980’s. It’s about a dad and daughter. The dad is a house flipper (although that concept wasn’t around in the 80’s) – they live in the house while he fixes it up because money is tight. She starts working at a barn and doing chores and falls in love with horses. Other girls there have more money and nicer horses. The “prettiest” girl hurts herself in a competition and then the main character gets to ride her horse

Can you help?

307O: Children’s book about tornadoes

I’m looking for a children’s book about tornadoes.  Tornado may have been in the title.  It was likely published sometime in the 80s.

It was possibly from a book club or a book fair at an elementary school.  When I was in elementary school in Arkansas in the 80s, the teacher gave us paper catalogs about 4 pages long, I think.  We could order books from the catalogs and they were delivered to the school many weeks later.  It may have come from one of those.

It seems like the catalogs were associated with Weekly Reader or maybe a company called Owl (my bad memory may be remembering that completely wrong).

The book was paperback.  It had only had a few photos.  I think it taught kids the basics of understanding weather and weather forecasting.

 

307I: Boy and Agoraphobic Sister Orphaned in NYC (Solved)

I am looking for a fiction book I read as a child, probably in the 1970s, about a brother and sister living in New York City (possibly Soho?).  They are left alone and their parents do not come home, so the brother learns to scrounge food on the streets.  His sister is afraid to go outside.  The boy meets a children’s book illustrator in another building, who begins using him in her drawings.  She takes him to the beach (the Rockaways?) in her convertible, and I believe she eventually adopts the boy and girl.

307C: Important Tree Stumps

My daughter’s class was reading a book a few years ago — she was in 5th grade, at a school I lovingly referred to as ‘the school for super smart, socially challenged children,’ and they listened to a few chapters of this book that she would like to finish, but we have no clue regarding the title or author. She says the story involved two boys at the outset, a book that they refer to as ‘the book with a big B,” a talking bird, and she vaguely recalls tree stumps as being important. Any clue?

Thanks!!