Looking for 70’s Scholastic (?)? paperback. A dad is forced to take a job at a kill shelter, needs the money. The kids find homes for animals, and they shut down the cremation building where smoke billows out In a country type place. They are happy. Maybe 2-3 grade level book. Approx year read ‘76 but could be classroom book and older.
Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)
366R: Boy with mid-engine race car, Mach 1? 1960s chapter book
I’m looking for this book for a friend of mine. He said he read it in the early to mid- 1960s; it’s a chapter book about a boy who had a mid-engine race car; maybe Mach 1 in the title? Speed Racer-esque?
366N: Riding the Ponies Across the Moors (Solved!)
I was born 1968. Sometime around 1978 I read a story about some kids who set out on adventures on their “ponies” and they would stop and camp in the woods and eat “tinned“ food. I believe it had a very UK British feel. They would talk about riding on the “moors” and through forests.
It is possible they were trying to solve a mystery, or just narrating their experiences along the way as they traveled to an ultimate destination- like maybe a beach or shore as on a summer adventure.
I will stop here because I do not want to confuse this with another story in my head.
I think this book might have been a hard cover, about an inch thick, with black paper on the cover inside the dust jacket, and MIGHT have had gold lettering embossed “ONYX” on the cover. MIGHT CONTAIN “nebula” That description might also pertain to a different book but, that is why I am here. They seemed to make a big deal about calling the horses ponies and they all seemed very independent to be traveling without adults. Approx character age 10-15?
I read the story when I was about 10 years old, around 1978, so there’s no telling how much older the story actually is?
I’d really like to get another copy of the story of those children traveling with and riding their ponies, camping or resting while eating food from tins and parcels, and traveling across the moors and forests to get to…?
366G: Uncle Flees Disaster, Leaves Orphaned Children
I’m looking for the title of a dystopian middle grade or YA book I read in the late 1970s or early 1980s. An orphaned girl (tween or early teens) and her younger brother live with their aunt and uncle in an apartment building in a big city. (Maybe in the UK? I have a vague feeling that some things didn’t seem familiar to this midwestern suburban kid.) The uncle is mean and doesn’t like having them there. There’s a disaster of some sort and the uncle flees with his family, leaving the niece and nephew to fend for themselves. There’s no power or water and when they run low on food they leave the apartment. The girl fills a canteen or bottle with water from the toilet tank, saying she was grateful that at least her uncle wouldn’t let her aunt use the cleaning pucks that turn the toilet water blue. Later there’s some sort of charismatic leader and evil government. I don’t even remember if it was a particularly good book. It just occurs to me sometimes and I’d like to remember the rest of the story.
366E: Girl Trapped in Cistern
Sometime in the period 1984-1988, when I was a child, my summer reading subscription (Weekly Reader?) sent me a novel about a girl who lives alone with her mother in a country house. One hot summer day she escapes her chores in the cellar where there is an old-fashioned cistern (unlidded concrete cylinder built into the floor). She climbs it to lie on the rim, but then falls in and remains trapped for hours because her yelling is unheard by her mother vacuuming two floors above. That’s all I remember!
366D: Anthropomorphic pastels at a cafe
I am looking for a children’s book that I remember, featuring anthropomorphic oil pastels or chalks as characters, set in a cafe or restaurant where they spent time. It was somewhere between a “picture book” and a “chapter book” in terms of length and balance of illustrations vs. text — some pictures but mostly text, I think. In fact, I wouldn’t swear that it was intended for children, but it was appropriate and comprehensible to an elementary school student. The tone was somewhat serious and melancholic, with bohemian themes. The cafe may have closed or changed hands, or a character may have stopped coming or left town. It would have been published before 2002.
366B: Red-Haired Boy with Freckles Series
I am looking for a book series that I read as a child in the 1990s (the series was not new at that time). These were chapter books. The protagonist, as I remember it, was a red-haired boy with freckles and a big toothy smile. He was on the cover. The book series was funny and followed this boy’s antics (not magic) at home and in his neighborhood.
365W: 1970s(?) book about kid spies
I am looking for a book that is a children/tween/teen book from the 60’s or 70’s (I borrowed it from the Bookmobile in the very early 80’s) about 3 or 4 teenagers who fly a glider and get involved in a spy plot where an organization (maybe called Chaos or similar acronym) with a plan to put a memory drug into the water supply. Originally they are set astray by misinformation that it is going into the milk supply. I think one boy is super athletic and one is the brainy one. There is one part where they fly the glider over a compound and later break in. It is guarded by a lion that has been fed the drug and doesn’t attack them but is reliving a memory. It turns out the parents of one of the kids are actually spies and assist them in the end.
365M: Images from an Adventure
My brother and I remember a book from our childhood (the 90’s) which was picture-book sized but felt more like a preteen/YA type novel. It was an adventure / mystery story, and we both only remember images from the book. We are hoping that you can help us out.
We remember:- a picture of people on a rope bridge being attacked by arrows (? we think it was arrows?)- a picture of a girl sticking her arm in a fire while onlookers watch (it was some sort of test)- picture of an idol with green skin and a horn through its nose- picture of two people being ties to a rock with evil looking horsemen appearing from a sandy background- picture of a seaplane landing on water- [potentially someone (resembling an Aztec or Mayan leader?) taking the heart of another person– we are not sure if this is from the same book, so this is the only image we cannot commit to]
365K: ? Goes to New York
A young girl lives in a rural area, possibly on a farm with mom and dad and a younger sibling (brother?) It’s a series of I believe three books, and one of the books is about her going to spend summer vacation with an aunt in New York.
Book has illustrations at the beginning of each chapter.