Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

274B: Non-fiction series with striped spines

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I’m trying to hunt down a series of nonfiction young reader picture books from the 80s. My family had 12-15 of them when I was growing up, and I recall them all having the same pattern on their spines – muted stripes of yellow, green, red, and blue. I’m under the impression that each book in the series had a different author/illustrator. Unfortunately I can’t remember any specific names or titles, but there are certain books from the series that I’ve tried to pinpoint:

Book 1: An instructional book on how to make costumes for various magical creatures and characters. There are instructions on how to make fairy and pirate costumes, among others I can’t recall. Vignette illustrations of fairy cakes and mushrooms are placed throughout. In the last spread, all of the magical characters have a feast.

Book 2: Title something along the lines of “On the Go” or “On the Move”? A more cartoonishly illustrated book on the progression of vehicle technology. Double page spread of horses and wagons mired in mud, illustrating life before the invention of roads. Some very 80s illustrations of sports cars. An image of a very nervous man in a tiny sedan being sandwiched between two Mac trucks.

Book 3: An instructional book on caring for pets, including detailed illustrations on how to build aquaria for turtles.

That’s pretty much it! I hope something rings a bell for someone. Good luck, everyone!

272E: Mr. Apple’s Family (Solved)

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Collection of children’s stories containing Mr. Apple’s Family and also a story about a little girl and a goat who live in a house with a roof made of grass. I think the goat gets into mischief? The edition we had was an orange hardcover.

Additional info:  This was a book at my grandmother’s house, and she is a big second-hand shopper, so I have no idea on original publication date, etc.  I was enjoying this book in 90s, and it was in relatively good condition at that time.  The illustrations were not very colorful, mostly black and white I think with a few splashes of color here and there.  The above stories are the only two I can remember for sure being included in the book, but there may have been one about pancakes(?), and maybe also some poetry.

272C: A quest to find trees

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A boy and girl find themselves in a town/city with beautiful windows. The residents ask them to go on a quest to find a type of tree so that they can help the town get rid of ghost/monsters that are only afraid of that certain kind of tree. All the trees around the town/city had been cut down for fuel to make glass windows etc. Only one quirky resident had a small piece of wood from that kind of tree so he was the only one who could “fight” off the ghosts/monsters by touching them with the wood. I think he wore a cape and a yellow/orange outfit… not definite though.  The monsters were formless so I’m not sure if they were called “ghosts.” I forgot why the ghosts/monsters were so troublesome, and when they came out, but there were more than just one of them.

The Children agree to go look for the trees, not sure if one of the children is a resident, and not sure how the protagonist found the town/city. At one point, the children encounter a wizard who squeezes the boy’s hand/foot turning them into gold or some kind of metal.  At another point, they reach a mountain range, but the mountains move like waves so if they sleep on the bottom, they wake at the peak. So at first they were very disheartened as they tried to cross the mountains by scrambling to reach the peaks before getting tired.

I don’t remember anymore plot points because the teacher didn’t finish the book. So I don’t know how it ends. It took her a few sittings (3-4?) to get through the plot points above, so I guess it’s quite a thick book.

I don’t quite remember the design of the book either, but I think it was hard back, with some watercolor drawings? I can’t remember if it was a picture book or a more text-based book because the teacher was the one reading it. I don’t think there was a drawing for every scene though.

272B: Magical gift inhibited by silver in braces

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I’m wondering if you might be able to help me track down a book that my SIL vaguely remembers from her childhood. The main character is surrounded by people who have magical gifts, but he (she?) apparently has no gifts. Then he/she gets his/her braces removed, and it turns out that the silver was inhibiting the magic, and he/she actually does have magical powers.

She read it in the mid-80s, and the fact that there were braces in it leads me to believe that it wasn’t written too much earlier than the 70s or 80s.

 

271B: Child meets magical friend from a family of wizards/magic in secret garden (Solved)

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I have been looking for this young adult’s book for some time without success. I can’t remember any words of the title, it was aimed at 10-12 year olds. I read it in around 1990-1995, but it may have been published in the 1970s or 1980s. I’m pretty sure it was a British author, but it may have been American/Canadian. It was a slim paperback and I seem to remember that it came in a boxed set with a 3 or four other books, not necessarily by the same writer, but similar fantasy/magic genre. The story followed a young boy or girl who was staying with a relative somewhere, perhaps on holiday, who one day crawled under a hedge in the neighbourhood and into the garden/grounds of a wealthy and mysterious family, who turn out to be magical (possibly wizards). S/he meets and befriends the young girl who lives there who shows her various magical things but they keep their friendship secret as the other wizards/magical relatives would be angry if they found out she had come in to the garden. The family lives in a large and beautiful house and there is a magical lake in the garden which the two children sail across to an island in the center. They are later placed in danger when someone finds out the child is in the magic garden. I remember this being a wonderful story and would so love to find it! It is not Tom’s Midnight Garden or Timothy and the Witch.

270A: Girl joins circus, performs blindfolded trapeze act

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Girl has always loved hanging upside down, manages to join circus and be trained as a trapeze artist. Her trainer (and later love-interest & husband) catches her flying with her eyes closed and after much convincing, they turn it into a blind-folded act with silver dollars against her eyes and then covered by a blindfold. One mayor of a small town does not believe they are really blindfolded and arranges an accident. One of them is sent off course and the other must hurtle himself into her at an angle that will bring her into the net rather than a deadly impact.

In looking for this book I wondered if my adolescent self could have misunderstood the gender and relationship but MZB’s the Catch Trap doesn’t seem familiar enough.

The book was near Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters in my small middle school library so I believe the author’s name likely started with either an H or a nearby letter.

 

269E: Greek mythological mash-up

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This was a YA or middle-grade novel that I read in the late ’90s. It was a very loose Greek myth retelling that mashed together many familiar mythological elements into an original plot. Possible characters: Perseus, Medusa, Pan, Echo, Iphigenia. Some or all of it took place on an island which had a network of caves. One of the characters–maybe a plucky young girl–was stranded(?) on the island and encountered someone who became a friend/ally while exploring these caves. I also remember music magically wafting through the caves. Maybe that’s where Pan comes in?

The copy I had was paperback with some blue and purple on the cover. The physical book and style of writing didn’t strike me as “old-fashioned,” so I’m guessing it had been published in the ’80’s or ’90s…but I could be wrong about that.

I’m fairly certain the author was a woman.

Thanks so much for helping me solve this mystery! I remember absolutely loving this book.

266D: Scary picture book about a monster that constructs itself from other animals/plants

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I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me find a picture book from my childhood that I have been searching for for years. My mum borrowed it from our local library (in Victoria, Australia) sometime in the 90s, perhaps any time from 1997 onwards. It was a dark (both in theme and illustration style) picture book with detailed illustrations similar to those of Gary Crew’s The Watertower. I think it was designed for older readers (8-12 years). I used to think the title was Is Any Body There?, but I’ve searched so many libraries, bookstores and databases for it that I must have got the title wrong. 

In the book, the protagonist is walking through different landscapes that have recently been destroyed by something or someone. The protagonist walks into the woods and says “Is any body there?” (or something along those lines). The wood’s inhabitants reply something like “Yes, somebody was here”, and the trees say something like “It took our branches”.  I think other animals in the woodland also said that they had parts stolen from them, but I can only remember the trees. 


The protagonist continues journeying and reaches a lake, where they also say, “Is any body there?”. The inhabitants of the lake also respond “Yes, somebody was here”, and say that something stole their body parts too. I can only remember the fish saying “It stole our eyes”. The illustrations very vividly depicted the fish under the water, with empty eye sockets.


The protagonist follows the trail of destruction through several other landscapes (sorry, I can’t remember them) and arrives at a house in a forest (I think). The protagonist makes their way to the basement, where they say for the final time, “Is any body there?”. A response comes from the darkness: “Yes, some body is here”. On the final page, there is a detailed illustration of a monster that is clearly constructed from all of the parts stolen from the animals, trees and environments. 

The illustrations were in dark, earthy shades and I think it’s possible that the narration was either first- or second-person to heighten the immersion, but I can’t remember much more about the book than that. I’ve spoken to several librarians (including one who worked at the library we borrowed the book from originally) and booksellers, and no one knows of this book. Only my sister remembers it, otherwise I would have thought I’d fabricated it entirely. 

Any help in solving this would be very, very much appreciated – this mystery has been annoying me for too long! 

 

Many thanks,